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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

In wanting to read a happy book?

228 replies

ICantCopeAnymore · 31/05/2018 20:38

I suffer with PTSD and anxiety and I love reading. I'm really struggling with my mental health which is very up and down and books used to be my happy place.

More recently, I've found that everything I read is miserable. Full of death, cancer, illness, murder etc. Even the women's fiction books like Katie Fforde type literature have started going the same way, always including a young widow, a dreadful car accident, funerals and dying children. I was recommended "The Lido" and I've never sobbed so much through a book. It was supposed to be an uplifting, heartwarming read and it was about dreadful loneliness and death.

These things are all really triggering for me at the moment - AIBU in just wanting an escape from hospitals and death? I feel like I can't read or watch TV any more without being bombarded with misery.

Can anyone recommend anything to read that isn't traumatic please?

Thank you Smile

OP posts:
UpstartCrow · 31/05/2018 21:39

You can download ebooks from Project Gutenberg, including PG Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde.

www.gutenberg.org/

Original poster
ICantCopeAnymore · 31/05/2018 21:40

Oh, thank you all so much! This is such an exciting thread for me Grin I've just downloaded Bill Bryson's latest and will be working my way through everything!

OP posts:
Clionba · 31/05/2018 21:41

So true Doingreat, I'm sick of reading that kind of stuff.

aaarrrggghhhh · 31/05/2018 21:42

The Rosie Project
No 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series (lots of books to read!)
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Series

littlebillie · 31/05/2018 21:42

Lost art of keeping secrets - just lovely

KarinVogel · 31/05/2018 21:43

H.E.Bates Darling buds of May better than the tv series
E M Delafield Diary of a provincial lady series - Why Mummy drinks for a more genteel age Wink

FASH84 · 31/05/2018 21:45

I second so many of these suggestions and wanted to add the cows by dawn o'porter currently reading it (£4 Asda) funny, strong female characters, uplifting and empowering

aaarrrggghhhh · 31/05/2018 21:46

Jeeves series by PG Wodehouse
Dorothy L Sayers Lord Peter Whimsey books

Cleanermaidcook · 31/05/2018 21:46

Terry Pratchett Discworld books.

aaarrrggghhhh · 31/05/2018 21:48

The Men who stare at goats

Redken24 · 31/05/2018 21:48

I am kind of in this reading phase as well. Too much horrible stuff everywhere and can't sleep cause of it sometimes.

I been through kindle unlimited and this author is good.
T S Joyce.
Try the boar landers series. It's romance but some laugh out loud and very easy to read.

RayRayBidet · 31/05/2018 21:49

Please please please read Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, it's really funny and so sweet!
Also anything by Georgette Heyer

orangesandpeaches · 31/05/2018 21:49

Gervase Phinn has written about his time as a school inspector. I have read his all his non fiction books and they are laugh out loud.

Jaimx86 · 31/05/2018 21:53

I really, REALLY, enjoyed reading Heavenly Hirani's School of Laughing Yoga.

Book description: Annie Jordan never wanted to go to India: there were too many poor people and the wrong sort of smells. But when she ends up there anyway, to her great surprise it is not the beggars who cling to her, it's the lessons in life - courtesy of Heavenly Hirani and her beachside laughing yoga. A sparkling, moving, utterly charming new novel

KarinVogel · 31/05/2018 21:54

I forgot about David Sedaris! Love his books but even better is listening to them on youtube. Very funny.

Miss Read is another writer who has written about a village school and then goes on to include the wider village . Not laugh out loud funny but gentle humour about village life.

tor8181 · 31/05/2018 21:57

im 37 and love reading teen books

PrivateParkin · 31/05/2018 21:57

Completely hear you OP. I can't stand misery lit - not that I've ever read any of it, tbh.

Yes to loads of these - especially Wodehouse and Alexander McCall Smith, his books are so gentle and funny but not at all twee. I've been re-reading Malory Towers/St Clare's recently too, absolutely love them. Daphne du Maurier's Frenchman's Creek is fab if you want some good old-fashioned romance and swashbuckling adventure!

PrivateParkin · 31/05/2018 21:59

Oh and Louise Rennison's books are a great laugh as well.

Sparklyreindeer · 31/05/2018 22:01

RayRayBidet has beaten me to it - I second Miss Pettigrew!

Also the Reading Agency used to run a scheme called Moodboosting Books, so you might find more inspiration here:

reading-well.org.uk/books/mood-boosting-books

Pollaidh · 31/05/2018 22:03

Yes yes yes to Miss Pettigrew! I don't think you can fail to fall in love with it. Lovely film adaptation too.

thelastredwinegum · 31/05/2018 22:03

Joe Lycet Buttered Parsnips :)

SumAndSubstance · 31/05/2018 22:09

Definitely No 1 Ladies Detective Agency - they're my happy books. If you like crime, but not grim crime, I love Elly Griffiths' books.

OwlinaTree · 31/05/2018 22:10

I second the Rosie project, there a sequel to buy I haven't read that yet.

VinceTheMafiaBoss · 31/05/2018 22:11

Kate Morton books are quite nice as are some Liane Moriarty books such as What Alice Forgot and Big Little Lies. Sorry you're having a hard time Flowers

Storminateapot · 31/05/2018 22:15

Joe Lycett's book Parsnips Buttered is laugh out loud funny. One of the funniest books I've read in ages!

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