Any recommendations for really easy, funny or gentle reading?

[RomaineCalm]

I need something for a couple of short trips that is easy to read. The sort of thing that you can pick up, read a few pages and then put down. Normally I read a lot of psychological thrillers, I like Margaret Atwood, some historical stuff and also a lot of non-fiction but I could just do with something uplifting and... easy.

My usual guilty (easy) pleasure is Danielle Steel and Sophie Kinsella but I've run out of those.

[FissionChips]

Running with scissors by Augusten Burroughs. It’s really absurdly funny.

[pallisers]

Anne of Green Gables (the first one - it is very very funny)
The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery also - just lovely.
Maybe a Georgette Hayer?
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
I Capture the Castle
Miss Marjoribanks (possibly out of print but might be on kindle)
Any of the Mapp and Lucia books

[Taytotots]

If you like Sophie Kinsella maybe try Milly Johnson - Yorkshire pudding club etc. Or Adriana Trigliani's Big Stone Gap trilogy.

[littlemisscomper]

I was going to say Sophie Kinsella. You know where you are with her, nothing horrible ever happens and some of them are properly laugh out loud.

I love PJ Wodehouse too. 3 men and a maid is great, and the Jeeves books of course.

[hackmum]

Aunt Mame by Patrick Dennis is very funny.

[RomaineCalm]

Some great ideas, thank you. I am happily reading reviews and downloading!

[BertieBotts]

Anything by Bill Bryson or Danny Wallace :)

[lastqueenofscotland]

Love Nina by Nina stibe

[hackmum]

Easily the funniest book I've read in years is Ma'am Darling by Craig Brown.

[Time40]

The Mapp and Lucia books
Cold Comfort Farm
Diary of a Provincial Lady

• all very old, and all very, very funny

[DancelikeEmmaGoldman]

Monica McInerney and Marion Keyes write in the same vein as Danielle Steele I think. Also Belinda Alexander - although my patience with the family saga thing gave out quickly. But I have friends who love her.

In a very different vein, if you don't object to YA fantasy, the Sorcery and Cecelia novels by Carolyn Stevermer are elegant and witty, written as a series of letters between two young women. If Georgette Heyer wrote regency fantasy as epistolary novels, that's about where you'd end up.

Garth Nix's Newt's Emerald is very firmly Heyer meets fantasy and is very good fun.

[Izzywigs]

My greatest surprise, amusing book this year is Breakfast at Tiffiny’s. It is such a joy to read. I would love to,know what others thought of it.

[FindingJessica]

Thanks for posting the question, I too am looking for some uplifting easy reading books to read over the next few weeks so will be reading these too. So glad I just discovered this section of MN.

[NeverTwerkNaked]

I’m quite enjoying The Lido at the moment, someone gave it to me for my birthday.

I often re- read childhood favourites if I need something soothing and uplifting and easy to read

[sashh]

A totally different kind of reading but something you can easily read in small chunks I am currently reading '100 Acts of Minor Dissent' by Mark Thomas.


I you get Mark Thomas' humour then it is great. If not it might be a bit silly.

He does things like 'book heckling' - leaving notes in books in bookshops for readers to find later.

Having a group of female comedians race remote control cars around the Saudi embassy in protest of women being banned from driving.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Izzy - I adore Breakfast at Tiffany's.

My comfort 'ovely' books:
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
84 Charing Cross Road
What Katy Did
Daddy Long Legs
Ballet Shoes
Jane Austen, especially P&P and S&S

[Izzywigs]

Remus I Really enjoyed it. The film is on next week so I will have a look at that , though I have heard it nothing like the book.

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

The film is superb, but, yes, v different from the book.