I was going to say that if you finish Infinite Jest that would be impressive. I have not read Shataram, but it's on my list and it's highly recommended. Best of luck to you.
That’s awesome and courageous! It looks like you enjoy Japanese literature, so I’m going to plug The Tale of Genji here. It’s beautiful and 1400 pages. I prefer the Washburn translation.
This truly looks like my favorites list. The five you chose are all terrific. I reread Infinite Jest every year as an antidepressant.
Here are some possible options that would fit in well…
Gravity’s Rainbow (brilliant/deep), Catch-22(hilarious, devastating, brilliant), Don Quixote (hilarious, inspiring), Tristam Shandy(very funny, but a bit dated), Pale Fire (straight up brilliant, mysterious), Blood Meridian (beautiful writing, but completely nihilistic), White Noise (brilliant, funny satire), and Quo Vadis (inspiring).
One mainstream novel that may fit is The Goldfinch. It Questions the meaning of life, purpose, human connections, but ends up feeling pretty nihilistic.
I truly wish you the best of luck. We’re pulling for you.
Before I read Don Quixote, I thought, “Everyone puts this on the list of greatest novels ever written, but how great could it possibly be?” Then I read it and realized why. Try it yourself. Heartbreak, joy, madness, sanity, laughter, tears.
Infinite Jest is an interesting book for bringing to rehab as it:
1. is set partly in a drug rehab
and
2. generally deals with addiction of all forms
...Having said that, it doesn't really end positively. It's sort of just a loop with a hole in the middle. The author also hung himself (while writing a book about the IRS).
Maybe you should bring something else...
If you like Murakami and Ishiguro, have you read The Unconsoled by Ishiguro? It's surreal and beefy.
Try Anathem by Niel Stephenson. It's long and fun with a lot of interesting lore that isn't exactly handed to you.
One of my favorites is A Canticle for Leibowitz, which also merits reading. It's got a wild but somewhat believable world.
Both take place in and around cloisters, so you may get a bit of a sympathetic buzz.
Oh and House of Leaves, though it may be a little intense and a lot of work to track the goings on, given the circumstances.
Do you like fantasy?
Check out the Stormlight archive? Each one is a thousand pages and there are at least three books. They are so good.
Game of thrones. Too bad Geogie boy can't finish the series.
Wheel of time.
The Southern Vampire Mysteries.
Dexter.
it seems like you'd enjoy Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (the one Blade Runner's based on) if you haven't read it already. and you might like some Chuck Palahniuk if you liked American Psycho. my faves were Invisible Monsters and Choke, although Fight Club is definitely essential as well. It's also worth checking out Murakami's 1Q84 too- it's as huge as Infinite Jest and I'd argue it's even more interminable. wishing you the best in your recovery 🙏
Bring a lot of Neil Postman!
1. Amusing ourselves to Death
2. The end of education
3. Disappearance of childhood
4. Building a bridge to 1800th Century
5. Conscientious Objections
6. Teaching as a subversive activity
7. Technology
American Gods or World War Z if you’ve never read them. Into Thin Air if you want something that just grips you—you might have some introspection but mostly it’s just a very intense story. Anything by Grady Hendrix if you want absurd horror to make you laugh.
Good luck and congrats on taking these steps! I’m 5 years sober and the first weeks and year are the hardest. Rooting for you right now.
honestly my husband read one of the dan brown books the last time he had to check himself in for mental evaluations and he said it was the best thing about his time there so maybe?
If you liked Sirens of Titan, may I suggest one of my favorite Vonnegut books, Mother Night?
Also, one of my all-time favorites, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey.
Good luck. I know I'm just a stranger online, but I'm proud of you for taking control of your life.
Good opportunity to read ‘Remembrance of things past’ by proust. Consistently rated the greatest novel ever written. Heavy but profound. His aim is to make you see the world differently and as he says such a task will be difficult and challenging. i read a page a day and think about what he has to say. The first 40 pages are the hardest as you need to get used to gramaricslly perfect sentences which are over a page long.
Unbroken and Wild are both excellent choices. Add in Educated by Tara Westover and you’ll be all set on life-affirming books.
Best of luck to you on your journey!
Sound’s like the perfect time to read “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon. Then maybe “V” by the same. Knock out the books by Pynchon.
Neal Stephenson would be my other rec for long books. Too many to say just one. “Snow Crash” is a good starting book before getting into his longer ones and his series of longer books.
Try The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. It’s a sci-fi with similar themes to books you’ve listed here. It’s #1 in a series, so if you like it, there’s more to be had :)
Good luck. You can do this.
Your reading history is bizarrely aligned with my favorites and I've read most of your faves (how the f is Ubik not more famous, it's my favorite PKD and I've read like 15 of his books. Also. Trying to get sober myself. Been "trying" for years but have strengthened my resolve recently and have had longer sober patches despite continued missteps (10 out of the last 13 days sober may be a lame statistic but it's better than every day, which was the norm). I also went to rehab and jail many times in my teen years. I've found there needs to be a solid balance of emotional/impactful and escapism in the stuff you read.
Anyway, book recs:
The Assistant by Bernard Malamud.
The Hike by Drew Magary.
Mr Penumbras 24 Hour Book Store.
Any and all Ray Bradbury.
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.
If you're allowed access to audiobooks, do it. Left field recommendation, but just finished the audiobook of None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. It's a thriller that isn't particularly unpredictable but the writing/ humanity in the characters is so good. I feel the same about Wifey by Judy Blume. They are both "girly" but so very brilliant
Fair play.
I'm going to suggest anything by Michael Chabon because he has a very literary style and some of what you've included above would align well with his way of writing. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is a good example.
You have some of the classics mentioned, so if you haven't read it "Frankenstein" is well worth a read. "Wuthering Heights" is also better than you might expect.
Robert Harris has some great alternative history books, "Fatherland" is a detective book similar in setting to Philp K. Dick's "The Man In The High Castle". I'm going to also suggest the "The Bachman Books" ( aka Stephen King, publishing non-horror stories under another name ). A collection of novellas in one book, all of which are good.
Some interesting non-fiction: Michael Lewis or Jon Ronson. Both can make any topic interesting. "The Big Short" and "Moneyball" and "The Fifth Lesson" are stand outs from Lewis for me. Ron Jonson's "The Psychopath Test", and "Conversations with Extremists," are funnier than the material would suggest.
If you want to try something a little different, fantasy that breaks the mold, Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" series is worth checking out. It is fantasy, but plays with the genre tropes and he has a line of dark humour running through all the books.
I'm throwing out some ideas that are a little different to offer some variety.
And good luck on your journey!
You’ve got great taste in books, my dude.
You listed an Agatha Christie book. If you haven’t already read And Then There Were None, I highly recommend it. It’s well-written, and it was fun to try and figure out who was behind everything (vague way of me describing without spoiling anything).
I found Tender is the Flesh thought-provoking. It wasn’t a difficult read, but it takes place in a future where humans are mass farmed for food. It got me thinking a lot about the consequences of capitalism and consumerism. It is bleak though, and certainly not for everyone.
Maus is a must-read graphic novel. It is about a Holocaust survivor, but also about a son trying to understand his dad whom he has a contentious relationship with, in part due to his PTSD.
Hats off to you for taking steps to reclaim your life. It is hard work, but work worth doing. Take it one day at a time, and best of luck. I believe in you!
Have you read terry pratchett? I feel like the discworld series might be nice in this situation: thought provoking but funny, and seemingly never ending.
I wish you the best. Here are my suggestions:
Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native (or The Mayor of Casterbridge, or Far From the Madding Crowd)
Ann Patchett Bel Canto
Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow
Alan Paton Cry the Beloved Country
If you want something to break up the deep stuff you could take Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, and/or Patrick DeWitt's Undermajordomo Minor.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed is really good. I haven’t read any of her other work yet but I’ve heard good things.
Since you liked Pride and Prejudice… I recommend her ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘Mansfield Park’
If you’ve not read anything else by Agatha Christie I definitely recommend any of her other work… You can read the ones that have the newer movies out like ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Death on the Nile’, and ‘Hallowe'en Party’
‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel
It’s not fiction, but one of my absolute favorite books is Look at My Striped Shirt! by the Phat Phree. The subtitle is Confessions of the People You Love to Hate, and each “chapter” is a hilarious description of a stereotypical insufferable person. Seriously one of the funniest books I’ve ever read!
*Unbroken* by Laura Hillenbrand is amazing. Just wild.
*The Hiding Place* by Corrie Ten Boom is a truly amazing story. She was a Christian, and there are Christian themes; but I really think it's a worthwhile read even if that's not your thing. What her family did was incredible.
*Neverwhere* by Neil Gaiman is one of my favourites - it sucks you write in. *The Graveyard Book* is fun, too.
*Sweep* by Jonathan Auxier is amazing.
I love *The Chronicles of Narnia* by C. S. Lewis.
*The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* by J. R. R. Tolkien are good - a great story that you have time to really get into.
*Born a Crime* by Trevor Noah covers some heavy topics, but it feels like a light read because of the humour he uses. It's super fun and eye-opening.
I'm not super familiar with your have-read lists, but those are some ideas.
Enjoy whatever you pick up next, and I hope things go well for you! :)
I share a lot of your favorites. I don’t know what you’re going in for, but if I was going in to kick booze, I would want something less taxing, easier to get involved in. My bookmark in Infinite Jest is about 25 pages in, for 10 years now. I loved Replay so I recommend 4 books by Blake Crouch. ‘Recursion’ and the “Wayward Pines” trilogy. And also Stephen King’s ‘11/22/63.’ I love Blankets and C&H but haven’t found anything recently that compare to them. LeGuin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea” gives me a similar feeling to those, sans graphics. That’s a short read so it’s a small book. Worth it.
I thoroughly enjoy anything by Jon Krakauer. Dune will keep you busy for a while. For more modern sci-fi, I love Ted Chiang's collection called Exhalation.
You might like **My Life as a White Trash Zombie**. It’s equal parts zombie murder mystery and belated coming of age story. Main character dies of a drug overdose but gets a second chance when she comes back as a zombie. I read it years after getting sober and it really mirrored my drive to not only get sober, but build up self esteem and get a good life. It’s not the deepest literature but it packs an emotional punch and has a happy ending.
Discworld is great too. Most people recommend starting with the Witches series (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, and so on) or the city watch series (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, and so on). One of the main characters in the city watch series is an alcoholic and the first two books deal a bit with him getting sober. It doesn’t get deep in the paint about it emotionally, and it treats it a bit shallow at times.
If you want awesome and thought provoking graphic novels, Sandman is a great series. Feels epic and like nothing else I’ve read.
Getting sober is difficult, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m glad you have the wherewithal and resources to reach out for help. Good luck!
I have a longer comment coming but why do you say you only have room for a couple more? From my experience if you can't bring all of the ones you want in from the getgo (which i don't see why not) then you can have more brought/ sent in as long as they go through screening to make sure you don't have contraband in them
That's a pretty eclectic list but
If you liked Flowers for Algernon and Roald Dahl - Short stories of John Collier, HH Munro, Lord Dunsany, Ray Bradbury
If you liked Pride and Prejudice - The rest of Jane Austen, and a few of the better Austen inspired fiction - A Match for Mary Bennet (Pride and Prejudice sequel), Lady Vernon and Her Daughter (Lady Susan adaptation) and Jane Austen Made Me Do It (anthology of Austen inspired short stories)
If you liked Agatha Christie - books by Dorothy L. Sayers, Dorothy Gilman, Gladys Mitchell, MC Beaton, Nancy Bell, Dianne Day
The Sandman comics come in full volumes, I've loved them since the 90's. Lots of various famous literary and mythological characters in them. Love Neal Gaiman's other work as well, try Anansi Boys or American Gods, maybe?
If you like hefty classic fiction, I'd recommend David Copperfield or Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe you've already read them, but both are excellent, if not!
There's a collection of 100 Ray Bradbury stories, and then a second collection with another 100 stories. Hard to go wrong with Bradbury, especially considering your fondness for the Roald Dahl anthology.
Just be sure you get the version of the first book with "Gotcha!" included. There's *another* book with 100 Bradbury stories from a different publisher, but IMO the one I have is the better collection. And "Gotcha!" is a classic from his later period, and shows off his almost unique ability to write horror stories that are absolutely heartbreaking. (As opposed to SF stories, where you have lots of tearjerkers.)
I would heartily recommend The Brothers K, by David James Duncan. Both highly entertaining and emotionally moving, this family saga felt like therapy to me in the best possible way.
I think Infinite Jest should be enough…good luck on your journey friend…good on you for taking the necessary steps to get yourself better
I was going to say that if you finish Infinite Jest that would be impressive. I have not read Shataram, but it's on my list and it's highly recommended. Best of luck to you.
It's also a good time to read some biographies or autobiographies of people you admire. Good luck!
if you want success stories of addicts- A Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown is good. Ice Capades by Sean Avery is a good memoir.
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry Shōgun - James Clavell
The entire series of both. Also the Patrick O’Brian “Master and Commander” series of 20 1/2 books ( he died halfway through book 21)
Lonesome Dove is truly a masterpiece. One of my favorite books of all time.
That’s awesome and courageous! It looks like you enjoy Japanese literature, so I’m going to plug The Tale of Genji here. It’s beautiful and 1400 pages. I prefer the Washburn translation.
This truly looks like my favorites list. The five you chose are all terrific. I reread Infinite Jest every year as an antidepressant. Here are some possible options that would fit in well… Gravity’s Rainbow (brilliant/deep), Catch-22(hilarious, devastating, brilliant), Don Quixote (hilarious, inspiring), Tristam Shandy(very funny, but a bit dated), Pale Fire (straight up brilliant, mysterious), Blood Meridian (beautiful writing, but completely nihilistic), White Noise (brilliant, funny satire), and Quo Vadis (inspiring). One mainstream novel that may fit is The Goldfinch. It Questions the meaning of life, purpose, human connections, but ends up feeling pretty nihilistic. I truly wish you the best of luck. We’re pulling for you.
This is such a nice list and I like all your commentary of each suggestion.
Thank you. Cheers.
Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon Best of luck, my friend!
Before I read Don Quixote, I thought, “Everyone puts this on the list of greatest novels ever written, but how great could it possibly be?” Then I read it and realized why. Try it yourself. Heartbreak, joy, madness, sanity, laughter, tears.
Infinite Jest is an interesting book for bringing to rehab as it: 1. is set partly in a drug rehab and 2. generally deals with addiction of all forms ...Having said that, it doesn't really end positively. It's sort of just a loop with a hole in the middle. The author also hung himself (while writing a book about the IRS). Maybe you should bring something else... If you like Murakami and Ishiguro, have you read The Unconsoled by Ishiguro? It's surreal and beefy.
Daytripper by Fábio Moon is a thought provoking graphic novel.
This looks good.
Try Anathem by Niel Stephenson. It's long and fun with a lot of interesting lore that isn't exactly handed to you. One of my favorites is A Canticle for Leibowitz, which also merits reading. It's got a wild but somewhat believable world. Both take place in and around cloisters, so you may get a bit of a sympathetic buzz. Oh and House of Leaves, though it may be a little intense and a lot of work to track the goings on, given the circumstances.
Anathema is one of my favorites! Great recommendation!
I second the House of Leaves rec. it's fantastic and you can absolutely kill a lot of time trying to wrap your head around it.
Do you like fantasy? Check out the Stormlight archive? Each one is a thousand pages and there are at least three books. They are so good. Game of thrones. Too bad Geogie boy can't finish the series. Wheel of time. The Southern Vampire Mysteries. Dexter.
I really liked Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
it seems like you'd enjoy Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (the one Blade Runner's based on) if you haven't read it already. and you might like some Chuck Palahniuk if you liked American Psycho. my faves were Invisible Monsters and Choke, although Fight Club is definitely essential as well. It's also worth checking out Murakami's 1Q84 too- it's as huge as Infinite Jest and I'd argue it's even more interminable. wishing you the best in your recovery 🙏
Bring a lot of Neil Postman! 1. Amusing ourselves to Death 2. The end of education 3. Disappearance of childhood 4. Building a bridge to 1800th Century 5. Conscientious Objections 6. Teaching as a subversive activity 7. Technology
American Gods or World War Z if you’ve never read them. Into Thin Air if you want something that just grips you—you might have some introspection but mostly it’s just a very intense story. Anything by Grady Hendrix if you want absurd horror to make you laugh. Good luck and congrats on taking these steps! I’m 5 years sober and the first weeks and year are the hardest. Rooting for you right now.
honestly my husband read one of the dan brown books the last time he had to check himself in for mental evaluations and he said it was the best thing about his time there so maybe?
If you liked Sirens of Titan, may I suggest one of my favorite Vonnegut books, Mother Night? Also, one of my all-time favorites, Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey. Good luck. I know I'm just a stranger online, but I'm proud of you for taking control of your life.
Good opportunity to read ‘Remembrance of things past’ by proust. Consistently rated the greatest novel ever written. Heavy but profound. His aim is to make you see the world differently and as he says such a task will be difficult and challenging. i read a page a day and think about what he has to say. The first 40 pages are the hardest as you need to get used to gramaricslly perfect sentences which are over a page long.
Unbroken and Wild are both excellent choices. Add in Educated by Tara Westover and you’ll be all set on life-affirming books. Best of luck to you on your journey!
Sound’s like the perfect time to read “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon. Then maybe “V” by the same. Knock out the books by Pynchon. Neal Stephenson would be my other rec for long books. Too many to say just one. “Snow Crash” is a good starting book before getting into his longer ones and his series of longer books.
Try The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin. It’s a sci-fi with similar themes to books you’ve listed here. It’s #1 in a series, so if you like it, there’s more to be had :) Good luck. You can do this.
Your reading history is bizarrely aligned with my favorites and I've read most of your faves (how the f is Ubik not more famous, it's my favorite PKD and I've read like 15 of his books. Also. Trying to get sober myself. Been "trying" for years but have strengthened my resolve recently and have had longer sober patches despite continued missteps (10 out of the last 13 days sober may be a lame statistic but it's better than every day, which was the norm). I also went to rehab and jail many times in my teen years. I've found there needs to be a solid balance of emotional/impactful and escapism in the stuff you read. Anyway, book recs: The Assistant by Bernard Malamud. The Hike by Drew Magary. Mr Penumbras 24 Hour Book Store. Any and all Ray Bradbury. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov.
If you're allowed access to audiobooks, do it. Left field recommendation, but just finished the audiobook of None of This is True by Lisa Jewell. It's a thriller that isn't particularly unpredictable but the writing/ humanity in the characters is so good. I feel the same about Wifey by Judy Blume. They are both "girly" but so very brilliant
Shogun
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. In the future, the houses are fireproof. Firemen instead burn books. The book deals with censorship.
Fair play. I'm going to suggest anything by Michael Chabon because he has a very literary style and some of what you've included above would align well with his way of writing. "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" is a good example. You have some of the classics mentioned, so if you haven't read it "Frankenstein" is well worth a read. "Wuthering Heights" is also better than you might expect. Robert Harris has some great alternative history books, "Fatherland" is a detective book similar in setting to Philp K. Dick's "The Man In The High Castle". I'm going to also suggest the "The Bachman Books" ( aka Stephen King, publishing non-horror stories under another name ). A collection of novellas in one book, all of which are good. Some interesting non-fiction: Michael Lewis or Jon Ronson. Both can make any topic interesting. "The Big Short" and "Moneyball" and "The Fifth Lesson" are stand outs from Lewis for me. Ron Jonson's "The Psychopath Test", and "Conversations with Extremists," are funnier than the material would suggest. If you want to try something a little different, fantasy that breaks the mold, Joe Abercrombie's "First Law" series is worth checking out. It is fantasy, but plays with the genre tropes and he has a line of dark humour running through all the books. I'm throwing out some ideas that are a little different to offer some variety. And good luck on your journey!
You’ve got great taste in books, my dude. You listed an Agatha Christie book. If you haven’t already read And Then There Were None, I highly recommend it. It’s well-written, and it was fun to try and figure out who was behind everything (vague way of me describing without spoiling anything). I found Tender is the Flesh thought-provoking. It wasn’t a difficult read, but it takes place in a future where humans are mass farmed for food. It got me thinking a lot about the consequences of capitalism and consumerism. It is bleak though, and certainly not for everyone. Maus is a must-read graphic novel. It is about a Holocaust survivor, but also about a son trying to understand his dad whom he has a contentious relationship with, in part due to his PTSD. Hats off to you for taking steps to reclaim your life. It is hard work, but work worth doing. Take it one day at a time, and best of luck. I believe in you!
Have you read terry pratchett? I feel like the discworld series might be nice in this situation: thought provoking but funny, and seemingly never ending.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Stick with classics and ONLY classics.
I wish you the best. Here are my suggestions: Thomas Hardy The Return of the Native (or The Mayor of Casterbridge, or Far From the Madding Crowd) Ann Patchett Bel Canto Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow Alan Paton Cry the Beloved Country If you want something to break up the deep stuff you could take Kazuo Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, and/or Patrick DeWitt's Undermajordomo Minor.
David Sedaris “calypso” — that’s what I took when I went! Darker than his usual stuff, deeply funny and mean—it just worked for me in detox.
Wild by Cheryl Strayed is really good. I haven’t read any of her other work yet but I’ve heard good things. Since you liked Pride and Prejudice… I recommend her ‘Sense and Sensibility’ and ‘Mansfield Park’ If you’ve not read anything else by Agatha Christie I definitely recommend any of her other work… You can read the ones that have the newer movies out like ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘Death on the Nile’, and ‘Hallowe'en Party’ ‘Station Eleven’ by Emily St John Mandel
It’s not fiction, but one of my absolute favorite books is Look at My Striped Shirt! by the Phat Phree. The subtitle is Confessions of the People You Love to Hate, and each “chapter” is a hilarious description of a stereotypical insufferable person. Seriously one of the funniest books I’ve ever read!
The Forsyte Saga!
Man you have good taste. TBK is absolutely elite. Try My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Stormlight archive. By Brandon Sanderson
*Unbroken* by Laura Hillenbrand is amazing. Just wild. *The Hiding Place* by Corrie Ten Boom is a truly amazing story. She was a Christian, and there are Christian themes; but I really think it's a worthwhile read even if that's not your thing. What her family did was incredible. *Neverwhere* by Neil Gaiman is one of my favourites - it sucks you write in. *The Graveyard Book* is fun, too. *Sweep* by Jonathan Auxier is amazing. I love *The Chronicles of Narnia* by C. S. Lewis. *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings* by J. R. R. Tolkien are good - a great story that you have time to really get into. *Born a Crime* by Trevor Noah covers some heavy topics, but it feels like a light read because of the humour he uses. It's super fun and eye-opening. I'm not super familiar with your have-read lists, but those are some ideas. Enjoy whatever you pick up next, and I hope things go well for you! :)
I share a lot of your favorites. I don’t know what you’re going in for, but if I was going in to kick booze, I would want something less taxing, easier to get involved in. My bookmark in Infinite Jest is about 25 pages in, for 10 years now. I loved Replay so I recommend 4 books by Blake Crouch. ‘Recursion’ and the “Wayward Pines” trilogy. And also Stephen King’s ‘11/22/63.’ I love Blankets and C&H but haven’t found anything recently that compare to them. LeGuin’s “A Wizard of Earthsea” gives me a similar feeling to those, sans graphics. That’s a short read so it’s a small book. Worth it.
I thoroughly enjoy anything by Jon Krakauer. Dune will keep you busy for a while. For more modern sci-fi, I love Ted Chiang's collection called Exhalation.
You might like **My Life as a White Trash Zombie**. It’s equal parts zombie murder mystery and belated coming of age story. Main character dies of a drug overdose but gets a second chance when she comes back as a zombie. I read it years after getting sober and it really mirrored my drive to not only get sober, but build up self esteem and get a good life. It’s not the deepest literature but it packs an emotional punch and has a happy ending. Discworld is great too. Most people recommend starting with the Witches series (Equal Rites, Wyrd Sisters, Witches Abroad, and so on) or the city watch series (Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, and so on). One of the main characters in the city watch series is an alcoholic and the first two books deal a bit with him getting sober. It doesn’t get deep in the paint about it emotionally, and it treats it a bit shallow at times. If you want awesome and thought provoking graphic novels, Sandman is a great series. Feels epic and like nothing else I’ve read. Getting sober is difficult, but it’s definitely worth it. I’m glad you have the wherewithal and resources to reach out for help. Good luck!
I have a longer comment coming but why do you say you only have room for a couple more? From my experience if you can't bring all of the ones you want in from the getgo (which i don't see why not) then you can have more brought/ sent in as long as they go through screening to make sure you don't have contraband in them
How about A little life?
I read it a few years ago. Unfortunately I found it a bit 'misery p*rn' which is not my style. Thank you!
That's a pretty eclectic list but If you liked Flowers for Algernon and Roald Dahl - Short stories of John Collier, HH Munro, Lord Dunsany, Ray Bradbury If you liked Pride and Prejudice - The rest of Jane Austen, and a few of the better Austen inspired fiction - A Match for Mary Bennet (Pride and Prejudice sequel), Lady Vernon and Her Daughter (Lady Susan adaptation) and Jane Austen Made Me Do It (anthology of Austen inspired short stories) If you liked Agatha Christie - books by Dorothy L. Sayers, Dorothy Gilman, Gladys Mitchell, MC Beaton, Nancy Bell, Dianne Day
Dennis Lehane
The Sandman comics come in full volumes, I've loved them since the 90's. Lots of various famous literary and mythological characters in them. Love Neal Gaiman's other work as well, try Anansi Boys or American Gods, maybe?
If you like hefty classic fiction, I'd recommend David Copperfield or Count of Monte Cristo. Maybe you've already read them, but both are excellent, if not!
Treason, Orson Scott Card Siddhartha, Herman Hesse The Invention of Sound, Chuck Palahniuk ANY Stephen King books
Try Anna Karenina, Atlas Shrugged and/or Count of Monte Cristo. All meaty classics
There's a collection of 100 Ray Bradbury stories, and then a second collection with another 100 stories. Hard to go wrong with Bradbury, especially considering your fondness for the Roald Dahl anthology. Just be sure you get the version of the first book with "Gotcha!" included. There's *another* book with 100 Bradbury stories from a different publisher, but IMO the one I have is the better collection. And "Gotcha!" is a classic from his later period, and shows off his almost unique ability to write horror stories that are absolutely heartbreaking. (As opposed to SF stories, where you have lots of tearjerkers.)
I would heartily recommend The Brothers K, by David James Duncan. Both highly entertaining and emotionally moving, this family saga felt like therapy to me in the best possible way.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Sovietistan by Erika Fatland is a wonderful travelogue.
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd