Can anyone recommend a really comforting book?

[PumpkinWitch]

I am looking for something really nice to read that is not upsetting. I am doing the freedom program at the moment so anything about domestic abuse or with a lot of violence is too much for me.

I have been reading all the call the midwife books which I enjoyed. My grandma was a midwife at that time.

It can be fiction or non fiction. I don’t really like sci-fi (apart from Douglas Adams) but I enjoy lots of different types of books.

Three men in a Boat. Jerome K Jerome.

I'd second lots of those that have already been posted (although definitely not Elizabeth is Missing) and suggest anything by DE Stevenson or Miss Read. Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher is lovely.

September also by Rosamund Pilcher or any other of her books.

To serve them all my days by RF Delderfield and he also wrote a family saga

@DuckonaBike

In my opinion you can’t beat mid-twentieth century social comedy, so anything by Barbara Pym, Angela Thirkell or Stella Gibbons. Personal favourites are A glass of blessings (Pym) and The Matchmaker (Gibbons).

Also, murder stories are often very comforting, especially Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers.

Ms Pym got me through the worst year of my life.

Anything by Jill Mansell. Absolute escapism and really good.

Gervaise Phinn and Cathy Kelly

James Herriot's All Creatures Great And Small series is delightful.

Or for non-fiction, I find design books (garden design, how to lay a patio etc) very soothing.

Josephine Tey is also a good murder/detective read. The Daughter of Time and Brat Farrar are particularly good.

May I just say thank you to everyone on this thread and previous similar threads (which gave me The Blue Castle which is just lovely and Love Nina which was nice and all sorts of other books) I have ordered The Offing from my library and will get a copy of Bookworm when I am next in UK or Ireland.

Big vote for the Rosie Project. It's sweet and very funny.

Terry Pratchett has a number of key characters who each have a few books dedicated to them. The first one I ever read was Wyrd Sisters, featuring the inimitable Granny Weatherwax. Not a bad place to start.

Three Men in a Boat is my most favourite book ever.
Any Bill Bryson or James Herriot.
Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher
The Irish R.M.

Just came here to add Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Very comforting.
I was also going to say Eva Ibbotson’s adult/young adult offerings but she has been mentioned a fair bit up thread. The Secret Countess has already been said but I would throw in A Company of Swans and a Song for Summer. I’ve heard them described as books for “the thinking woman with flu”. Funny, clever and nothing awful happens even if things like the Second World War are lurking round the edges. They made great pandemic reading when I couldn’t deal with any more bad news.

Oh, and Gerald durrell's my family and other animals and the garden of the gods. Not a trigger to be found, just Idyllic descriptions of Corfu and funny anecdotes.

Yy to Maeve Binchy
Reread old favourites/classics like Jane Austen
A Little Princess/The Secret Garden / Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.

Another vote for Three Men in a Boat.
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/308

The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell.
Notes From A Small Island
A Walk In the Woods
One Summer
The Lost continent
Neither Here Nor There
by Bill Bryson

Jane Austen
www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=Jane+Austen&submit_search=Go%21

Monica Dickens 'one pair of hands' (Early 20C -funny /moving)

Cranford (Victorian- by Mrs Gaskell - Funny and soothing)

Anything by Georgette Heyer (set in Georgian England - light romantic and funny)

Meave Binchey..Rosamund Pilchard. Erin kelly..some Marita Conlan Mckenna.

books for “the thinking woman with flu

I love that.

Thinking about it, Jilly Cooper's non-fiction books can be very funny and gentle.

She recently brought out a collection of her old journalistic pieces in "Between the Covers". There's also "Turn Right at the Spotted Dog", which is a selection of essays about her move from London to her house in the country and "The Common Years" is her diary of their time living in Putney and contains some lovely descriptive passages about nature.

As I've said, the OP might be best to avoid the Rutshire chronicles, but for anyone who enjoys those (or, indeed, any of her other novels) "Class", though very dated, gives an insight into her perception of her characters.

Definitely agree with James Herriot, Bill Bryson.

Also: the Jeeves and Wooster books, The Secret Garden, Swallows and Amazons.

Coming Home by Rosamund Pilcher - it's like getting into a soft featherbed with a cup of tea on a cold night.

Sophie's Bakery For The Brokenhearted by Lolly Winston - the first few chapters are sad, but then it becomes just the most heartwarming, gentle, joyous story.

Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed is amazing.

The Lighthouse Keeper: a story of a soul.

I've got nothing to add as I haven't read in ages but I'm going to get my Kindle out tonight and buy Walking Back to Happiness by Lucy Dillon and watch this thread to try some of your other suggestions.

I Capture the Castle by Dodi Smith