Hi y'all! My name's Brad
So I just got an early Christmas present 2 weeks ago - a Kobo Forma! I am absolutely loving it. I read a lot of manga so the screen size is just perfect. I haven't read a single novel since I was about 12 years old (I'm 26 now!). It frustrates me like crazy as I used to love reading, I was a little book nerd.
In the last 3-4 years, I have had some pretty bad luck with my health... I've been diagnosed with three separate chronic conditions, all of which cause pain. The pain mixed with the stress, anxiety and depression that come with these conditions have caused me all sorts of problems, the most annoying would have to be my inability to concentrate on just about anything - books, movies, anime, manga, cooking, conversations... the list goes on.
I'm not here to complain though, quite the opposite! The last 4 years have been a hell of a journey for me and I still have a lot to learn if I want to get myself where I want to be, but in the last ~12 months, I have
finally found a good medical team; I have an amazing GP and 5 other specialists. I never thought I'd be happy with every single person on my medical team but it has happened!
Anyway, back to books and the reason that I got an e-reader in the first place. I have tried reading novels many, many times over the last few years but I never have any luck at all, unfortunately. I just really struggle to concentrate. I am a "good" reader still but I just can't absorb bloody anything. I can read for 15 minutes and then realise I literally have no clue what I just read.
I spent a long time reading a few pages a day but I never saw any improvement in my ability to concentrate and remember what I read... that is until I tried reading manga! At the start of this year I had never read a manga and now I've read a decent amount, at least for me! Compared to the start of the year, I am much better at reading manga; I read it a lot faster
but I also absorb way, way more info. It feels really good to make some progress, even if it's only manga for now.
My goal now is to read at least 10 minutes of a novel per day and hopefully, if I stick with it I will be able to read for longer and actually absorb what I am reading.
If anyone is interested, here are the manga I have read so far -
https://myanimelist.net/mangalist/Bradmmm?status=1
So yeah, I thought I would join the community here as I've heard nothing but great things and it seems to be the best place to hang out and talk about e-manga and e-books!
If anyone is reading this and has any recommendations for books that are on the easier to read side of the fence, I would absolutely love to hear from you! Since I haven't read for so long, I don't even know what genres to ask for so I'm going to go ahead and say I'm open to ANY genre; I just need some easy reads that will get me hooked. You can see on my list of manga that I have been reading mostly shounen series, but I want to branch out of that sort of genre as well so I would love recommendations for both manga and novels!
If I can get some recommendations, I'm going to load my Forma up with a nice amount of novels for the holidays - I'm going away for three weeks and I'm going to have all of the free time in the world! I'm really hoping that I can get hooked on reading some good novels; I love manga but I am craving some novels, I just don't have any idea where to start!
Thanks for reading my little essay here. lol. I didn't plan to post such a large wall of text, nor did I plan on asking for recommendations haha, I got carried away with my introduction!
I'm keen to talk to some like-minded people and finally (hopefully) get into some manga of a different genre and some novels of any genre! I just need things that will grab my attention easily - that's the problem I have, getting into things. I find that I really struggle to get into new stories but that's the hardest part for me. I have so much free time for the rest of the year so I can definitely do this!
Thanks everyone! Look forward to having a chat
~bradmmm