The Essential Guide to Reigniting Your Love for Reading Books

There’s something so alluring about reading. It draws you in and submerges you in an entirely new world, with characters you get so attached to that they start to feel like family. The pure satisfaction of turning the last few pages, bending the spine and knowing you’ve completed another saga is a wildly triumphant feeling.

But sadly, physical books are slowly dying out, as the passion for reading dwindles in an age of constant online stimulation. Magnificent reads like The Colour Purple, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and anything by Ben Elton are now being confined to the backs of charity shops and Amazon, while sales of Kindles and audiobooks continue to rise.

In a bit of a writer’s block recently, I decided to embark on a quest to reignite my love of books, and figured that the best way to kickstart was to buy a bunch of them and just dive in.

I generally looked for books that may inspire me, change my opinion, or make me question myself – and I was not disappointed.

Here are a few of my newly found reads, that may very well reignite your love for reading books too!

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The Diving Bell and the Butterfly – by Jean-Dominique Bauby

Serving as a memoir of former editor-in-chief of French Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby, this book tells the real life story of Bauby having to come to terms with having locked-in syndrome after suffering a stroke. Despite the rare condition turning his body into a prison of sorts, he doesn’t let it hold his imagination back and truly shares what it is to be human and what we take for granted.

Bauby wrote the entire book through communication by blinking his left eye, and it took 10 months to write. The sheer determination, wit and strength of the man behind the story compelled me to read it, and it’s no wonder why it is renowned as an incredibly inspirational book.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – by Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou has always been a source of inspiration for me. She is of the same era as the likes of the late, great Sidney Poitier and Nina Simone – an era full of hardened, African-American pioneers who persevered through terrible situations and overcame unspeakable hardship.

Angelou is a timeless writer and was a huge voice of comfort and reason to many who faced adversity during the era of Civil Rights Movement. Her poised and inviting warmth shows in her famous autobiographical account of her early years. If you want to find out who Maya Angelou really was, what better way to start than to read about the young life and makings of a great, great woman.

The Girl Who Fell From the Sky – by Heidi W. Durrow

As a mixed race woman I should really have read more books with multiracial protagonists, but I recently realised that I haven’t. The last book I read with a mixed race female character as the lead was Checkmate by Malorie Blackman (author of the absolutely fantastic Noughts and Crosses series) which was years ago.

So Heidi W. Durrow‘s debut novel seemed like a great place to start. The book follows the story of Rachel, a light-skinned biracial girl who moves to a predominantly black neighbourhood after a family tragedy and is forced to confront her mixed identity – parts of which I can completely relate to. The book has received a lot of critical acclaim and seems to have a really intricate storyline about discovering who we really are vs. who other people tell us we are.

Cat’s Cradle – by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is a writer that’s been on my radar for a long time but I’ve never gotten round to reading any of his books. After hearing phenomenal things about his cult classics like Slaughterhouse 5, I decided to give one of his books a go.

The one I picked was Cat’s Cradle, which is a dark yet humorous tale of Jonah who curiously pursues the scientist who developed the atomic bomb, Felix Hoenikker. The book covers the topics of science, religion, humanity, and the impending apocalypse. It’s also meant to make you care more about the human race, whilst simultaneously making you question it, which is my kind of book.

The Fault In Our Stars – by John Green

Yes, I’m fully aware that this book is essentially teen fiction, and yes I’m aware that the ending has been somewhat ruined for me because everyone and his mother’s dog’s cousin has seen the film. But I didn’t let that deter me from reading it, because at least it’s not Twilight.

Everything I’ve heard about John Green‘s suspected last ever novel is that it is magical and wonderful and thought-provoking and horribly, horribly depressing. But weirdly, I rather enjoy sad books so this was a great fit for me. But be prepared to turn the first page, get consumed by the heart-wrenching story line, and then spend the next week crying all over everything. It’s about to get real weepy.