He might enjoy the Wayside School series by Louis Sachar, beginning with Sideways Stories from Wayside School.

It’s a series of absurdist comedy short story collections about the students and staff at school that is accidently built on its side, making it a skyscraper.

Sometimes I’ll skim unintentionally during tense scenes. The instinctive desire to see what happens next, especially in a scene where a character or characters that I care about are in some kind of peril, can override my attempts to read thoroughly. Those situations make for great re-reads though.

I remember crouching by my fish tank at night at that same age, secretly reading by the little light in the aquarium hood.

I loved the whole Expanse series, but yeah I think the horror sections might be my favourite parts (maybe tied with the action sequences).

Self-help is 99.9% bullshit, with plenty of it being full-on scam/cult entry points.

Get to chapter 10, it’s a pretty different story from there onwards.

It is written for a mid-20th century audience, so the pacing is definitely a bit different from what modern audiences expect.

Entertainment media today tends to be much faster paced (movies especially but books as well). But part of the reward of reading older books is getting a sense of what reading audiences of the past were into. After a bit of practice and immersion I think most people are able to shrug off the “present day bias” and enjoy the story for what it is.

If you press on to the end of chapter 10, book 1 the story picks up quite a bit and settles into the more exciting epic tone that characterizes the rest of the text.

I don’t think it’s especially confusing. I first read it when I was 13 and I did ok with it even then. It’s among the most popular works of fiction ever so I think it must have fairly broad appeal.

Definitely start with The Hobbit though, it gives very important background. The writing style in The Hobbit is much more aimed at children however. The LotR begins with a somewhat similar style and transitions through the first few chapters into a more mature and epic tone.

Some people struggle to stay interested through the first few chapters of the LotR, my advice if that happens to you is to just press on until the end of chapter 10, book 1 (“Strider”). That chapter is where the LotR really settles into the tone that characterizes the rest of the story.

There are quite a few mysterious references to things in the history of Middle Earth that you will not understand. Don’t worry about them; Tolkien intentionally scatters these “textual ruins” through the story. These are meant to make you feel like the story you are reading is set in a world with a real history, but you as the reader are not supposed to understand them. The mysteriousness of these references is the point. You can read The Silmarillion (and the wiki) afterwards to understand the what these textual ruins are about.

I’ve re-read The Lord of the Rings something like 20 times on paper or on a screen, and 4 or 5 more times as an audiobook.

I totally agree with you on the feeling; if I’m feeling overwhelmed by life it’s incredibly comforting to immerse myself in a familiar story.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie for getting out of a slump. It got me back into sprawling series again. I read through that series and then immediately followed it up with the Expanse, Greenbone Saga, and now I’m working on Gentleman Bastards.

Also Piranesi is so fucking good. I just read it a couple days ago and I’m still thinking about it all the time.

If I’m reading for recreation: couple puffs off the ol’ jazz cigarette and listen to some dungeon synth or dub.

If I’m reading for work/school: massive thermos of aggressively strong black coffee and listen to a space ambient playlist.