What We are Reading: Comfort Reads

What are the books you turn to again and again when things are stressful or life is coming at you very strongly or you are in a funk? And why these books?

The Mapp & Lucia series by E.F. Benson. Six books in the series, a delicious comedy of manners. Why these books? Because they transport me to another time, another way of living, another country (dear wonderful England), and they make me laugh down to the soles of my feet. Benson has a dry, sly wit which I adore.

Pride and Prejudice. Because it's wonderful.

Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen and Magic's Pawn series. Orson Scott Card's Ender books. I think because the characters feel very real to me, and many of them are people I'd befriend if they existed, so having them "around" is comforting, particularly since I moved so far from home.

I tend to turn to cozy mysteries such as those written Laura Child, Dorothy Gilman, and Lilian Jackson Braun. Sometimes I turn to a couple of romances I especially enjoy, My Darling Caroline by Adele Ashworth or One Perfect Rose by Mary Jo Putney

Little Women or I did until I gave it to my daughter. Because I love every one of the characters in this book.
Mists of Avalon love the book. It feels like true in an essential way.
The Once and Future King because I love the book, and because it was a gift from my friend in 1981, who died suddenly shortly afterward. I can no longer read that copy, but I have 2 others.
Lace Reader recently made it to my comfort pile. Again, this book just touches something in me.
Birth House Another fairly recent addition. like Lace it speaks to my heart.

I've been sick this weekend with migraines and cold & I found the Gemma Doyle trilogy - A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing to be very enjoyable comfort reads.

When I feel 'blah' and need a pick-me-up, I pick up one of the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson books... it's light, ridiculous, outrageous, and absolutely hilarious. Even when I'm in the worst place, all I have to do is pick up one of these books, read a few pages, and I find myself unexpectedly smiling again.

Any of the Frances and Richard Lockridge mystery series do it for me. The Pam and Jerry North stories, especially, because they are so right for each other, and they have cats. The cases themselves almost don't matter.