Life-affirming novels: what do you recommend

Also "Life After God" by Douglas Coupland, although my favourite of his is "Miss Wyoming" for its sheer daftness.

Life of Pi definitely. Read it 4 times. Fab.

Life affirming? The Secret by Ronda Byrne. This book has completely changed my life.

J-Pod by Douglas Coupland. Very funny? in that Canadian way? which translates well for British readers.

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Emma- Jane Austen... bitchy bullies can change
Middlemarch - George Eliot... virtue can be rewarded
Letters to Constance - Mary Hocking... Mumsnet in the 50s/ 60s (out of print but available in libraries)
Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson... makes you laugh
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Marina Lewycka... how family matters, despite everything (aka The Importance of Actually Caring)
Paul Scott: A Life - Hilary Spurling: just fantastically life affirming for the empathy and intelligence author displayed towrads not always likeable subject
Letters to Olga - Vaclav Havel: Love Story for East Europeans...

Join your local library and take out ten books each time and don't feel guilty about returning most of them unread!

Microserfs by Douglas Coupland and, although they are not books as such, Calvin and Hobbes comic strip collections.

cyanarasamba I love that book, I grew up in Malaya and Singapore, in the 60/70s and my parents had been there in the early 50's, we knew people who had lived through similar things.

A Catcher in the Rye

Also the Alchemist

Trolleydolly71, I agree. I read that and thought, wow. I have made it from the primordial soup to here....

Fannie Flagg is a lovely read. I recently read one about Elner Slinfissle?. "I can't wait 'til I get to heaven". Everybody in the book was lovely. No baddies! But all so real, so quirky and so easy to read about. I don't think it has changed my life though.

I am about to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. My friend SENT it to me months ago. It was out in USA first.

Love Rivals

I re read Antonia Forest's Falconer's Lure to cheer myself up.
Also "I Capture the Castle", "Pride and Prejudice", all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories and "Rivals" by Jilly Cooper.

Jane Eyre. Ballet Shoes.White Boots.Cold Comfort Farm,and any Harry PotterThese are what I read for what I call my confort reads.
Also Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel
I absolutely love Gone with the wind too and anything by Margaret Forster and a woman called Betty Macdonald[The egg and I and some others]
Some of these fit the OP some don't[got carried away sorry]
Also The Third Eye [that is a fab book]

Oh yes, "Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day" is just gorgeous!

I like (and am not at all religious) "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" and "Tuesdays With Morrie" as well.

But my favourite feel-good book ever has to be "Ballet Shoes" - lovely!

The Book theif -I loved it really really great book

Precious Bane - by Mary Webb, It's my favourite comfort-book and no-one else seems to have heard of it.
In the early 19th century, a young woman with a harelip falls foul of her family's ambition and the superstitions of the local community, but meets a man who may see her differently.

If you can't cope with dialect, it will grate but Mary Webb was a true lover of nature and writes beautifuly and the heroine's love for mankind, despite the troubles which befall her - shine through and through.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Wonderful story of boy surviving at sea with a bengal tiger. Can and should be read on many levels but you finish it thinking wow!

Danny Wallace!!!! Join Me & Yes Man - they leave me remembering that there are good people (albeit a tad unhinged) in the world, and restore my faith in random acts of kindness

Cold Comfort Farm.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (bit teenagerish but I love it still)
Jane Eyre

'This Book Will Change Your Life', I think it's called. It was a Richard & Judy thing, but don't let that put you off. It's an american author, and the cover has lots of iced donuts on the front. I really enjoyed the novel, one of those I wanted to buy for the people I care about.

Fried green tomatoes at the whistle stop cafe by Fannie Flagg. beautifully written, makes your heart soar

kitkat9 - yes, I dismissed the book at first as the cover was a tad Barbara Cartland - but wow what a story inside!

OsmosisBanana - love the name, I know what you mean about the film. That book changed my life. Oh I'm just remembering little Peekay and Granpa Chook

Another one I've just remebered is 'I Know this much is True' by Wally Lamb plus his other book 'She's Come Undone' Very Good.

If interested in non-fiction, there is the absolutely best life changing book ever 'The Power of Now' by Eckart Tolle - Bloody brilliant- it reprogrammes your brain as you're reading it.

life-affirming?
An Evil Cradling, Bryan (Brian?!) Keenan.

not a novel per se. non-fiction but beautifully written, poetic.

anything by Haruki Murakami, really beautiful writing style around some sometimes very ordinary subjects.

The Power of One - Bryce Courtenay. Brlliant book which the film did absolutely no justice at all about a young, white bullied boy growing up in South Africa going on to become boxing champion. It's not really about boxing though.

DH hates the word 'mommet' which is from Cold Comfort Farm - thinks its creepy - imo CCF is GREAT