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Ultimate Comfort Reads

VanVan
edited August 2010 in - Reading
http://indiaknight.posterous.com/ultimate-comfort-reads

This got me thinking about my ultimate comfort reads; I often re-read quite a few of the books on this list, esp. Pride & Prejudice, Rivals and Little Women. Anybody got any more not on this list?

Comments

  • Anita Shreve's The Last Time They Met.

    I will never forget turning that page at the end and realising what a wonderful tale had been told. I've re-read it many times and the pleasure never deminishes.
  • Agree BB. A lot of Anita Shreve's are like that.

    The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks , is mine at the moment but this changes often depending on mood.
  • A romance of course- Stephanie Laurens Four in Hand.
    Fun, always makes me grin at the characters antics and I get to the end and it leaves me smiling.
  • edited August 2010
    I just read a wonderfully funny and comforting book by Laurie Graham, called 'Life According to Lubka'. Brilliant! I'll be going back to it.
  • I really like 'Someone like you' by Cathy Kelly. A romantic one! :-)
  • Agreed with quite a few titles, though as well as Secret Garden, I'd go for A Little Princess. Also, What Katy Did, i love that. I didn't quite agree with I Capture the Castle...i didn't like that one though. Otherwise an agreeable list.
  • Any of Tove Jansson's Moomin books!
  • If you haven't read Mapp and Lucia, E F Benson, do. Wonderful. Especially if you live in a village.

    I also like Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, and anything by him.

    Rebecca is always a bit full of excruciating-ness for me. To read for comfort I mean.

    Anything by Alexander MCall Smith, not just the Glasgow ones.
  • I looked at the list, realised I a) hadn't heard of 99% of them and b) probably wouldn't go near 99% of them, starting with Jane Austen, so my comfort list would be very very different.
    Actually this goes back to the thread about recommending books - Liz is recommending books here but - I never read books on recommendation these days, it is invariably a disappointment and whilst that item has filled a few inches of space, it is not to be taken seriously by anyone, surely!

    so, Van, I would have many that are not on that list and would discard most of them that are. That may say a lot about my reading habits ...
  • Rosalie, I agree with the Moomins, just bought one to read to my granddaughter. I hope she enjoys them just as much as I do.
  • I had already picked A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth before I clicked on the link - and there it was.
  • Any Jane Austen. They just seem to get better the more I read them.
  • Susie, have you read Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book' and "A Winter Book"? They are short stories for adults and I love them too. There are also other books of her short stories starting to appear in translation now.

    Agree with Liz re Alexander McCall Smith (all of them) and Armistead Maupin.
  • Me too re AMcCS
  • [quote=Baggy Books]Anita Shreve's The Last Time They Met.[/quote]
    That was one of my Job Lot in the 2nd hand sale at Roadwater Fete 2 weeks ago!
    On your recommendation, Baggy, I'll read that next when I've finished 'The Other Boleyn Girl'
  • I hope you enjoy it. I have all her books except the latest and I'm treating myself to that for my October holiday.
  • [quote=lexia]The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks [/quote]

    Watched the film too many times. I'll try the book. The ultimate love story?
  • Wind in the Willows
  • Clive Barker's Imajica and Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon. I am on my fourth or so copy of each of them because they've fallen apart with so much handling.
  • Wind in the Willows - timeless and wonderful. As is Alice Through the Looking Glass. And then there is good old Harry P.
  • Well, MY comfort read is actually 'The Lord of the Rings' .... I don't think I've read any of the ones in that list (or heard of them :/ Actually, only ONE on that list I've read, and that's 'The Secret Garden') I'm always re-reading and going back to LOTR, especially when I'm in a bad mood.
  • Not heard of them? REALLY???


    * Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - Surely you must know this one?
    * I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - We read this at book group, quite enjoyed it
    * Persuasion by Jane Austen - This one you must have heard of?

    * Anything by Georgette Heyer - These are historical, and also hysterical. Very light reading and very funny.

    * Wuthering Heights by Emily Bront
  • Any of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. The characters are wonderful and It's like saying hello to old friends. My favourite is DEATH. Lots of laughter and excitement and I often find things I never noticed the first dozen times round.

    When I was a child I used to read Little Women, Good Wives etc. over and over again. Every time I read of Beth's death it made me cry. I practically knew that chapter by heart.
  • Ditto re the wonderful Terry Pratchett - love 'Mort' when DEATH takes a holiday! Hilarious :D
  • I meant not heard of all of them Liz, not that I haven't heard of ANY of them :P .... obviously heard of Twilight (blergh) and Jane Austen (not my cup of tea at all) and Wuthering Heights (again never read, not my cup of tea again) ... I could list others but no :P I've only read ONE on that list. And tbh, I probably wouldn't read any of the others.
  • Anita Shreve's 'The Last Time They Met' has a brilliant ending...
  • Jed, with you there.
    As I said up there earlier, Jane Austen, definitely NOT. PG Wodehouse, definitely NOT, 84 Charing Cross Road, gave up ten pages in, bored senseless. HE Bates, good for dramatisation, not for reading. Yes, I could dispute a lot on that list!
    Lord of the Rings, definitely on my list.
    The Blue Lagoon, H De Vere Stacpoole, definitely, (is that not a superb name for a novelist?)
    Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K Jerome, timeless comedy
    A Horseman Riding By trilogy, RD Delderfield, re-read and re-read and re-read. And The Avenue stories and Diana and ...
    Howard Spring, any of them. All of them. I fall into them like old, old friends.
    On The Beach, Nevil Shute, oh definitely.
    ALL of Ray Bradbury's - bar none.
    The Old Curiosity Shop, Dickens, love it love it love it.
  • Ooh, Tom McCaughren's fox books! I've loved them all my life (the 3rd in the series 'Run Swift, Run Free' being the first I read at the age of 7) .... imagine my surprise when I just found out that a sixth in the series was released in 2000!! How did I miss that!?! *must now go and find 'Run to Cover' on Amazon and buy it NOW)
  • Are they about foxes Jediya?
  • Yep. It's about a group of foxes and their struggles to live and survive -
    first book is 'Run with the Wind';
    second: 'Run to Earth';
    third: 'Run Swift, Run Free';
    fourth: 'Run to Ark'
    fifth: 'Run to Wild Wood'
    and sixth 'Run to Cover'

    Who knows how many times I've actually read them. The first book is 27 years old now.
  • [quote=Liz!]* Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder - read all these, wonderful and historical details fascinating[/quote]

    Agreed. I've also read the biography and other bits and bobs by her daughter.
  • Book 7 - Run to the hills: Iron Maiden are coming :D
  • Oh, so have I Baggy!
  • I also have maps and stuff from Walnut Grove.

    Do I need help?
  • Not read many of India Knight's list, but I would include Anna Karenina. A bit harrowing, but so are Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. And how can she include Persuasion but miss out Mansfield Park?

    [quote=dorothyd]Jane Austen, definitely NOT.[/quote]

    Hell's bells, Dorothy, dear girl, her books are a pillar of out national heritage!

    Oh, I was forgetting you're on another island ;) .
  • If that;s our national heritage, heaven help us!! I prefer more earthy people, Catherine Cookson for one. Her early books are wonderful, you can get totally lost in them. Don't ask me to get involved in Austen's world, it doesn't suit me at all.

    I have been an 'overner' here for just 15 years, so I can't use that excuse!
  • [quote=dorothyd]If that;s our national heritage, heaven help us!![/quote]

    That puzzles me....I've been to the house where Jane Austen grew up, in Chawton and it's beautifully restored to look how it did when she was alive, they even managed to get the little table where she used to write by the window. As far as I could see, she was a genteel, selfless young woman who loved her family, if the framed letters in many of the rooms are any indication and that she was very brave during her final illness though it must've distressed her so much how it weakened her and altered her apperance.
    I'll admit I struggle with her books and find Jane Eyre more pleasant to read, but the film adaptations have been enjoyable and are my parents' favourites to watch every so often, while I loved the references made to Persuasion in the romantic movie The Lake House.
  • another ultimate comfort read btw for me is the chicken soup series....chicken soup for the couple's soul has always been a curl-up-and-feel-better book when i'm missing my bf.
  • TD, we have so many wonderful writers - more so part of our heritage than she is, IMO. Dickens, Trollope, Hardy ... she is just one of a series, in truth, is she not? Her personal life doesn't impinge on what we are left with, a 'museum' where she lived and books some of us will not touch.
    I avoid the adaptations as if they were the plague, too. TBH
  • Certainly we have a number of wonderful writers (Dickens' best work imo is the Signalman), I do love that we aren't limited to a favourite number of authors :-p
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