Books To Read When Sick

Well, I'm at work, and I'm really sick, and nobody will let me go home (since I'm obviously hard at work).

When I got sick as a kid, I would always read books from R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series. I didn't like them, even then, but they were my 'sick books' for when I was too delerious/wiped out to read anything with more substance.

Does anyone else have Sick Books? Any traditions when you're sick? Or ideas for what I could read with my coherency currently impaired?

I was home with a headache yesterday. Mercedes Lackey's Storm Warning was my comfort book of choice.

Graphic novels? - Asterix or TinTin or Sandman ?

Go the other way and get completely absorbed in somethign so that you don't notice you are sick? C J Cherryh will do that to me, but not always everyone's cup of tea.

There's always The belgariad reams of light fluff, vaguely happy, and well meaning, nothing truly bad ever happens, you know from page 1 what the ending will be - but well enough written to keep an ill mind occupied.

What kind of job allows you to read whilst you are 'in work'. Can I work there too please? (Obviously once you've got over your bug though, nothing worse than sharing an office with ill people - just go home the producivity of the whole team will improve!)

call me odd, but I love to read H P Lovecraft when I am sick.

When i'm really sick, my comfort books tend to be orderly, episodic, and upbeat:

The Hobbit and The Return of the King (second half)

The Snow Queen

Isak Dinesen's tales

watership down

And some non-fantasy comfort books i like are:

James Herriot's tales like all Things Bright and Beautiful

Laura Ingalls Wilder's tales like On The Banks of Plum Creek

Watership down is upbeat?

I love Mercedes Lackey or Anne Rice when I'm sick.

I just had my wisdom teeth out and I'm going to read Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series as comfort right now. >>

When I'm sick I read whatever I'm presently reading, so notheing special's on the list. BUT - if I'm REALLY down I go for easy rereads, or watch old Star Trek NG epispodes ;-)

Busifer, you could have been answering for me. If I'm too sick to just keep going with my current new book, I tend to grab something easy that I've read more than once. I think the last time I was in really bad shape I reread The Changeling Sea and A Song for Arbonne. No STTNG for me though; I'll go for my umpteenth viewing of Much Ado, or if I'm really miserable, Foul Play.

Or, instead of STTNG, Firefly.

Yes, i think Watership Down is somewhat upbeat since they do find a home in the end.

I retreat back to easy reads like Anne of green gables or Little house on the praire, something that reminds me of warm summers on the porch reading, to take my mind off how I feel!

When sick, I read whatever I am reading when well, but this thread titled brought the joyful childhood/parenthood response of:
A child's garden of verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
hmm, needs a reread.

#10 & #11 - When I'm REALLY down and can't concentrate on anything else I watch Star Wars (the 3 original movies, but the late 90's remastered edition), or maybe The fifth element ;-)

Firefly never aired in Sweden - I've been meaning to buy the box just to get around to see it (it's not on rental either...). I've heard it's very good!

(Last time I was sick I was in the middle of C J Cherryh's Foreigner series, so I stuck with them even if there was a while when I could only manage a paragraph at a time.)

When I'm not feeling well, I usually study the backs of my eyelids. I only get ill every 3 or 3 years with a case of flu or something that really knocks me out, and then you take something for the symptoms and get knocked for another loop. I hate the dizzy, light-headed feeling from the flu or the flu medicine, and the shortness of breath from a chest cold. When I recover enough to read, I will just go back to whatever I was already engaged in, no special illness/recover titles.

thats a good point cad_lib. I have been feeling to weak and tired to hold a book when I'm sick, then I doze and watch TV

Yep, for me, really sick means I can't read at all. Maybe I look at cookbooks or magazines, but usually it's the TV and DVD's. Comedies from the black and white era preferred. Musicals: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, etc. Film noir is also acceptable. Other than that, let me sleep.

You can tell if I'm faking sick by whether I'm reading or not. :) Sometimes I'm just sick of the daily grind.

When I was sixteen, I had a horrible virus that made it impossible for me to do just about anything. I couldn't read, couldn't use the computer, couldn't stand upright... nada. But, oddly enough, I didn't have any problems with music videos. So I spent a week lying on my living room floor watching Much Music.

When I'm sick but still well enough to read, I just read whatever I was reading before I became ill. Still, I like your topic, ellevee, because I clearly remember books I've read while sick . . . remember the experience of lying in bed reading them, and sort of being happy about having the excuse to be sick and left to read in peace.

Once, I had an eye injury and (horror of horrors for a book lover), had to lie in the dark for a few days with my eyes shut and my head still. That was the first time I tried listening to audiobooks. I heard Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, E.M. Forster's A Room With A View, and Daphne DuMaurier's Rebecca. If it wasn't for those books (on audiotape) I would have gone nuts.

When I'm sick and can't read, nothing beats Mythbusters. There's something so soothing about watching a couple of nerds blow sh*t up.

Sometimes I like the way you think littlegeek. :)

My number one comfort read is Little Women and has been for years.

#9 Busifer - I always have Star Trek TNG and Star Trek (the original series) episodes on hand. I love my DVR. :)

I have watched The Princess Bride every time I have ever been sick since I was a child.

When I got my wisdom teeth out, my face was so swollen that I couldn't read unless I held the book above my head (which was way too tiring) and therefore spent an entire week alternating between sleeping, staring at the wall, and watching every movie I could think of.

Bored of the rings : a parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the rings works wonders when you have the flu. Either you get better or die laughing!

I gravitate towards TV and bad movies when I'm really sick and seem to shun most reading, while in day to day life it's the reverse. I'm tempted to report TV viewing to my physician as a symptom of what ails me. I had my tonsils removed when I was 25 and spent two weeks in a stupefied torpor where I would wake up every four hours (the effective time of my pain meds) and watch whatever was on TV. You'd be amazed what Ronco products are capable of! Now if only I knew what my "sleep number" is... Ugh. I think I'm becoming nauseated.

I'll mention that I was indecently excited when the Pediatrics unit I stayed on post-op had the Goonies on video. Of course, it had nothing to do with the morphine. Nothing. At. All.

#22 - GerogiaD, I'm planning on getting one, our old DVD player is getting a bit cranky ;-)
I only have the TOS episodes on videotape so I almost never watch them... STTNG I'll admit to actually having bought the whole DVD box set *blushes*
If someone had told me that I would spend the equivalent of a $1000 on ST in one year (back in 2001 or so) ... but I bought them one at a time ;-)

Read Yotsuba&! while sick. You'll be uplifted right out of your miserable common cold or flu.

Also, the fine works of Merchant Ivory, I'm told, works wonders when watched on a sick day. My brother was really ill at home one day, but after he watched A Room With A View... he was CURED!

The mysterious healing powers of Merchant Ivory period dramas must be investigated... think of how much lost productivity could be saved by watching a simple Victorian Era setting film...

Had to delete accidental double post.... TRIPLE POST even...

Oh, and I just remembered, since laughter is the best medicine, reading Terry Pratchett and drinking tea through a flask and tube stuck to the side of your head should work to fend off a cold.

Other remedies include the "Miracle Harry Potter and Hot Rice Cure", the "Ian Fleming-Flem Reducing Read", and the "Laptop-Wireless Wikipedia Read By the Fire".

2> yes, yes Tintin is awesome! I love reading that when I'm sick.

If I'm watching something, when I was young I always used to watch the BBC Chronicles of Narnia. I was unreasonably excited when I got them on DVD earlier this year!

26> Busifer, good to find someone else who succumbed to the TNG DVDs - my husband and I are working our way through the set. My Dad had series 1 on video when I was young though, so that's another one I may have to make use of when I'm ill... somehow it's all about the familiarity.

*cough*

We have all the TNG episodes on VIDEO.

Well, since everybody is baring their collections here, I'll admit that I too have some of STTNG DVDs too. My hubby got me the Jean Luc Picard set for Christmas a couple of years ago and I'm slowly buying the whole series, one set at a time.

Like Merchant Ivory, Star Trek is just a great escape. Sometimes, when I'm feeling sick, watching Jean Luc take charge and solve the problem makes me feel better. :-)

I'm like MrsLee, I can't read when I'm sick, that's how I got hooked on audio books, and other than ST, I love my old B&W movies, Cary Grant, Gregory Peck, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, they all help me forget how miserable I'm feeling.

Ok, I'm going to mention it for the ten millionth time, but when I was living in France, I got sick so much! I got bronchitis, sinus infections, sore throats, CHICKEN POX. I must've read Steven Gould's Helm fifteen times.

I still go back to that one.

I also like to watch Cowboy Bebop when I'm sick. Laying on my couch, sipping a cold coke, wrapped in blankets, and hearing that awesome opening music really makes me feel comforted.

For those of you that like Firefly (which I love, btw), a lot of people say Firefly is like a live-action Cowboy Bebop. I'd highly recommend it.

We have almost all the MST3K epis on dvd, and the rest on video.

I don't have to be sick to watch 'bots, tho.

When I'm really sick I usually can't concentrate enough to read so I also turn to TV and DVDs. I think the last time I stayed home sick I watched a combination of an episode marathon of Charmed on TV(which was the first time I had ever seen it. It wasn't bad.) and then my DVDs of Dark Angel later on.

#32 - OK, outing time, then -
*whispering*
I already had most of STTNG on vid. I bought the DVD set anyway when it was released... I know, I am a sick person. But I couldn't help. I like DVD's better! Better picture, niftier functions.
I'm a semi-geek. I know.
Sorry.

>37 Busifer: I wouldn't feel bad about that. When the first season of the X-Files first came out I begged my parents for it. It wasn't until 6 months later that I actually received a DVD player to play them on.

#32 and 37 - If we're outing ourselves, then I have to admit this. I downloaded the STTNG theme song for my cell phone ringtone.

Of course, I also have the theme song from The Monkees. That plays when my children call. :)

I get alot of strange looks.

GeorgiaD - I really like that song (STTNG). Earlier in life when I still listened to music while working I had some couple of hundred songs set on random and I always smiled when the STTNG started, right between some Iggy Pop & Led Zep tunes ;-)

#39 *Snork!* theme song from The Monkees. That plays when my children call

I love it!

Well, when I'm sick but able to read books I would pull all my old favourites out:

The Fellowship of the Ring: I really like the first book most. When I'm to sick to read I would hear the audiobook.

As from others mentioned before:
Belgariad-Series and all the other Eddings-Series. A nice bunch of companions, black humor, a fluent story and none of the charakters you like would die in the end.

Pride and Prejudice: The book as well as the movie - I really like the humor of Miss Austen.

And when I'm really really sick and none of these books could help, I would grab some really trashy romance novels with guaranteed happy endings until I feel better to read better books.

:-)

Just about anything by Georgette Heyer, that or favorites from when I was young, i.e., The Good Master and Singing Tree by Kate Seredy, or Kathryn Worth's They Loved to Laugh, or even the girly-classics Little Women or The Little Princess.

#41 MrsLee - Trust me, it fits their personalities! They both play guitars, banjos, and mandolins. My oldest picked out the tune of The Monkees and plays it from time to time. :)

When I was in hospital with hepatitis, I read all of Metamagical Themas, a difficult but ultimately rewarding book. I would have given up on it if I was anywhere else.

Something light and funny that doesn't require too much thought and takes my mind of how miserable I feel.

The Jeeves books byWodehouse or the Dragon series by Patricia Wrede.

And I second the STNG love...in sickness or in health!

You guys are great! This has been helpful. And I'm STILL sick, and at work, and they're sending me home because I just SNEEZED on the head of the art department.

For the past two days, I have been too dizzy to read (this is hard, but I'm at work, so I need to at least PRETEND to be doing something) so I watche House, MD from one in the afternoon until ten at night on Tuesday.

Yesterday I watched Zodiac and Hot Fuzz, because House was getting too intense, and when I'm sick I get really weepy, and kept BAWLING whenever ANYTHING happened on that stupid show (including whenever House limped, so it was pretty much continuous).

When I get home, I was planning on going to the Strand, but I'm feeling really vile, so I might go home and finish Yiddish Policeman's Union: A Novel. Also, I bought season two of House, and didn't tell my roommate so she can't watch it. HAHAHA.

I need more medicine.

I love House. Hugh Laurie is a hottie.

Audiobooks read by Garrison Keillor make me feel better when I am sick. His voice is very soothing. My favorite is "More News from Lake Wobegon."

When i'm too sick to read, i like something light and out of this world that makes me laugh and reminds me it'll be better soon. Usually it's Firefly, Galaxy Quest, or Weeds.

When I am sick my body normally just shuts down and I tend to sleep a lot.

Its just what my mom programmed me to do. As a kid it was take some (Insert medicine here) and go to bed.

Sometimes I read but most of the time I just sleep.

#48 I just ordered his novel. If he can write AND act...

I also love reading The Belgariad or The Malloreon. (If I'm really under the weather, I get through both series before I'm on my feet again.)

Unfortunately (or not), I haven't been sick (not even a cold) since 2001, or something like that. No going home, no spoilitude from my mom (she always makes me pancakes when I'm sick) and no reading in bed all day.

Hey, Waterlily, that's news to me. I have a load of tapes by this guy and never listened to them. I didn't know what they were and Lake Woebegon sounded sort of Edgar A.Poe to me. Someone gave them to me and I just put them in a drawer. You say they are funny? I'm going to round up my old audioplayer and plug in. Let you know. Won't wait until I'm sick to listen to them. Actually I enjoy all my old Pogo comics when I'm really ill. Calvin and Hobbes is second choice.

I've been recovering from surgery and for the first week I was too wiped out to read! How sad is that! But once I was not falling asleep all the time, I grabbed my collections of mysteries. I reread all the Catherine Aird ones and then started on Agatha Christie. Finally I'm well enough to leave the house and I went to the library and checked out a bunch more of both series, which I am busy reading. It's just sort of comforting to read a mystery where I know the whodunnit all along.

But I'll also reread children's books when I'm sick too.

CMB

And hey, ellevee, hope you're feeling better.