Need Good but Easy Reading

July 1, 2022 7:24 AM

I like a lot of books that are...heavy...kind of depressing (I mean the content is sometimes dreary for the characters not that I am depressed by it). The thing is, you kind of have to concentrate while you read it. Now I have a five year old and when he's awake I can't concentrate and by the time he's asleep I'm tired. I need recommendations for lighter reads but I'm really not interested in complete fluff. More on what I like inside.

I love me some dreary Can-Lit: Sweetland by Michael Crummey, Mercy Among the Children by David Adam Richards, No Great Mischief by Alistair Macleod, Random Passage by Bernice Morgan. Other things I like: John Irving (though not all...he's a little hit or miss), Arcadia by Iain Pears, Map of Time by Felix J. Palma, an Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco. Jane Austen books, Jane Eyre. All the Light We Cannot See, I feel like all this stuff requires keeping tracking, paying attention, etc (Maybe Jane Austen and Jane Eyre a little more on the borderline in terms of attention requirement).

Lighter stuff i have enjoyed: Terry Fallis books (I honestly think they're pretty bad, but I somehow enjoy them anyway). The Girl on the Train. Some young adult stuff: The Hunger Games. A couple of kid (not even young adult) books I read to my son and really enjoyed: Wild Robot and Wild Robot Escapes (note: these aren't about kids. I don't think I would enjoy reading for myself kid books about kids).

Things I've read recently that might be ok...not super light but not super heavy either: Mr. Penumbra's 24 hour bookstore, Foe. I think Mr. Penumbra's bookstore strikes a nice balance in terms of being easy to read and still interesting.

I'm a sucker for Things On the Front Table of a Bookstore. I'm not interested in complete fluff. In terms of what I would think of as not suitable, I think I want to avoid both a high attention requirement, but also a high emotional burden. I just don't have the energy to get into a dreary headspace.

I realize this is kind of all over the place. Maybe it would be better if instead of trying to guess what I like that is readable by the parent of a 5 year old, you can tell me what YOU like that might be readable by the parent of a 5 year old.

OK, as I type this I realize that the lighter stuff, I like it fine. But I've never LOVED an easier book, that I can think of. Is there an easy reading book out there that I would love?

posted by If only I had a penguin... to Media & Arts (26 answers total)

Maybe Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow? It has some literary trappings, but it's not really all that demanding.
posted by praemunire at 7:44 AM on July 1, 2022 [3 favorites]

It sounds like you might enjoy some short stories - you can still get the tone you want, but it won't require the same sort of sustained attention as a novel. How about this list of literary short fiction recommendations from the Vancouver Public Library?
posted by ourobouros at 7:46 AM on July 1, 2022

When I needed something to read waiting for a lot of medical appointments, I got into the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. They aren't great literature, but they are decently written, entertaining, and not mentally taxing.

I also recently read A Tale for the Time Being. It's very well written, but it's not like the dark, heavy literary fiction that I tend to gravitate toward. A lot of it is written as the diary of a young Japanese girl, and in the first chapter I found her quite annoying, but I was glad I stuck with it.
posted by FencingGal at 8:12 AM on July 1, 2022 [6 favorites]

I know exactly the kind of book you mean and while I can't articulately characterize or label the type, I also love this kind of reading during stressful times. I concur that Amor Towles is perfect for this - I'd just go through his catalog, honestly, he's the king of absorbing but not especially challenging fiction.

Other random recs in this vein:
Any Emily St. John Mandel
Night Film, Marisha Pessl
Unbecoming and to a slightly lesser degree A House Between Earth and the Moon by Rebecca Sherm (I liked the latter but it didn't go down as easily as the former and is a bit more emotionally heavy)
Dead Letters and We Went to the Woods, Caite Dolan-Leach
posted by superfluousm at 8:17 AM on July 1, 2022

I like Jennifer Egan for this, and I am also working my way through the Murderbot series by Martha Wells.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:32 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

For shorter litfic books where life is dreary, but there are fewer details to track, try Look At Me by Anita Brookner and Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton.
posted by betweenthebars at 8:37 AM on July 1, 2022

Seconding FencingGal - Ruth Ozeki is very good, and not heavy going. Her latest, The Book of Form and Emptiness, just won the Women's Prize for Fiction (and is on my to-read pile).

Other authors in the "good, not heavy" bracket for me include Kate Atkinson, Barbara Kingsolver, Matthew Kneale, John Lanchester, Ann Patchett and Francis Spufford.

If you liked Girl on a Train, you might like Lisa Jewell's thrillers (try Watching You, perhaps), or The Appeal by Janice Hallett (it's clever and charming, and I think it might play rather well read in short bursts), or If I Die Before I Wake by Emily Koch (interesting premise, fast pace).
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 9:04 AM on July 1, 2022 [5 favorites]

When I want something that will be easy to read with less thinking required, I turn to books by Kristin Hannah (recommend: Great Alone; Firefly Lane) and Jodi Picoult (The Storyteller is great). Their subject matter is a bit heavier, but good (Picoult can be a bit more on the melodramatic side). I can fly through their books, which is sometimes what I'm looking for.

Maybe lean into YA novels. Last Night at the Telegraph Club was fantastic. Easy enough to read but way more than a simple love story.
posted by hydra77 at 9:36 AM on July 1, 2022

I'm a bit unclear on the genre, but it sounds like you just want something that's fun but not....TOO fluffy.

I can't say why precisely, but something tells me Road Fever may work. It's a travelogue by the outdoors writer Tim Cahill; it's his account of the time he and a stunt driver set out to try to set a Guinness World Record for driving the Pan-American Highway in the shortest amount of time, starting in Argentina and ending in Alaska.

I admit to my eyes kind of glazing over during the first couple chapters, when he's talking about some of the prep work they had to do (arranging customs paperwork, language lessons, self-defense lessons....), but things really pick up once they set out. There's a chapter where both he and the driver get super-punchy after seeing a ridiculous road sign somewhere in the middle of Columbia and descend into total giggling lunacy, and that part still sends me into my own giggle fit.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:54 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

There are some Scandinavian novels in translation that fit in a niche somewhat like this for me: the pace clips along, the tone is light-hearted or even comedic, but they’re far from fluffy. Two examples I can think of are The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson, and Anxious People, by Fredrick Backman.
posted by somedaycatlady at 9:56 AM on July 1, 2022 [2 favorites]

Not a specific book recommendation but, when having kids turned my brain to mush, I switched to audiobooks. I didn't change the kind of book I was reading (if anything, I developed a stronger stomach for very long books). But the audiobook format went down much easier.
posted by caek at 10:05 AM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

I agree about YA novels being a place to look. I've been making a tour of the teen queer books, which for me are hitting the still about important things but not subtle enough to require much concentration. I started with Darius the Great is Not Okay and then read books by authors that had quoted reviews on the back. I also loved Dreadnought by April Daniels, and am currently enjoying Juliet Takes a Breath.
posted by lab.beetle at 10:05 AM on July 1, 2022

If you want something not dreary but also not fluff, I cannot recommend The Summer Book by Tove Jansson more. It will nourish you and it's a nice short read.

Maybe also try Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, or (for a hilarious option) P.G. Wodehouse. Short reads that I have found rewarding! Murderbot has joined this category recently too.

In a couple of recent book rec threads I have offered Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Really enjoyed it.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 10:55 AM on July 1, 2022

I have a 4yo and a 1yo and I've relaxed my snobby reading standards a lot in the past couple years. Here are some recent books I've enjoyed:
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (quirky 1960's lady chemist)
Trickster Drift by Eden Robinson (indigenous YA from the author of Monkey Beach)
Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal (young woman teaches a creative writing class to East Asian widows in London)
Sankofa by Chibundu Onuzo (Middle-aged black British woman discovers the father who abandoned her is an African dictator)
The View was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta (fake celebrity relationship novel also deals with racism)
Love in Color by Bolu Babalola (short stories about love inspired by historical and mythical women)
posted by carolr at 11:14 AM on July 1, 2022

I’m all about the dreary, depressing, dark, and heavy, and I don’t have kids, but recently when I needed a break from such things I read A Carnival of Snackery, by David Sedaris. It’s (ostensibly) nonfiction, but let me tell you, it really hit the spot, and since it’s diary entries, it can be read in little chunks, like, you know, snacks.
posted by scratch at 11:16 AM on July 1, 2022

Content note on A Tale for the Time Being: the teenage girl journaling writes about wanting to commit suicide, it's a theme of the book. She is sexually assaulted and severely bullied by classmates. Her dad is severely depressed. Spoiler: it gets better. But if you have a hard time with bad things happening to kids, this may not be the book for you.
posted by momus_window at 11:30 AM on July 1, 2022

(Also, Kate Atkinson's Life After Life has some absolutely gruelling passages for a mass-market book. I think her mysteries may be different.)
posted by praemunire at 11:50 AM on July 1, 2022

Have you ever read Vonnegut? His writing style is very easily digestible—like he’s writing for children—but about very adult topics and themes. Start with Slaughterhouse-5, Cat’s Cradle, or Breakfast of Champions to see if he’s your deal.
posted by ejs at 12:33 PM on July 1, 2022 [1 favorite]

I have just read two novels by Taylor Jenkins Reed, and they are just incredibly readable. Very immersive page-turners, I couldn't put them down. Daisy Jones and the Six is an "oral history" of a (fictional) rock band in the '70s - it was like reading a VH1 Behind the Music. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is about an aging Hollywood starlet who asks a young writer to pen her biography.

Someone above mentioned David Sedaris. Everything of his is so much fun to read - really really funny. Me Talk Pretty One Day is probably my favorite but all his essay collections are a riot.

Also love the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series as mentioned above - very charming and you learn about life in Botswana.

If you liked Girl on a Train, have you read Gone Girl?
posted by radioamy at 7:17 PM on July 1, 2022

Allow me to plug MeFi's Own John Scalzi. His Interdependence Saga is a wonderful three-part read (beginning with The Collapsing Empire). Sure, there are people with Big Problems and the occasional murder and kidnapping. But the overall feeling when reading is joy. It's fun! This is, IMHO, Scalzi's best work.

I have yet to read The Kaiju Preservation Society, also by Mr. Scalzi, but a friend who has read it assures me it's also a lot of fun. It's the only book all the members of her book club have read straight through so they could talk about it.
posted by bryon at 7:36 PM on July 1, 2022

Marie-Renée Lavoie, Autopsy of a Boring Wife. Quebecois page turner about a woman whose husband leaves her. She is smart, funny, angry, sad, and just a really great character. Despite a sad situation, it is not dreary at all and the ending is uplifting while not being sappy.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:52 PM on July 1, 2022

Murakami is plenty dreary and quite readable.

Cloud Atlas may fit the bill if you haven’t read it yet.
posted by redlines at 2:10 AM on July 2, 2022

We sound like we have very similar tastes.

I also love me some CanLit and I'm not sure if you've read her before, but some Margaret Laurence might suit your fancy; I find her novels quite readable but also very interesting. My favourite of them is The Diviners, which is part of an interconnected set of novels called the Manawaka Sequence that all take place in the same area and have some overlapping characters.

Alice Munro would also be great to read, as her stuff is generally short stories and you can just do one or two at a time and then put it down. Some have characters reappearing throughout, but lots are just along a theme.

There is so much Indigenous lit from Indigenous writers in Canada that is incredibly readable and interesting and often very funny. I'm thinking particularly Eden Robinson's The Trickster Trilogy, Waubgeshig Rice's Moon of the Crusted Snow and Cherie Demaline's The Marrow Thieves.

Echoing also Taylor Jenkins Reed, Haruki Murakami (particularly Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but I wouldn't recommend 1Q84 as particularly readable) and Amor Towles (he is so, so good).
posted by urbanlenny at 6:43 PM on July 3, 2022

One more: if you enjoyed All the Light We Cannot See, you may also enjoy The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. For me it had a very similar tone/style.
posted by urbanlenny at 7:27 AM on July 4, 2022

Harry Potter might fit the bill!
posted by watrlily at 7:38 PM on July 4, 2022

Recommending an author from Australia: Hannah Kent. Easily digestible literary style. Burial Rites is about the last woman in Iceland to be hanged (may tick the cold tundra vibe you like about Can Lit). Her most recent one, Devotion, is about two girls whose Lutheran families travel to Australia to settle in the colony after persecution. It’s stunning and so life affirming.

What about the Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante?
posted by chronic sublime at 6:33 PM on July 5, 2022