31
ReadingWhat are your comfort reads?
What do you read when you're feeling unwell or low? When you're recovering from an illness or just had a really bad week?
Is there a specific book or genre you tend to turn to?
Childen's books: Diana Wynne Jones, Noel Streatfeild, Susan Cooper, Tamora Pierce.
I loved The Dark is Rising series! (Well, apart from
Yes!!! To all of these!
I am constantly amazed that the Chrestomanci series is not more popular. I can reread and reread it. I love all the characters. Was overjoyed when the Pinhoe Egg was published years after I thought she’d stopped!
Comfort reads are books of poetry I loved when I was young. Pablo Neruda, Charles Simic, and Sharon Olds come to mind.
Cat's Eye, Surfacing, The Robber Bride by Attwood she just has a way of writing women that makes me feel seen.
Also always down for a reread of Watership Down. Those bunnies always make me cry.
Sarah Caudwell's mysteries--endlessly rereadable. Joe Keenan's comedies--Blue Heaven, Putting on the Ritz, My Lucky Star--still hilarious after rereading. Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady--I still laugh out loud on every page, though honestly it's not a funny life story.
JOE KEENAN!!! Those three books are downright hilarious and my only regret is that they are a bit too racy to give to every person I know. He deserves to be at least as well known as Sedaris.
(now I'm going to have to read Caudwell because anyone who likes Keenan is obviously someone whose taste aligns perfectly with my own)
Well they're funny in VERY different ways...but I hope you enjoy them--I love them a lot. (If you remember, let me know how you like Thus was Adonis Murdered.)
Also Josephine Tey--I just recently reread all of her mysteries because why not.
I read an old german book series about a girl living on a horse rescue farm haha. I'm almost 30 but they are just so cozy
Barbara Pym. The curate always marries someone else and the heroine is just f'ing fine with it. Also lavish descriptions of food and clothes.
I've only read Crampton Hodnet. I was genuinely surprised that
Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey novels (and one or two good fanfics about Peter and Harriet). Some of Kerry Greenwood’s Phryne Fisher and Corinna Chapman series, though I have to be in a tolerant-of-libfem-bullshit mood (a six foot tall obvious TIM and the narrator claims not to be sure of “her” sex?). Most of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series.
EM Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady (hilarious despite the boring sounding title).
Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm.
Elizabeth von Arnim, The Enchanted April (4 women escape grey rainy England and stay in a castle in Italy - my dream!).
Anything by Wodehouse or Austen also cheers me up.
Chalet School Harry Potter Outlander series Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series Anna Pigeon series Jack Reacher series And, having just discovered it and read all 21 books in October, the Joe Pickett series by C J Box.
Lucy Maud Montgomery's The Blue Castle. For the dinner party, if nothing else.
Joan Barfoot's Abra, also published as Gaining Ground. Profoundly unhappy suburban wife and mother uses an inheritance to leave family, suburbia, and civilization and become a self-sufficient hermit.
I have a whole list of comfort books subdivided into exactly what type of comfort I need. What is thrilling to me is that other people have comfort books! This post made me smile.
(commenting again because I accidentally deleted it)
Susanna Kearsley’s books. Romance with a paranormal element (usually time travel or clairvoyance) that takes place most often in the UK. Her books are like a less-gritty Outlander.
Guy Gavriel Kay, Lois McMaster Bujold for SFF. Daniel Silva, Barry Eisler for thrillers/spy novels. Kate Quinn for historical novels (WWI/II ish).
Terry Pratchett's books. I mostly only read fiction by women, but TP books are just so fun.
I love the Watch, Death and Witches books!