Retired 3 years ago and just finished my 500th book. Most of my recommendations came from this community. Here's are the 10 best in my opinion.
I wrote a short essay after each book I read and finally hit 500 today as I finished a book on The Dreyfus Affair (interesting stuff!). I was reflecting back on my essays (which I can share if folks find it worth discussing any of the titles further)
I gathered most of my reading list from here (reddit r/books) but very often followed certain themes and threads that were related to whatever wavelength I was in at the time. I spent like 4 months on nothing but biblical apocrypha and then another detour into Opera for a good 6 weeks. I read all the Raymond Chandler books in between all of Virginia Wolf's books to keep an oscillating variety because of ADD)....
Speaking of: ADD sufferer for 40 years+ w other fun cognitive comorbidities. Quite intense that manifests in impulsivity which causes my thoughts to dart 24/7 unless I'm completely regimented about overcoming it. I had to train my brain completely to become a good reader, to the point where I kept a sharp pen nearby to poke myself in the arm everytime my mind would wander (sometimes I had to do so with every other word).
Only 2 books I did not finish but made it much of the way through (The Book Thief by Zusak-not because it was bad and The Golden Bowl by Henry James because I found it unreadable after the first half.)
No particular order here but I did indicate at which point in the 500 I read the book) .
A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole (32nd book read):
I didn't expect to laugh at a book like I did at comedy movies until I grabbed this and couldn't stop reading it. I really liked that we get let in on the joke of it all immediately. We're meant to have a good time reading this, it's not hauty and unapproachable for ANY reader. Brilliant editing and writing and the second funniest book I read behind only...
*Catch-22* by Heller (440th book I read):
Tears in my eyes non stop. I had trouble getting through the scene where Yossarian and Orr were talking about why Orr stuffed horse chestnuts in his mouth. I lost it and will probably remember exactly where I was when I came across that passage for the first time. This might be the most *clever*of my 500 reads. So brilliant.
*Siddhartha* by Hesse (9th book I read) :
If for nothing else, Hesse got me deeply into learning about Buddhism, fasting and meditation, and their teachings (not necessarily in practice to this point in my life) . I could not believe how prescient and relatable the text was. How easy it was to understand something that should be a "mystical" topic that other writers would try to dress up with too much religious simili. I'd reccommend to anyone who wants to re-examine their life and the world without using substances. This book changed my life, truly. I have used the described method of "rebirthing" your ego at any moment you please. Starting again. I read this in conjunction with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and they complimented each other super well.
*The Stranger* by Camus (2nd book I read):
I didn't put it down...until I absolutely had to. The final 25 pages or so when he is preparing. I felt captured immediately. I put the book down and walked a mile. And this one was not as well loved in this forum when searching for it as some other review areas on the internet. It scared me to death in a profound way and I think because I read it so soon after retirement, it deprogrammed me and my view of life in a way I hadn't expected. I considered myself an existentialist and still do and don't necessarily believe Camus' message is what reddit critics at the top of the algorithm prepared me for.
*Rebecca* by Du Maurier (314th book I read:
This was not my genre (I thought) but I got sucked in like being home on the couch and The Notebook starts on TV, and the remote is too far, so you end up knowing it ambiently via a TV screen throughout your life. I'm not sure the sub genre and I didn't go very much deeper into it after Rebecca but I would love your suggestions. I want to say that I absolutely think I prefer women writing about women (not that this should be a controversial take but, wow!, what an insane difference and experience after spending my life in a cis male dominated algorithm).
I loved this book. Kind of fell in love with it. As an object. It gave me butterflies in my stomach, the story, the prose was exactly my style.
*Underworld* by Don Delillo: (155th book I read)
Another introduction to a genre I hadn't considered I would enjoy before. Post-modern, breadth across the story as opposed to depth (being 900 pages, this was deep too), historical fiction with a "slice-of-life" so a modern reader could relate to any point in the books timeline. I would deem this a retirement read and I would recommend reading a short bio on Delillo beforehand too and if it seems line you're style, make sure you have lots of time. It's so rich and what I would be as a writer, were I a writer. I could speak/rap/chant the text at times because of how well I found the ethereal timeliness connecting.
Don is a fun writer. I read everything else of his immediately afterward. Probably my favorite author if I ever had to pick one?
*Love In The Time of Cholera* AND *100 Years of Solitude* by Marquez (85th and 86th books read):
How could I not? After my first 6 favorites, how could this guy not just capture me for a weekend. I don't like typing a lot out about his work because I really just want people to be patient with the first parts of each book as Marquez builds the story. They don't become true top 10 brilliance until you see all the magical realism come together at the end.
*The Warmth of Other Suns* by Isabel Wilkerson (369th book read)
I'm an American and wanted to learn about my neighbors. Although I had already appreciated many Colson Whitehead books, I wanted something even more historical and citable. But not about the usual names in history. So I dug a little deeper here and picked this epic up about 3 of our neighbors who made the Great Migration to the northern parts of the US. Although one of them turned out to be the physician of Ray Charles, these were just our neighbors. What it took for them to get to where they are today and the story of everything in between. Probably my top recco for anybody who wants to start out with what the experience of black history is to be lived by those beyond the news. It's real because it's not a hero like Rosa Parks or MLK, it's real because any American can related to one of the three stories, they span the country and decades post Jim Crow)
*Housekeeping* by Marilyn Robinson (459th book I read):
I dont fully understand why either. The book soaked me. Obviously I'm playing on the water imagery in the book but I had a very personal connection to Ruth and her experience. I guess just a personal selection that I don't necessarily want to psycho analyze. I can say, this is the book for me is when I clearly decided I would only read women writing about women for now. I'm sure a rule like that could be limiting but i had to buy physical copies of this book because I wanted it close by. It made me feel so many emotions about life, and being a rather transient, young emancipated person mysel, this is one I'll certainly find some passages to save for eulogies (possibly even to be read at my own). I wish I could meet Marilyn Robinson and talk to her as a psychiatrist and not an excellent writer.
*The Rings of Saturn*by W.G. Sebald (312th book read):
I wanted a book to read while enjoying stargazing and a fat bowl of thc and this was great for that. Actually. Perfect. It's not quite as trippy as Aldoux Huxley and some of his psychedelic fever dream writings but it's just a thread through time and space without being as deep and non-sequitas as Ulysses or Infinite Jest which I haven't finished either of yet. I wanted to pick something more off the radar, over the standard reccos I see and put something forward I found to be a bit avant-garde and worth discussing more in greater circles.
That was 11. Be well and keep reading please.