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Original poster

What are your comfort reads - books that you can read over and over again?

234 replies

harpomarx · 21/06/2008 22:03

You know, those books that you have been reading for years, have old dog-eared copies of and will pick up when there is nothing new that takes your fancy.

Mine are:

Almost anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but especially The Beautiful and Damned.

Betty MacDonald - The Egg and I etc

Nancy Mitford Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate etc

J. D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

Cold Comfort Farm

OP posts:
DforDiva · 12/07/2008 23:13

i grow up reading old classics, some of them were banned and destroyed as they were capitalist influenced
i love all
alexandre dumas
guy de mappassant
goerge sand
jules verne
emile zola
arthur conan doyle
robert l setvenson
theodre draiser
of course, jane austen, bronte sisters
russians
lev tolstoi
feodor dosteyvski
michail sholohov the silent don series i dont know why sholohov is not known, tihii don is great russian novel, i would love read it in english.
anyone know whos the author of white glove?
im into cjick lits these days, easy lazy reading

LadyThompson · 11/07/2008 11:49

The Flambards books by KM Peyton! Love 'em.

More votes for

Three Men in a Boat
Diary of a Nobody
Any of Wodehouse's Jeeves and Woosters

and if in more sombre mood

The End of the Affair - Greene
Brideshead or A Handful of Dust - Waugh

artgirl73 · 04/07/2008 14:03

Got to be Pride and Prejudice for me!

dweezle · 03/07/2008 10:32

The Magic Apple Tree - Susan Hill
Any of Ruth Park's novels
Brother of the More Famous Jack - Barbara Trapido
Anything by Howard Spring - they remind me of my yoof, sitting on the garage roof with a pile of apples and reading for hours and hours. Same goes for Mary Stewart, although not her historical/fantasy novels.

JackieNo · 01/07/2008 12:23

bamama - Miss Pettigrew is available from Persephone Books (although reprinting atm), which are beautifully produced books - a real joy to hold/read.

bamamama · 30/06/2008 13:22

Have just skimmed this - has anyone mentioned Margery Allingham and the Mr. Campion series? Quite marvellous in a dashing with horn rimmed specs kind of way (and ignoring the Peter Davidson dramatisation in the late 80s)

Someone mentioned Miss Pettigrew....I saw this recently (it's already been out in Oz) I just kept thinking "I bet the book is far better...

Quattrocento · 30/06/2008 13:16

Any light crime fiction - for instance

DL Sayers
Agatha Christie
Wilkie Collins

Funny light books, like:

PG Wodehouse
3 men in a boat
Gerald Durrell

Classic novels that are comforting reads even if they are not comforting books, such as:

Wuthering Heights
Any Jane Austen
Any George Eliot

The more literary end of chick lit, like Mary Wesley

HonoriaGlossop · 30/06/2008 13:03

anything by PG Wodehouse

The lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Friday's Child by Goergette Heyer

Ballet Shoes

Jane Eyre

Pride and Prejudice

StripeyKnickersSpottySocks · 30/06/2008 12:41

Yes- Cazalet books are fab.

I enjoy re-reading Phillipa Gregor's Wideacre trilogy. Also Garth Nix's Sabriel books.

Swallows And Amazons.

bagsforlife · 30/06/2008 10:28

I read the Cazalet chronicles when DS2 was a baby (how did I manage that??)13 years ago, will get them out again and re-read I think. They were brilliant. Also good book by Elizabeth Jane Howard - Something in Disguise, was adapted for TV with Anton Rodgers years ago. VG. Harpomarx - glad to see another Onions in Stew fan - love, love, love that book since a little girl (mother had it) and now my 21 year old DD has read it too...(quite a while ago) and we still quote hilarious bits from it.

christiana · 29/06/2008 11:31

Message withdrawn

jonamum · 29/06/2008 00:14

Another vote for In this House of Brede
The Rectors Wife - Joanna Trollope
Diary of a nobody
Oranges are not the only fruit

probablyaslytherin · 28/06/2008 23:59

My most read is Sunset Song by Lewis Grassick Gibbon, the first of his 'Scots Quair' trilogy. The rhythm of the language is very soothing, plus I come from that part of the world, originally, so it has a comforting familiarity. I know it so well that I can just dip in and out of it.

I'm also really fond of Paul Auster's True tales of American Life www.amazon.co.uk/True-Tales-American-Life-Auster/dp/0571210708/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=121469 3155&sr=1-1
Another book which can be dipped in and out of, because each tale is short. Then all you have to do is choose your genre: spooky;romance;loss etc.

For Those I Loved by Martin Gray is my most read autobiography. Had it been fiction, you'd think it was a touch improbable. Basically - spoiler here - he loses all his closest family twice in his lifetime. I don't like his writing style, but the story puts mundane woes into perspective.

wabbit · 28/06/2008 11:58

unfortunately it was my personality they likened
as I recall she was sophisticated in the way only brainless people can be My brothers used to prefix my nickname with Sophisti-

I like to think I've come on a bit in the years since I was 13!!

JackieNo · 28/06/2008 11:40
  • wow! Do you have inky black hair?
wabbit · 28/06/2008 11:37

OMG! my RL nickname is based on one of the characters from Imogen (the moggle... you all know who I mean) My friends thought I was like her
Everyone now calls me a shortened version of this - even my parents

JackieNo · 27/06/2008 22:48

Didn't we all want to be Imogen, or at least, to be transformed from shy, gawky schoolgirl into sultry vixen just by getting a haircut and some new clothes? I still do . (Obv am not a schoolgirl any more).

Original poster
harpomarx · 27/06/2008 22:46

ta for the link, Jackie...

funny how everyone remembers imogen's haircut!

am very impressed by everyone else's in depth knowledge of those books though, clearly a lot of JC comfort readers out there.

OP posts:
JackieNo · 27/06/2008 22:38

Here's the thread.

JackieNo · 27/06/2008 22:36

I really am. There was a thread not so long ago, where lots of people reminisced about them. Will search - you'll enjoy it...

Original poster
harpomarx · 27/06/2008 22:35

ok, just checked on Amazon.

I just knew it had something to do with a canal barge! What a random piece of trivia I have been storing in my mind all these years. Way to go, Jilly....

OP posts:
Original poster
harpomarx · 27/06/2008 22:33

wow, you really are reading them Jackie, aren't you?

from my half-baked, half-remembered description (it's been over 20 years) to a title in one minute!

ok, brief me on Octavia

OP posts:
JackieNo · 27/06/2008 22:32

Plenty available on Amazon (and second hand, even cheaper).

JackieNo · 27/06/2008 22:30

Imogen.

Original poster
harpomarx · 27/06/2008 22:29

what was that one called where some frumpy type goes off to the south of france with a tennis coach or something and gets an amazing tan in one day and a new haircut and is suddenly the hottest thing the Riviera has ever seen?

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