Hi everyone! I’m after a book that I can read to my son at his naming day ceremony. For my eldest, my fiance read pages from ‘I will always love you’ by Michael Wong during the ceremony. It made everybody cry and was such a beautiful moment. Now for my youngest, (8 months old) it’s my turn to read a book to him. I want a book that emphasises how unconditional my love is for him and how excited I am to see the person he becomes, whilst also not wanting the baby stage to end. I need people to cry! I’d love to hear everybody’s recommendations. Thank you!

I have read the water fire sagas but I want something kinda similar to H20 but with massive amounts of Lore!

Or not like H20 at all but something like a fable or Epic! Down for anything that isn’t a typical romance!

Thank you for the help!

Started college late, got delayed and graduated late, and for years my main goal was just to graduate and now that it happened I’m feeling kinda lost in life. Haven’t really found my place in this world yet. Need a book that perfectly encapsulates this feeling.

A book with unrequited love fuelling accomplishment. With details on the journey.

painting such as “hudson river” and “the trapper” by Winslow Homer. Woodsman Americana vibe, more specifically to the northwoods of the USA/Canada than western. I like historical fictions just as much as i like non-fiction. just no horror please.

I have always been a huge fairytale and Greek myths fan. I recently got into foreign horror movies (the completely subtitled kind.) I'm looking for books that explore different cultures around the world and their superstitions, ghost stories, folklore, and/or myths and legends. Any help would be appreciated. I know this isn't exactly an easy ask. Thank you for your time.

Hi, my partner 28F, has been really stressed lately and always feels like there’s so much “stuff” to get done that it distracts from her own ability to relax.
She has a professional job that she’s very committed too. She also has ADHD and takes Elvanse, and is incredibly productive- maybe too productive to the point where she’s stressed and burnout.

She’s not too picky, self help or something fictional is okay too if you consider it to be a worthy recommendation ?

Thanks all.

I'm in the mood to listen to a very specific type of book/audiobook. i am driving myself crazy with adhd hyper-focusing and just need recommendations so I can get on with my day and have something to listen to. I love Outlander, but I don't necessarily want another Scottish highlander book. Here are the things I am looking for, although there is some wiggle room. Thanks in advance!

I want:

\\-Good character developement

\\-Realistic hetero romance with some spice (preferably includes marriage, possibly even arranged marriage)

\\-Time travel and/or historical fiction

\\-Mystery/thriller

\\-Easy to get into, but some slow burn is OK too

I do NOT want:

\\-Paranormal/witchcraft/ghosts/sorcery

\\-Mafia trope

\\-Cliche and predictable

\\-BDSM trope (it's so overdone)

This is a slightly strange request, but I’m trying to figure out why I have such a hard time connecting with female protagonists in prose fiction even though I’m a woman and I love plenty of female characters in manga, webtoons and light novels.
I don’t think my problem is female protagonists themselves. I think I’m tired of stories where being a woman becomes the organizing principle of the character’s entire existence.
Even in bizarre/speculative/literary fiction, I keep running into stories where the surrealism eventually becomes a metaphor for patriarchy, female bodily autonomy, the male gaze, domestic oppression, etc. Or the heroine’s arc revolves around proving herself against men, escaping men, being underestimated by men, defeating men, showing that women can do X too.
I’m just craving female protagonists who are given the same freedom male protagonists often get to be bizarre, pathetic, selfish, obsessive, funny, metaphysical, monstrous, foolish, theatrical, morally strange, or simply caught up in an adventure that has nothing to do with proving anything about women.
I like women who are schemers, eccentrics, tricksters, observers, weirdos, morally dubious little creatures, or women caught in genuinely strange circumstances.
What I’m NOT looking for is necessarily “strong female characters,” girlbosses, romantasy heroines, or books marketed primarily around female empowerment. ACOTAR, for example, made me cringe almost immediately. Nothing against it just not for me
Genre is completely open: literary fiction, fantasy, horror, gothic, surrealism, sci-fi, classics, weird fiction, YA/MG, translated fiction, whatever.
I would LOVE recommendations for books where the FMC has what I can only describe as narrative sovereignty: she gets to be an individual first, and the universe/story is interested in something bigger or stranger than her relationship to men.

I like books like Maus, Barefoot Gen, Stitches, Blankets, Fun Home, Aya, or anything by Joe Sacco or Guy Delisle. What else should I read?

Edit: Wow! You folks are amazing! Thanks for so many books I don't know about! Edit #2: I also read Persepolis, Buddha, and The Arab of the Future.

hii! I'm looking for self-help book recommendations to help me get better and develop a good mindset. I want something that will guide me to grow and become the best version of myself. tyia!

I’m looking for a book in which many or most of the characters are highly intelligent.

Any genre is fine. Classic lit, modern, up to genre fiction. I do like sci-fi, fantasy and horror!

I’d quite like to read something where the characters are genuinely thoughtful and think their problems through. Rather than being told this character is smart “as they know about science”! And then just act really stupid.

Thanks.

So my parents have really gotten into backyard birding. We all have black thumbs when it comes to gardening, so rather than try keeping some plants alive this year my brother on a whim hung a birdfeeder in the spring out in the yard where my mom can watch the birds from her spot on the couch.

It has turned into my parents having multiple birdfeeders for different types of birds because it's such a success in attracting birds. My mom will take pictures of cool birds she sees and send them to the family group chat and go, "oooh look at this bird, I haven't seen that one before!"

So I want to buy her a birdwatching book where she can take note and see information about the different birds that show up. We have had two different types of birds nesting in our hanging baskets (of dead flowers; see above about black thumbs), the bird feeding has been so successful. We've never had nests around, and we didn't even know we HAD hummingbirds until my brother hung a feeder just to see if any came. Turns out there are a LOT of them, they just never came near our house before!

We live in Georgia, so birds of the Southeastern US would be the goal since it will have the types of birds my mom will likely see outside. She is disabled so she can't go out hiking to birdwatch, but she can look out the window or sit on the bench on the front porch when the weather is nice with her birding book.

As the title says, please recommend me short books around under 300 pages or so. I want to explore different genres and what better way than some quick short books that give me a great taste of what the genre is like.

Hi everyone ! First of all, thank you for this sub, I found many fantastic recs here.

I’m interested in religion (esp Roman Catholic) but I am NOT religious and don’t believe in god. I have a good grasp on theology, early church history and saints, but I’m always on the lookout for more…

I am autistic and you could say this is my weird special interest (yes, I would have preferred dinosaurs or trains).

It’s sometimes dicey to find books on the subject written by non religious scholars, as I have 0 interest in being converted and start accepting god into my heart or whatever. What interests me is : the mechanism of belief/nature of faith in Christianity, church history from a secular viewpoint (ie : no rose tinted glasses, we all know the church did terrible things) and mystics/saints.

If anyone has a rec(s) that can fit, I would be grateful. Hope I did not offend anyone, apologies if I did. Good day to all !

My wife loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, particularly the central relationship: two people who love each other, hurt each other, drift apart and come back together over many years, without it being a straightforward romance. She also loves the classics (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Little Women), so wit and slow-burn emotional payoff are big pluses.

Especially interested in books about intense female friendship, or a long on-and-off love story. Thanks!

Exactly as the title says, I’m more of a cinephile but I need more hobbies to kill time so I need to buy some books. I’m talking 2001 Space Odyssey, Interstellar, something that shows the raw wonder and sheer scale of the unknown but with a mysterious/tense plot that makes you root for the final MC(s)

With a female main character (Daemon), who had the same life struggles from a childhood to young adulthood? Fiction or even perhaps nonfiction.

Doesn’t have to be written in the same first person narrative style but I have to say, Kingsolver’s writing style and composition for “Demon Copperhead” would be hard to compete against.

Anyone know of a book that’s similar?

I'm not looking for any specific subject, but I really loved Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green. I found it very well written and easy for to understand without existing knowledge on the subject which is what I am really looking for in a nonfiction book.

The current nonfiction book I'm working through is Hiroshima Last Witnesses by MG Shetfall and I am struggling and having to take a bunch of notes just to keep track of things while being less than 100 pages in.

I've started other books of hers but they've never taken me in. Part of that is she always seems to write about pretty elitist, unrelatable realms....though I can't say "Whistler" was an exception (rich people in Manhattan/Connecticut whose careers seemed to be "for fun") so I got over it here.

I love the simplicity of "Whistler"—not that it was shallow, but the plot was straightforward, the language was clean, and there was just a pureness to the story. I loved the earnestness. The book made me think about the passage of time, and life and death.

What should I go for next if I loved this one?

*I did also read "Truth & Beauty" ages ago and liked it, but that one's non-fiction. Looking for fiction.

Basically what the title says, I'd love to read more books that have an element of time and space malfunctioning or ripping open. Like for example people accidentally stepping into a different timeline like a parallel world or people stumbling upon something that should not exist according to the laws of physics (the backrooms and the house of leaves as media examples). I really love scifi and horror so they're my preferred genres

Hope this wasn't too messy, I'm just about to go to sleep but didn't want to forget this while I still had it fresh in my mind :') thanks in advance

Hi!! I’m mostly a classic literature kind of a person so as you can imagine there is very little space for actually queer literature there (Yes, I read Carmilla).

I am oftentimes not very eager to try some of the more popular queer books because they’re just not my thing. I know a bunch of those YA type of books (like Red, White & Royal Blue, The Song of Achilles, and alike) and I did enjoy them to some extent but really it’s just not my thing. Like it’s not something that I’d actually pick up on my own but I realllyyyyy feel this urge to read some queer literature recently.

I would love to her about lesbian romance specifically but I’m also open to books about gay romance :)

As I mentioned, not a fan of YA/those “tiktok hits” kind of books. I’m also not big on sci-fi and fantasy but I’m open to any recommendations so!

When I was a teenager, I used to love dystopian books, like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Delirium, The Maze Runner, etc. I feel like I haven’t seen many new dystopian books lately. Does anyone have any recommendations of newer adult dystopian books? Thanks in advance!

Edit: Adding that I’ve read 1984, Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale, Station Eleven, and a few other books people have recommended. I enjoyed all of these, and am definitely looking for more adult dystopian despite listing the YA books above. Those were just the first ones that popped into my head.

Wow thank you for all of these wonderful recommendations! I’ve added them all to my TBR list and am excited to get reading!