Mumsnet Talk

Now I love my book club <waves as some of them are mnettrrs> but they keep making us read the most unrelenting stream of misery. If I'm not being torn apart by war I am being harrowed and tragic and I can't take any more <stamps foot>

I need something happy, something funny but not so fluffy that it doesn't warrant any discussion.

I have threatened them with 'I love you, Blue Kangaroo' or if I am feeling edgy then 'Dogger' or perhaps to fill their tragedy quotient 'Goodbye Mog'

I think everyone has read 'The Help'. I don't like non-fiction and one of us hates fantasy so those two genre are out. I'm all out of ideas!

Please does anyone have any suggestions ?
Thanks <and breathes>

I recommend 'The Paris Wife' by Paula McLain. It is about Ernest Hemingway and his first wife living in Paris in the 1920s and so far it is lovely. I am just getting to the tragedy bit, though, I think.

I'd second The Paris Wife. It was good. How about The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, or The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, anything by F Scott Fitzgerald or Daphne Du Maurier?

We have just read the Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Does have some sadness but also some humour and is charming.

I also loved the Paris Wife or for something really light , what about A Year of Doing Good by Judith Reilly

How about Iain Banks - either Crow Road or Espedair Street .. NOT The Wasp Factory! Great characters, the odd sad bit but dry humour too.

Or Restless by William Boyd. Story of a woman spy in WW2.

Also second the Daphne du Maurier suggestion. Especially My Cousin Rachel and Frenchman's Creek.

It's ok to pull out some classics isn't it?

How about some Tom Wolfe?

Bonfire of the Vanities
A Man in Full

Very clever and laced with humour.

Read the 100 year man who climbed out the window.... definitely funny, and quite unusual.

The 100 year old man is quirky and very funny, I thought. Very enjoyable read.

Thanks all.

100yr old man is being read by several of us at the mo (me included) so that won't work [grinw

I'm going to have a look at some of the other suggestions, thanks

100 year man is currently 20p on Kindle

Would recommend Rules of Civility. A divine read, both very very funny and very very warm.

How about "The Thoughts and Happenings of Wilfred Price, Purveyor of Superior Funerals" by Wendy Jones.
It was the only book our book club read last year where every member loved it (and to be honest the majority wouldn't have picked it up in a bookshop)
A truly lovely book.

I am absolutely loving "Capital" by John Lanchester- funny, clever and lots to talk about as it is the story of several different people / types on a South London street during the financial crash. Brilliantly clever but not about money.

The Paris Wife and Rules of Civility have been read and enjoyed by our book group. Capital is very good too. We're currently reading Heft by Liz Moore which I found very uplifting.

Rules of Civility is a really good read. I found it a little "try too hard" perhaps, but that's being uber critical and due to the fact, I think, that I read it very soon after re-reading The Great Gatsby - you'll get my drift if you read it!

Capital is a great book imo.

I really enjoyed Major Pettigrew's Last Stand for gentle humour, uplifting, slightly weepy goodness.

Some succesful, enjoyed-by-all (non harrowing/war/misery) choices in our Book Club have been...

Escape, Carolyn Jessop (which is a shocking non fiction story but such a great read)
Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, Daphne Du Maurier
Rules of Civility, Amor Towles (didn't enjoy it that much personally, but still worth a read, lovely desriptions)
Pigeon English, Stephen Kelman (humourous yet touching, although last 20 lines a bit of a shock)
We are All Made of Glue, Marina Lewka (mixed reviews but generally liked and funny)

Am I the only one who didn't like the Paris wife then?

My book club loved How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. Very very funny.

I really hated that book Skater! It felt so forced and over the top, really couldn't get on with it at all - but the rest of my book club loved it! I think it might just be me!

I would recommend Starter for Ten by David Nicholls lighthearted but good if you all need a break from tragic novels,its based around the years at uni and relationships .

Must just be you :-)

Book club would be boring if we all liked the same thing;

Just really didnt like Paris Wife much at all, but then the longer I'm in our book club the more I'm beginning to realise that I have no interest in women who just need to "sort themselves out".