Best books of comfort when you’re very sad?

[UntifyDu]

Please

and and for you @UntifyDu

I hope your soul feels lighter soon.

Another vote for PG Wodehouse and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a day.
Also Diary of a Nobody and Cold Comfort Farm.
I find non fiction a bit easier to read when blue sometimes, if I can get going, and i just listen to fiction audio books or plays instead.

When I was in a dark place from grief and unable to concentrate on reading someone suggested I re read books I'd previously enjoyed. When my mind drifted off I didn't lose the plot, and it was easy.

Hope you're ok OP

Any Jeeves & Wooster. Just joyous.
The Miss Read books. So soothing, with a love of nature and the seasons.
James Herriot books. I always used to read one after Christmas to get me through that gloomy post-Christmas period.

Sorry you are having a tough time OP.

I would recommend reading books you have read before, I always find this comforting when I am under stress.

If you want a recommendation however;

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer
Daddy Long Legs
The Trebizon series.
The lost art of keeping secrets.
The love hypothesis.
The grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.

Yes ballet shoes. Plus stuff like what Katy did and the 4 sequels.

The Laura Ingalls Wilder books, particularly The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie and These Happy Golden Years. I just love them whenever I feel low. I love the warm family relationships, and Pa and his fiddle.

As previously mentioned, the James Herriot books are lovely.

When tired and sad, I also read a lot of Bill Bryson. Sometimes I wish he would adopt me (even though I am middle aged and perfectly capable).

Agatha Christie is always a good read when life is crap.

In times of crisis, I always go for Georgette Heyer- the Grand Sophy, Frederica, anything where it is all nicely wrapped up at the end with a swoon into the sunset.
I hope things get better for you

Violets of March by Sarah Jio
Always makes me feel better!
Hope you'll feel better soon op!

PG Wodehouse
Enid Blyton 'Five Find-Outers'
Maeve Binchy
'William' books

James Herriot
Agatha Christie
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Ballet shoes
P. G. Wodehouse

All of the ones I was going to suggest have been mentioned on here already

The Pursuit of Love
Cold Comfort Farm
I Capture The Castle
Mapp and Lucia
Diary of a Provincial Lady
PG Wodehouse
Cazalet Chronicles
James Herriot
And I'd add Christie's Poirot and Marple mysteries too.

Coincidentally all set about a hundred years ago. There must have been something in particular about the 1920s that we find comforting today!

I've just been through spell of illness, and all I could bear to read was Marian Keyes- Rachel's Holiday, Again Rachel, The Woman Who Stoke My Life and The Other Side of the Story- and Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer.
I knew I was feeling better when I could face something new.
Good idea to curl up with a book- hope you feel better soon.

Check out Ella Berthoud's The Novel Cure and the Story Cure. They are in libraries too. She lists books to read according to how you are feeling, what your symptoms are etc with an accompanying blurb. A fascinating read and very helpful.

If you like animals, then James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small is as gentle, warm and comforting as a hot water bottle.

I also like books on DIY or garden design when I need to calm my anxious mind...there's nothing like a chapter discussing the relative merits of the Dutch hoe versus the Stirrup hoe to send me off to sleep. There is something very reassuring about lists of plants that thrive in shady corners, or the pros and cons of rawl plugs.

I second The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets. Possibly my favourite book ever for its innocence, gentle humour and nostalgia.

Hope you feel better soon OP 💐

I recommend my favourite book, The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery, (author of Anne of Green Gables). It fits your bill perfectly-wonderful escapism

Diary Of A Nobody by George Grossmith is one of the few books that makes me actually giggle aloud. A Victorian David Brent!

david Sedaris- will always cheer me up and make me chuckle

Light a penny candle by Maeve Binchy is warm, kind and comforting. And it's blissfully big. The ending feels slightly rushed but hopefully you'll be cheered up by then and won't care.

Definitely a Jilly Cooper book!

This sounds just the sort of book I love.
Op in the year after my father died, I read books that were melancholy in places and made me feel less out of kilter with everything, but nothing with a bleak ending.
I find older novels by female writers have this quality more. Emotional depth , but where stoicism and endurance triumph. Have a look at Persephone Books.

A month in the country by JL Carr is rather lovely (and nice and short for when your attention span is shot)

Dorothy L Sayers. Any and all of them but especially Gaudy Night.

Georgette Heyer, PG Wodehouse, Terry Pratchett, Anne of Green Gables series, All Creatures Great and Small series.

The tent, the bucket and me by Emma Kennedy and a circle of friends by maeve binchy