How about this consideration?
AN4.95:1.1ff:
“Mendicants, these four people are found in the world.
What four?
One who practices to benefit neither themselves nor others;
one who practices to benefit others, but not themselves;
one who practices to benefit themselves, but not others; and
one who practices to benefit both themselves and others.
…
the person who practices to benefit both themselves and others is the foremost, best, chief, highest, and finest of the four.
These are the four people found in the world.”
If you live by yourself as a layperson, and meditation isn’t enough to fill your day, you may find something that is both rewarding for you and helpful for others.
If there is a Dhamma center or a monastery near your place, you would perhaps like to go and help out there, regularly or occasionally. Or find some other Dhamma related activity that suits you and gives you some joy.
If there is no such thing within reach, there are certainly options for some charitable volunteer activity that fits your skills and preferences and supports others who are less privileged. Usually such things are very rewarding to those who do them, that’s at least my experience. Perhaps even more rewarding than reading novels and such.
Gaining joy through doing good and helping others then will in turn support your meditation, probably much more than reading novels.
Another thing is spending time in nature. Read the Theragatha to see how such things inspired the early monks. While I once spent a vassa in Western Australia in Bodhinyana Monastery, I would spend long periods of time in the afternoon going for walks in the forest and taking pictures of all these wonderful wildflowers that were flourishing at the time, and when I came back I usually had some really good energy for meditation. Reading novels would have never been able to give me that.
But why do you want to go on 8 precepts in the first place? While I do know a number of laypeople who live like this for many years and are really happy with this, this is not what was practiced at the Buddha’s day, even by advanced lay practitioners.
Committed lay practitioners would take “the five training rules with celibacy as the fifth”, like Ugga of Vesālī here in AN8.21 (who by the way was a non-returner):
Right there I went for refuge to the Buddha, his teaching, and the Saṅgha. And I undertook the five training rules with celibacy as the fifth.
Only on uposatha days wold they take eight precepts and spend the day in the monastery. I don’t remember having read about any lay person who lived permanently on eight precepts in the suttas.