Can anyone recommend some really decent (well written) etc novels that are also really positive, almost “feel good”

Tipping the Velvet should hit the spot. Also Fingersmith but not Affinity.

You’re right that modern novelists don’t seem to be able to avoid the grim.

Julian Barnes is worth a try I think although I’m not an expert in his stuff.

John Le Carre is a properly great writer despite the genre tag so well worth a try.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell has some emotionally challenging elements but a resolution that will leave you feeling fine and it’s a brilliant book.

DH suggests Little Big by John Crowley. Lesser known but brilliantly written and uplifting (but lacking the narrative pizzazz of a Victorian triple-decker).

Ooh yes, the Shipping News has that sort of gentle feel about it. Enjoying this thread.

When you are feeling robust OP, I recommend 'All the light we cannot see'. I recommend it a lot - they should give me commission!

That They May Face the Rising Sun
Four Letters of Love
Brooklyn
The Shipping News
Possession is a great read.

Not particularly highbrow, but forgot to add that the Rumpole and James Herriot books, always make me feel good when i’m fragile.

Anything by Ali Smith or Sarah Waters also. High class literary fiction but easy to read as well, great characters.

Gilead
Secret life of bees
Alan Bennett

Travel literature was helpful for me when fragile and brain stretched - still evocative and literate but less demanding! e.g. Travels in a thin country, Bella Tuscany

x

The Dalia Lama’s Cat, David Michie.

I love David Nicholls for this kind of book. He's the author of 'One Day'.

I read 'Us' this year. It's better than 'One Day '. It's really an excellent book - funny, touching, life affirming and really well written. I laughed and I cried.
I think it was booker longlisted, but people were sneery about it because he's not considered highbrow enough. Brilliant writer.

Well that was weird, PuffinsSitOnMuffins not only recommended the three very ones i’d logged into recommend, but also Tamora Peirce who i love but always feel no one except me has ever read.
downloads rest of her suggestions in totally non-stalkery way
I would also add Good Omens, Elizabeth’s German Garden, and Diary of a Provincial Lady if you haven’t already read them?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Possession

Any of Matt Haig's books.

I tend to read feel good books which means barely any modern literary novels.
The Enchanted April
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
My Family and Other Animals (or any Durrell)
Currently downloading quite a bit of YA / fantasy / sci-fi onto my Kindle, total comfort food, e.g. Deep Secret, Diana Wynette-Jones, Tamora Pierce's Alanna books, Naomi Novik, Becky Chambers and just finished rereading Lord of the Rings. Not sure if any of that would be your cup of tea.

I like the Fredrik Backmann books, but they aren’t that highbrow or literary - just feel good.

Other Alexander MS books apart from no 1 detective agency also soothing, I like the Scotland St series.

Tales of the city are fun and well written. I will check out cold comfort farm. I enjoyed diary of an ordinary woman by Margaret forster. Not traumatic if I remember correctly and very interesting!

Another vote for The Secret Life Of Bees.

'Heavenly Hirani's School of Laughing Yoga' is a great feel good book.

This is the synopsis from Amazon: Annie Jordan never wanted to go to India: there were too many poor people and the wrong sort of smells. But when she ends up there anyway, to her great surprise it is not the beggars who cling to her, it's the lessons in life - courtesy of Heavenly Hirani and her beachside laughing yoga. A sparkling, moving, utterly charming new novel from the incomparable Sarah-Kate Lynch,

The keeper of lost things.
Well written and not necessarily cheerful but feel good.

Following this thread for suggestions. I love Kate Aitkinson and Maria Semple (and Marianne Keyes for very easy reading that will make me smile).

Oh yes cold comfort farm! Loved it!

Never I know just how you feel! I get really affected by everything when my emotions are raw. I'm currently reading "look who's back" by Timur Vermes and it's very funny. The woman who stayed in bed for a year I found quite empowering. It's not free of emotions but it's not traumatic and I ended up spurring her on. I totally understood her point of view and it was funny.

And the mountains echoed is brilliant. Tuesdays with Morrie is wonderful.
Big Stone Gap trilogy is quite heartwarming. I find empowering romance and fantasy/sci fi are good at times like this.

Autumn by Ali Smith. I was expecting a negative outcome that didn't happen.

A light read but Trustee from the Toolroom by Nevil Shute is a wonderful read. It was written in the late 50s by a man who was quite old by that time and has the usual issues that you are either OK with taking into account or not.

The Code of the Woosters by P G Wodehouse.

another vote for the Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne. I also read A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy, first thing I had read by her and well written, enjoyed it. Also the Love and Inheritance trilogy by Fay Weldon, and Elena Ferrante, the Neapolitan novels. I loved all of these.

A man called Ove.
The night circus