The book hangover, and how to live with it

There should be a better word for the feeling you get after finishing a brilliant book. “Book hangover” is the closest we have, but it is slightly too jokey for something that can feel genuinely destabilising.

It is that hollow, floaty sensation. The strange silence. The way you keep thinking about characters like they are people you used to know. The way every other book looks faintly irrelevant, like trying to date too soon after a heartbreak.

What’s on my radar: when a cover makes me preorder

There is a very particular thrill to a cover reveal. I know there is for me. It is such a delicious moment. 

It is not the algorithmic sort of thrill, not the flash-sale urgency of consumer culture, but that quieter jolt. The moment you see a cover and think, I don’t know what this is yet, but I want to live inside it. I admit I do sometimes (not always) judge a book by its cover. I do not feel guilty for doing so.