Maggie Nelson’s Bluets is 240 numbered fragments about the colour blue, grief, obsession, and a friend who was paralysed. It sounds like something you would not enjoy, and I would agree with you on paper. In practice it is the book I return to when the days start getting shorter, when I have been running too hard, when I want to be reminded that thinking clearly is not the same as thinking simply.
The fragments are short — sometimes one sentence, sometimes half a page — and none of them explain the ones before. You have to sit with each one. That is the point. The book teaches you a slower reading speed by refusing to be read fast. On a good weekend I finish it in three sittings. On a bad one I get halfway through and put it down because I do not have the patience yet, which is a signal.
I do not think it is her best book. It is the one I need most. That is a distinction I try to remember when I am recommending things to other people: my favourite is not always the one I hand out. Sometimes the useful book is the one that fits the season.