It’s been a while since I last posted and I shall explain why soon but in the meantime I was talking to someone about the challenge reading can become when one is ill.
Brain fog, exhaustion, pain, anxiety. All these symptoms or side effects of illness or treatment can make reading feel like a burden rather than an escape.
Myself I have been reading a lot of what I would call pulp or genre adjacent fiction.
These are books using the tropes of genre or pulp fiction to provide helpful handrails to ease engagement before…
Ah, but that would be telling.
So here is a list of a few such books I have read or reread recently which I recommend.
I strongly encourage you to go in knowing nothing more than a mysterious bear has recommended them.
Just open the book and start reading.
If you hate one then try another. If you hate them all then you should probably avoid mysterious bears.
In no order:
Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
The Thing Itself by Adam Roberts
City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
The Infinite Blacktop by Sara Gran
Declare by Tim Powers
Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
His Master’s Voice by Stanislaw Lem
Blood Standard by Laird Barron
Enjoy.
Or not.
On what
feverish night, deliria-ridden,
by what Goliaths was I begot –
I, so big
and by no one needed?
Mark O'Neill 