Top Five Comfort Reads

You know the ones- those "Go Tos" for when you just want to be coddled by your reading.

The James Herriot books
Like valium to me. I read them every few years. They remind me of going on farm calls with the vet that I worked for when I was a teenager and the kinds of people that I was raised around- sometimes infuriatingly set in their ways, but comforting and safe in their consistency and in the work they do that never feels pointless and always has tangible results.

Circle of Friends- Maeve Binchy
It's just a good story, a good, gossipy drama with an uncomplicated villain thats not too cartoonish. It seems like the characters had all the drama they were supposed to within the pages of this book and afterwards went back to their quiet lives. It reminds me of the kinds of twenty year old mild to medium scandal stories that ladies tell one another over margaritas. "Well, you know her first husband ran off with Dr. Everett's dental hygienist." I've tried other books of hers and thought they were beyond vomitous, but I always come back to this one for some reason.

The Hank the Cowdog books- John Erickson
Pure nostalgia. Some of the words he uses, it's stuff that I've heard people say but never seen in print. "So THAT'S how you spell that..."

Lonesome Dove- Larry McMurtry
Gus McCrae is one of the best, easiest to love characters ever. So funny. There are so many great characters in this. I've heard people call this book depressing, and it's certainly not a "feel good" book, but, at its least, it's a damned fine story that you can lose yourself in when that's all you want- but its never shallow.

Middlemarch- George Eliot
This book has all the answers. Well, maybe not, but it's definitely got a lot of them.

The Blue Sword - Robin McKinley
A lovely romance/adventure in a world that is different, but not very. The heroine is strong and brave and utterly bewildered by the turn her life has taken. The hero is strong and brave and totally at a loss concerning the heroine!

Ishmael - Barbara Hambly
An original series Star Trek novel. Spock is the main character in a plot circumstance that allows for a deeper examination about what makes him alien, and what makes him human. The author often drops a word or a phrase that makes me stop and look again, because it is so perfect. The book also has a delightful plot device that brings in some characters from another favorite TV series of the era - and cameo appearances from still others!

Any L'Amour western, but most especially Flint and Conagher.
Predictable? Maybe. Formulaic? Sometimes. Well-written? You betcha. The descriptions are familiar and sometimes sing. The characters are stock, but often have some depth to them. And their very familiarity is comforting and soothing when I need it.

ETA: I just noticed this was supposed to be 5. I'll add a couple more tomorrow.

The nine tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers. Yes, I know whodunnit - I've read it so many times that I know the plot by heart. But I just love the bleak fenland midwinter setting and I love Lord Peter.

Sense and sensibility by Jane Austen, when I need to escape to a quieter world, full of subtlety and delicate wit.

The Attolia books by Megan Whalen Turner for her devious hero, Eugenides. MWT has such a wonderful clear style of writing, not a word wasted. Very easy to read, yet you can always sense something stirring between the lines.

The ships of air by Martha Wells. The second book in her 'Fall of Ile-Rien' fantasy trilogy. This is sheer escapism. Gripping action, an atmospheric setting, and characters you don't want to part with when the book finishes.

And finally, A civil campaign by Lois McMaster Bujold, again because I love the characters and the twisty plotting.

Pride and Prejudice - doesn't really need an explanation, does it?

Jamaica Inn - possibly the first "adult" book I read as a child, and now disintegrating gently.

Friday's Tunnel by John Verney - made me yearn to be part of a huge, mad family with erudite, creative parents as well as to be much more interested in reading newspapers than I was. February (narrator and heroine) still makes me laugh. I was deeply shocked when I lent this book to a friend in my teens who read it, returned it, and said simply, "What an obnoxious, precocious child". I wanted to cry or hit her. Felt it hard to speak to her thereafter.

Grimbold's Other World by Nicholas Stuart Gray - found me at exactly the right moment in my life, and is my Desert Island Book - I know it's short, but the memories are so powerful.

And Molesworth - the compleet (sic) or any individual volumes. Mind you, I don't read it through, just dip in when I feel I need a fix. "Mrs Joyful's Prize for Rafia Work" anyone? "This one go PLUNK."

Lord of the rings

Foreigner

the cruel sea

Mayor of casterbridge

And probably anything by Lee Child

All different: All for different times and levels of comfort required. To be totally absorbed and carried away, or reminded that life can be much harder.

Frenchman's Creek
Life of Pi
The Madness of a Seduced Woman (maybe not an obvious choice but I've read it so often I can nearly recite it and that always helps)
The Enchanted April
Picnic at Hanging Rock

Do I really only get 5? I could go on and on. Anything by Thomas Hardy would have to be there. As would anything by Michel Faber. And depending on the depth of the depression I might even have to dig out my Malory Towers boxed set. Then therea re all those ones I read time and time again in my teens, which always make good comfort reading - Valley of the Dolls, Forever Amber etc. And I'd certainly agree with the OP about Middlemarch and probably quite a bit of Dickens too. At this rate I'm rather looking forward to the next time I feel down.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophesies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Anything Jeeves/Wooster

As reading_fox says, it varies. Some of my recent choices have been:

Castleview or Pandora by Gene Wolfe: less work than his Sun books, but beautifully written and tons of fun.

Any of the Ballad Novels by Sharyn McCrumb

Any of Guy Kay's earlier fantasies

Any of Julia Spencer-Fleming's mystery series

UKL's The Beginning Place

>7 kristenn: I started listening to My Man Jeeves on CD in the car and was totally enjoying it. Unfortunately, as with some library CDs, the skips once into the second story became so bad I couldn't listen to it anymore *sigh* I can certainly see where you'd read it as a pick me up.

The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer

Slightly Married by Mary Balogh

Shadow of the Moon by M M Kaye

Cry No More by Linda Howard

Way Station by Clifford D Simak

I have no idea how many times I have read each of these - probably at least ten times each.

I can't believe you guys and your Thomas Hardy for comfort reads. haha To each their own, though.

The Four Graces by D. E. Stevenson
Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers
A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
The Corner Shop by Elizabeth Cadell
The Toll Gate by Georgette Heyer
Dragonsdawn by Anne McCaffrey
Dawn's Early Light by Elswyth Thane
An Old Fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott
Dear Enemy by Jean Webster
From Anna by Jean Little
The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

I know. That is more than five. Once I started, I just couldn't stop, and I could easily have gone on for dozens more. At least I limited myself to one by each author.

A lot of "women's" books, and they are all books that I first read over twenty years ago.

Oooh yes, Town Like Alice is a good one!

Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield
Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster

I find diaries/letters soothing for some reason. Must be that history training.

jennieg - If you're fond of diaries I can highly recommend The Assassin's Cloak: an Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists. A nice big fat read, perfect for dipping into and, you are quite right, great comfort reading.

Oh, yes. Add Daddy Long Legs to my list too! It never ages. Amazing.

>15 Booksloth: I trust you, booksloth; I'll add it to the list.

>16 MerryMary: One of the things that makes me happy about Daddy Long Legs is remembering my oldest daughter's amazement, at about the age of ten, with the 'surprise' ending.

#17 Thanks jennieg - you may live to regret that kind of foolhardiness ;-) And, in return, I've just gone and ordered a copy of Daddy Long Legs! I read it when I was about 10 and have been meaning to replace it ever since.

Did you know it's never been out of print?

Yes, I knew - just never quite got round to it!

My favourite comfort reads would be:
Anything and everything by Tamora Pierce (i know that's 25+ books but hey)
Poison Study - dunno why i just really like re-reading it
The Chronicles of Narnia always quick fun re-reads
and that's all I've got at the moment...

For cheering up:

The Straight and Narrow Path by Honor Tracy
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

For getting absorbed in another world:

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

For escapism:

Mysteries in general

Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
Free to Be, You and Me by Marlo Thomas
Job: A comedy of Justice by Robert Heinlein

#17: Jennie - That scene (between you and your daughter) is repeated over and over. I remember (at about age 12 - I'm 60 now) expressing the same surprise to my mother, who said, "Oh, I read that at your age, and I figured it out before the end." So my mom (age 83) read it when she was a preteen.

And like I said, somehow it never gets stale or dated. It obviously takes place in a time long ago, but Judy and her friends are still as believable as they ever were.

These are purely on an emotional level and hard to stop at five-

1. Ring of Bright Water by Gavin Maxwell
2. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
3. The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher
4. Anything by Gene Stratton-Porter (Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles, Harvester) cheating, I know.
5. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

As a matter of fact, I think I will dive into Tinker Creek right now!

Omigod! Hadn't given much thought to Ring of Bright Water since I cried myself into hysterics over it at school. That's one that would definitely make me feel a million times worse even though it IS a great book!

#24 That's cute, Mary. It's sweet to think of this conversation continuing through the generations.