In the past couple of months I’ve taken up the hobby of reading and I’m really enjoying it so far, I used to read a bit as a kid but it’s something I stopped doing completely as a teenager and I’ve noticed lots of my mates don’t read books at all. Just curious to see what other guys enjoy reading in their free time.

Personally in terms of fiction I really enjoy Charles Dickens and Tolkien was my childhood favourite but most of what I read is more non-fiction, especially stuff to do with history and geography. I see that self help books are also very popular with young men.

42 comments

  1. I like reading but I hate reading books I’ve been either told or suggested to read

  3. kind of boring propably to most but i enjoy reading political and historical stuff

  4. Jane Austen, Philip Roth, Cormac Mccarthy, Nick Hornby, Emily Dickinson, Asimov, Tolkien, Fritz Lieber, Ursula K Leguine. To name but a few.

  5. I’ve been enjoying The Witcher book series. Im almost done with The Blood of Elves. Also A Song of Ice and Fire series.

  6. Terry Pratchett and Naomi Novik for more general reading.

    De beatrijs and marieke van nymwegen to practice my Diets(old Dutch)

    Currently working through ONDERWIJS IN DE SCHERMKUNST

    by C. SIEBENHAAR, a Dutch fencing instructor from the 19th century.

  8. Mostly science fiction. Lately I’ve been reading through classics like Jurassic Park, foundation, and the Dune series. Also some stuff on my list from contemporary authors like Tchaikovsky and Martine.

    Mixing in the occasional non-fiction when I feel like it

  9. Science fiction at the moment.

    Not a massive warhammer fan, but the Horus Heresy books are awesome. Give them a go if you want 🙂

  10. Use to read tons and came from a family of readers. Star Wars and Trek books. Louis L’aMour and Piers Anthony were authors I read a lot of when I was in the Navy. Also Time Crossed Engineer. These days I don’t read anywhere what I use to but I love fanfiction crossovers. [Fanfiction.net](https://www.fanfiction.net/) is hit or miss but there are some really talented writers there.

  12. I like out there sagas that span multiple novels and usually involve some twists. The Dark Tower by Stephen King is up there. If you’re a Tolkien fan you must read ASOIAF. Chuck Palahniuk is good for a quick fix.

  13. When I got back into reading as a teenager, I read a lot of Jack Higgins and David Morrell (spy thrillers). This was also when I discovered John Gardner’s James Bond continuations.

    Later, I dipped deeply into fantasy and sci-fi, with my favorites of those years being David Gemmell’s Drenai series and Steve Perry’s Matador series, though Michael Moorcock wrote so much, with such variety, it was easy to explore his Eternal Champion multiverse. Christopher Golden and Nancy Collins were really good, as well.

    Now, it’s mostly crime thrillers and spy thrillers again. Lee Child, Nick Petrie, Mark Greaney, Daniel Silva, lots of others. Lots of action, some trials and tribulations, but usually thr good guys winning.

  14. Fantasy and autobiographies/history. Currently on book 2 of The Witcher Series.

  15. A mixture of nonfiction and fiction. For fiction I tend towards scifi, speculative fiction, sword and sorcery, and political drama. Nonfiction is mostly practical books.

    I reread The Book of the New Sun once every few years.

  17. Anything really. Both fiction and non fiction.

    My only big no-no’s are “romance” novels and crime/suspense thrillers.

  18. I read a lot of non-fiction tbh. Getting through Rights of Man, Common sense, and other political writings by Thomas Paine right now (he was basically the originator of Western Liberalism and “common sense” was one of the most influential texts that inspired the American Revolution. He also played a part in the French Revolution).

  20. Research. I research whatever I’m currently interested in. No fiction and almost never books. I have a good worldly wealth of knowledge and I like to maintain it. But I’m not interested in any one thing to learn it from top to bottom. I’m not trying to be an expert. I just want to be able to speak intelligently on many topics. I research other people’s research

  21. John Grisham is my favorite author. I’ve read probably 20 of his books

  22. Mostly hard Sci-Fi and some Fantasy. I prefer novels and short story anthologies over series. There are certainly a lot of amazing series worth reading in full, but I feel like these days, especially in fantasy, any mediocre book turns into 8 tomes long series stretching out plot that could have been a one book. Short stories are the opposite, an idea condensed into several pages, no overhead, no world building, just the interesting part.

  28. I really like fiction. My favorite at the moment is the Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir. Really great stuff. First one is called **Gideon the 9th.**

    It’s fantasy pulp: Necromancers in space! but it is like a Tarantino movie, where it takes pulp and elevates it by simultaneously taking itself very seriously and not seriously at all. It walks that tightrope perfectly.

    Let me give an example: In the book there’s a particular faction of people. The book has a glossary that describes the world a bit. In it they discuss the odd way these people get their names. The main one we see in the book is always referred to as “Wake”

    > Each member takes on, or is born with, a three-part name that is meant to reproduce (without context) an oral tradition passing down songs, poems, and otherwise extinct cultural references, as demonstrated in Wake’s actual full name: “Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead / Kia Hua Ko Te Pai / Snap Back to Reality Whoops There Goes Gravity”

    It’s the kind of book where, when faced with an impossible eldrich lovecraftian horror one character asks the other “What do we do?” to which the warrior woman replies “We kick it’s ass till candy falls out”

  31. Oooooh I love these questions!

    I love reading about it around psychology and trauma, sexology.

    My faves at the minute are
    **Trauma/psychology:**
    – Cured by Dr Jeff Rediger
    – It Didn’t Start With You by Mark Wolynn (be ready to cry at this one, it’ll hit you deep!)
    – The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read by Phillipa Perry.
    **Sexology:**
    – Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
    – She Comes First by Ian Kerner
    – Good In Bed by Emily Nagoski
    **Your wife/girlfriend will thank you ;)**

    Every single one of this are beyond fantastic books what will change your life in some way.

  33. I generally read genre trash, but lately I’ve been doing audiobooks while I clean.

    Jim “dimestore Dostoevsky” Thompson for pulp

    I’ve burned out by reading all the good golden/silver age sci-fi.

    I love speculative fiction & alternate history if anyone has some recs

    the last really good book I read (listened to) was The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles

    It was sincere without being sappy & had some of the wordplay that made Douglas Adams a favorite. It was good, but most importantly it was clever.

    In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett Watson is driven home to Nebraska by the warden of the juvenile work farm where he has just served fifteen months for involuntary manslaughter. His mother long gone, his father recently deceased, and the family farm foreclosed upon by the bank, Emmett’s intention is to pick up his eight-year-old brother, Billy, and head to California where they can start their lives anew.But when the warden drives away, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work farm—the wily, charismatic Duchess and earnest, offbeat Woolly—have stowed away in the trunk of the warden’s car. Together, they have hatched an altogether different plan for Emmett’s future, one that will take the four of them on a fateful journey in the opposite direction to the city of New York.Spanning ten days and told from multiple points of view, Towles’s third novel is a multilayered tale of misadventure and self-discovery, populated by an eclectic cast of characters, from drifters who make their home riding the rails and larger-than-life vaudevillians to the aristocrats of the Upper East Side. An absorbing, exhilarating ride, The Lincoln Highway is a novel as vivid, sweeping, and moving as readers have come to expect from Towles’s work.

  34. Philosophy and religion are my go tos. Have lots of self sufficiency books too that are pretty neat and informative. About 100 or so cooking books. Idk, reading’s great, dude

  36. I’ve been reading the Three Body Problem series recently. I’m on the second book The Dark Forest and it’s some of the most interesting and unsettling sci-fi I’ve ever read.

  38. Love reading, and I found I hate life when I don’t read. Mainly I alternate fiction and nonfiction. Need to keep the balance right.

  40. Mostly nonfiction, history, economics and psychology. Occasionally I’ll also read sci-fi/fantasy but I struggle to get invested in most stories.

    As I’m sure most readers discovered, the trick is to find topics you actually like rather than trying to force yourself to read things you think you should like.

  41. Just finished “Freezing Order” ny William Browder. It was great.
    I tend to read a lot of history/political/world impact items.

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