The ageing reader

Finding novels I love is becoming harder.

Do you think it gets harder to find books that surprise and impress you as you get older?

What do I want from a novel, I wonder? Is it the thrill of fine observation and the beauty of the writing? The discipline to leave out what is unnecessary or indulgent? Risk-taking? Intensity of emotion? Concept?

I know it’s not plot. I don’t need twists and big reveals and gasps.

My novels are currently badly arranged with non-fiction mixed in. This is a shot of a neglected shelf where things get bunged in that haven’t yet been sorted. PHOTO: Karin Schimke

I gave up on six novels this year, all of them by acclaimed authors.

Favourite out of the 21 novels I finished have little in common:

• Small Rain by Garth Greenwell

• Fees van die Ongenooides by PG du Plessis

• Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean Michaels

• The Immortalites by Claire Robertson

• The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden

• What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

• In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaantje

• Bel Canto by Anne Patchett

What I will mostly remember of the 2025 reading year are the two non-fiction books that shone like diamonds:

• One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

When I mentioned that I find it harder to find satisfying novels to someone, they told me that they now almost exclusively read non-fiction. I understand that, but I hope that doesn’t happen to me. Novels are my first love.

These are my ways of getting around the problem of finding it harder to find novels that transport me as easily as I was transported in my teens, twenties and thirties:

• I read a lot of poetry. Random poems, but mostly collections by single poets

• I read lots of essays

• I switch up the language I’m reading in

• I revisit classics or find ones I haven’t yet read

• I read literature in translation.

Tell me if you find it harder to find novels you like as you get older.

Tell me also how you adapt if that is true for you.

PS: You can read my book reviews on Instagram. My handle there is @readingdarling

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FOUNDING SUBSCRIBERS, I look forward to meeting you all on 1 January 2026 for our annual Reset.

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Love Letter readers, I wish you all of the best over the coming week. If you’re celebrating Christmas, may it be peaceful and fun. If you don’t, I hope it means you have time to read and read and read and fill up your tank to brimming.

With love, as always,

K.