I’ve basically been ordered to pick up any fiction book and read, after a friend discovered I’ve not read anything but non-fiction for a decade.
The ones I’ve enjoyed in the past have been short, fantastical or sci-fi (think Aldous Huxley, Ian McEwan), but crucially with amazing first person descriptive prose - the kind where you’re immersed in the writing so much you’re almost there with the character.
I liked sci-fi as the world’s constraints weren’t always predictable. Hope that makes sense.
Any recommendations?
Edit: I’m going to up the ante and, as a way of motivating myself to get off my arse and actually read a proper story, promise to choose a book from the top comment, after, let’s say arbitrarily, Friday 2200 GMT.
Edit deux: Wow ok I don’t think I’ve ever had this many responses to anything I’ve posted before. You’ve given me what looks like a whole year of interesting suggestions, and importantly, good commentary around them. I’m honouring my promise to buy the top thing in just under 4 hours.
I'm going to suggest The Murderbot Diaries. It starts off with the few short novellas before they're being a full length novel. You can finish the novellas in a few hours and you will be hungry to get into the full length novel. Get them off www.libgen.is
First one is called All Systems Red by Martha Wells Followed by: Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Exit Strategy, Compulsory(just a super short origin story), Network Effect(full novel), Home(four short stories), Fugitive Telemetry, System Collapse (another novel)
I think this would let you break into some really good offbeat sci-fi with some novellas first. Then some full-on novels all within the same universe.
Great recommendation. Extremely easy to get into, great compelling character voice, and most of the entries in the series are very quick reads.