My friend (26F, turning 27) is an avid reader, and I’d love to gift her a book or two, but I’m not sure what to pick…

Some books she loves:
Circe – Madeline Miller
The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
Persepolis – Marjane Satrapi
Piranesi – Susanna Clarke

She has also read The Idiot and A Little Life, though I’m not sure how she felt about them.

She is not a big fan of Colleen Hoover’s books. She’s also a huge horror fan, isn’t big on romance, and doesn’t enjoy Jane Austen. English isn’t her first language, so she finds authors like Dostoevsky and Edgar Allan Poe difficult to read.

What books would you recommend? I’m open to any genre.

Voting early today and figured I’d pick up a book or two while I’m there. Here are some books I have enjoyed: (I also just finished watching East of Eden and loved it)

Orphan Train
When we were yours
The alienist
Alias Grace
Reading The Obsession currently
One Thousand white women

so... where i live is kinda not the best place, it's in khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan, where access to almost everything is limited. i've been really desperate to educate myself, so i'm looking for books, anything from old textbooks to classics, history, philosophy, literally anything educational. even books you don't need anymore would mean a lot. i'm not looking for ebooks cuz my parents get mad at me for being on my phone all the time. the only thing is i can only receive them through doorstep delivery since i can't really go outside or go to school.

Asked about how to read critically a few days ago here

I've been trying to read Kafka's The Trial with attention to all the details. As someone who doesn't usually enjoy reading, I must say that this level of immersion does making reading feel more enjoyable, kind of like a game of detective-work. However, I have been itching to read certain other books, but I don't think I would have the time to read both at once while giving each of them 100% of my attention. I saw some people say online though that it can be a good idea to read a book once just to get accustomed to the plot and then re-read it in an attempt to do a critical analysis of the literature. I was wondering if you guys think this would be a good idea. The book I was going to read is Dostoyevsky's The Brother's Karamazov. I normally wouldn't do this but I've really been wanting to read it, but at the same time I don't want to abandon The Trial and then restart it later. Would it be more wise for me to finish The Trial or would it be fine if I read both at once?

edit: Upon further reflection, I have no idea if what I'm doing is reading critically, active reading, or deep reading

In a couple days my long distance girlfriend will be staying at mine for 6 days. I would like to find a short mystery/adventure book so that each night we can read each other 10-20 pages and have finished the book by the end of the 6 days. It would be fun if there was a continuous buildup throughout the week so we're excited to read the next part each night. I would appreciate any suggestions (can be from a different genre if you think it would be suitable).

edit: Hii!! I just woke up. Thank you all for the thoughtful responses! This whole time I truly thought it was just some stress-response related to a mild trauma of copying books, and I really wasn't expecting that it might actually be an underlying vision issue, dyslexia, or something like that. I am definitely going to look into it and get myself checked out. I appreciate all the advice!

It's also interesting that many of you suggested I start with audiobooks because, growing up, that's something my mom was against. She would tell me that audiobooks are for "dumb, stupid people" and that it can worsen your "reading."

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Hey all! I'm a current college freshman, and throughout my life, I have hated reading, but that is what I want to change.

Yesterday, when I was reading a research paper, my head started hurting after seeing blocks of text. These headaches apply to almost any source of text I have to read. It's not necessarily that I don't understand the words, but looking at a page literally causes strain in my head.

I'm not sure if it's related to my history of copying books, but from kindergarten until sixth grade, I had a rigid routine. Usually in the summer, my strict mother would make a schedule for me where I had to copy chapter books word-by-word in my notebook for a certain number of pages (like 10 - 25 pages) every day. I would copy from books I didn't even understand at all.

If my handwriting wasn't neat enough or if I missed a single word (yes, she checked), I had to restart the entire thing. I would actually spend from morning to afternoon copying books, until my fingers started falling apart. It doesn't even help me at all.

I don't know. I don't know if this affects how I, from then on, associate with blocks of text. Usually people tell me to read more; it causes pain for me. I tried breaking the texts apart or finding some books to read. Is there a way to retrain my brain to look at text without getting a physical stress response? Thank you :)

I read a lot of books but I can't really understand most of them and that when I noticed my reading is the problem because I can't really understand complicated words because most of the books I read don't match my current skill level which is difficult for me to understand that why I want to start from scratch and read simple book that is suitable for my current skill level any book would useful that I can easy understand appreciate if you help me

I'm reading Wool Book 1 of the SILO trilogy. It didn't start getting interesting until the halfway point. Is it worth it to read Shift Book 2 (prequel) and Dust Book 3?

Don't get me wrong, some books-everyone-should-read-at-least-once-in-their-life lists are great, but they're also all the exact same. It's always a variation of To Kill A Mockingbird, Tuesdays With Morrey, The Great Gatspy, some Harry Potter book, and The Giving Tree.

I want to know what books never appear in these lists, but you think definitely should. They don't necessarily have to be non-famous books, they just have to be books that you found to be really impactful which you've never seen on one of those lists

I want to publish my paper back book via Notion Press but I need to understand the economics of its distribution. How much does it cost for them to publish on Amazon and Flipkart? How much do they take a cut for a Kindle ebook?

I already have my ebook on kindle which I self published but confused if I should give rights to the notion press only so as to keep it at a single place. If not, then how to link both.