My best ever selection also includes Death of Ivan Ilyich, Animal Farm, 1984, Death of a Salesman, Count of Monte Cristo

r/printsf does really good tailored recommendations if you explain what books you have liked.

Seth Castle Underwater Dogs

All Quiet on the western front, Wharton a Son at the Front, McMeek July 1914.

Any book from that time period has long descriptions. The only visual art they had was painting and sculpture. Readers had time on their hands.

Glad you enjoyed the story.

I hate Goodreads. I am content with the 8 or so book related subreddits, but have heard good things about Storygraph.

I haven't read him, but I am in love with the Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.

If you are having problems with attention I suggest reading the book Stolen Focus by Johan Hari. Thank you for highlighting Carver. I will look into him.

Read it. Thank you. Also if it's the same book, I was not ready for some of that Aztec religion. This was before Google was a thing and I didn't think to check an encyclopedia. Well done book but brutal and shocking.

Suggest you go over to r/suggestmeabook and search their archives for some of the many threads listing favorite short stories.

Edit my personal favorites are Nightfall by Asimov, to Build a Fire by London, BD 11 1 86 by Oates, the Mysterious Stranger by Twain and anything by Edgar Allan Poe

Thank you for your perspective. I had one moment when what the main character did broke immersion for me, and I'm like yeah no you would be dead doing that. But I got back into the story. It isn't the best book ever, but a lot of it was fascinating.

I already know Cadillac Desert. Thanks for mentioning Water worth fighting for

I had to do a little digging on Amazon to find the kindle version but it exists and I downloaded it.

I think it had a couple of maps but otherwise not much.

For those who don't read the article, this is from Canada

I love the Lord of the Rings but the pace of the adventure is much slower than modern fantasy. There is a lot of walking through nature while not much happens. Tolkien was first. He is definitely worth reading but it can be work.

Coma made me more afraid of doctors and health care providers.

I really struggled with and did not finish Goedel Esther Bach. The Traveling Cat Chronicles and Paper Castles revived my love of reading.

I agree that sports writing needs to be done well to be enjoyable. One good example for me is Grisham 's basketball novel Sulee. It was just well done. But yes it is very easy for writers who love sports to write boring descriptions because they assume everyone is an enthusiast.

Don't skip the Death of Ivan Ilyich. It is one of the best books in my opinion and also short.

I found this book boring when I was a child. I should go back and reread it.

I try to read a certain amount of time per day. If you read r/suggestmeabook for a while you get insight into a lot of different goals that people have for reading. Some of them are inspiring.

Even a wikipedia article about erogenous zones can be helpful. People learn in different ways.

Disagree. I suppose you also think Youtube videos are needed to learn auto mechanics, or autocad for mechanical design and architecture.

As for working against you, porn is normalizing choking and other dangerous play with no disclosure about risk.

People learn with the resources available. The Joy of Sex was a game changer.