old fashioned gentle books

[mumwon]

Talking on another topic 2 of us mentioned "Mrs Harris goes to Paris" a lovely uplifting old fashioned book - ia there any books that other people like - either as a child or as an adult that you can suggest & tell us about them - briefly!
Mrs Harris is about an old fashioned char who saves & goes to Paris to buy Dior dress
& "Family at One end Street" children's story about a family with several dc before the ww2

@AwkwardSquad I was going to suggest Lilian Beckwith too! I love her Scottish island books.

Also Carol Shields books

The series of 5 books about the Caszalet family by Elizabeth Jane Howard. The first one starts in the 30s and we get to know them over the course of a few decades.
It’s not at all sensational, but plenty happens, and it’s got strong elements of social history, with really fascinating details about how lives panned out in the near past.

Gerald Durrell books. Also The Midwife of Pont Cléry and The Virtuous Women of Pont Cléry.

My birthday present of Anna Charlotte (Clare Mallory) vintage teen fiction with a really good home/self makeover subplot and a cover of shimmering cotton reels. www.amazon.co.uk/Anna-Charlotte-Clare-Mallory/dp/0956462677/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&keywords=Anna+Charlotte&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1558982280&sr=8-1

Mara Kay’s Circling Star is tougher to reread and I’m glad I’ve found it again.

What about Adele Geras trilogy of boarding school stories. I think they start with The Tower Room and I really loved Bella’s jazz.

I loved the Jennings books as a child. I have lovely memories of my dad reading them to me and my brother as a bedtime story.

Brambley Hedge series -. My normally superhero loving 5 yr old ds adores these gentle tales of country living mice (they're actually my old books from the 80s)

All the Shirley Hughes books (again my kids read my old ones which is lovely)

Lillian Beckwith - books about moving to live in a crofting community on Skye.

Hermann Hesse is the gentlest writer. Also Tove Jansson's "The Summer Book" which is a gorgeous celebration of the adventures of a girl and her imaginative grandmother. I've just finished reading Geraldine Brooks "Years of Wonders", which didn't have a gentle subject (it's about a village which isolates itsself because it is infected with plague, in 1666) but it describes the beauty of the landscape and weather/seasons in a very gentle, low key way. It also shows profound emotions in an equally understated and therefore, more poignant manner.

The Bagthorpe Family Saga - especially the one called Absolute Zero. Just remembered I thought they were the most hilarious books in the world! By Helen Creswell.

Mary Mouse by Enid Blyton. We had several at home when I was a youngster; they were cheque book - sized and printed on textured cardboard. Apparently quite valuable now.

I love In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. No-one I mention it to has ever heard of it!

As you might guess from my name, I also love Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody books.

“I love In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. No-one I mention it to has ever heard of it!”

Me me me! I have!! Not very gentle and comforting though!

Maeve Binchey for gentle, uncomplicated characters and stories.

Monica Dickens

Diary of a Nobody

These all sound so lovely!

Also Mary Wesley, though I haven't read them for years so don't know if they'll have stood the test of time.

84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Gone With The Wind

Most of my favourites have been mentioned but wanted to add The Darling Buds of May series, just lovely feelgood reading.

I’ve always reread my childhood favourites for comfort and it’s interesting to see how many others people do too.

A wonderful book for children and adults alike, Carbonel, the adventures of two children with a very regal cat

I was thinking & this may sound strange "On the Beach" although the subject is the end of mankind the story is strangely gentle & sad
actually Neville Shute has written other stories - some of which you couldn't call gentle (a Town like Alice) but they have something - I have been thinking about reading some earlier 20th century authors -

Maeve Binchy is the archetypal story teller. Marian Keyes is a modern version with more humour and sex.

The Little House books, the Anne of Green Gables series, Heidi, A Little Princess, Goodnight Mr Tom, Charlotte's Web, The Midnight Fox, The Secret Garden, the What Katy Did books, The Ordinary Princess, Tom's Midnight Garden, Harriet The Spy. (Anything I've re-read a bunch of times and still love.) The Chalet School books are good too, I'm going to have to find them to re-read again. Oh, and The Worst Witch books!

Not as old but still lovely, if you can find any of Deric Longdon's books they're a fantastic read.

A lot of mine have been mentioned, but I'll add Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series and K M Peyton's Flambards and its sequels. The first are really children's books and the second are Young Adult but both are good reads for adults.

The Children of Green Knowe bears repeating. The bit about the long-dead grandmother singing the baby to sleep always makes me cry.

Did anyone else have the Oxford Paperbacks when they were children? They were a bit taller than other paperbacks and had a distinctive coloured stripe along the bottom of the cover, all the way round.

This thread has prompted me to Google a book which my DM won in Sunday School back in the 1950s. I've searched for it before but never found it, but today I did! Does anyone else know 'Meet Gay of Green Haven'?

Ooohhhh I love the Flambards trilogy!