In wanting to read a happy book?

[ICantCopeAnymore]

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

For sheer happy escapism, I love Catherine Alliott and Jill Mansell. Great literature? No. Entertaining and puts a smile on your face? Yep!

Fannie Flagg and Laurie Graham are superb too.

Don’t read Maya Angelou - amazing though they are - they’re very harrowing!

Mary Stewart (don’t start with the Arthurian ones, any of the ones about women are good)
I Capture the Castle
The Secret Garden
Jilly Cooper - ridiculously silly, the older ones are the best
Noel Streatfeild’s children’s books (don’t get Saplings, her adult book, it’s very dark)
Miss Pettigrew - agree with everyone!
Little Fires Everywhere - sounds dark but isn’t too bad and is uplifting
Sal by Mick Kitson - is dark but lovely and so good - not just grim for the sake of it

The Eyre Affair from Jasper FForde is the first of a series which I read to cheer myself up. It is unusual for me because I am not a sci fi fan, but the way that random things we know are changed in the timeline just amuses me.

Join Me by Danny Wallace is funny and uplifting (it's nice to read about people being nice!).
Anything by Dave Gorman.
Terry Pratchett books.
How to Stop Time by Matt Haig.
How to be Champion by Sarah Millican. Actually I got that as an audio book - great to listen to while cooking etc. Not so suitable when driving (hard to concentrate on the road when you are laughing that much).

I like books by Jan Mark, Philippa Pearce, and other good 'children's authors' for keeping me away from confronting subjects. I also like Call the Midwife and James Herriot type things.

Driving Over Lemons,a Piano in the Pyranees, Round Ireland with a Fridge, The Yes Man, I'm Dave Gorman - all well written, funny and good

Durrell’s My family and other animals is the book which never fails to cheer me up. Read it many times, and it makes me smile every time.

Can I put in a vote for Tristram Shandy? It really is all it's cracked up to be. I didn't read it for ages because I thought it wouldn't be. It's bonkers and brilliant and hilarious.

@sassolino Oh yesssss!

What about Rosie Blake. The Hygge Holiday was happy and cosy

Another vote for Sophie Kinsella - very funny, lighthearted, feel-good reads.
I particularly enjoyed "Can you keep a Secret" and "I've got your number"

Many of my favourite books on here.

I'm also going to recommend Nevil Shute - his books are sometimes about bleak subjects but he rarely describes the negative stuff in any detail and they are uplifting overall, though very dated. Two of my greatest favourites are Pied Piper and Trustee from the Toolroom. Avoid two - On the Beach and What Happened to the Corbetts.

Glad that so many other people love 'I Capture the Castle' - it's kept me going for years and now one of my kids has it as his 'happy' book too!

I like a good travel history for when I feel I need an uplifting book - I tend to read them when I can't settle with anything else, and then I can also feel very organised for when I go (or go back). Just finished 'The Pursuit of Italy' which was great.

I read this recently - it was for work, but I ended up loving it:

www.amazon.co.uk/War-Paint-Rubinstein-Elizabeth-Rivalry/dp/1683366484?tag=mumsnetforum-21

About the rivalry between Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden - I'd never usually pick something like that up, but it was fascinating.

Almost anything by Trisha Ashley.

I am also very fond of Laurie Graham but some of hers don't have such happy endings so might not meet your brief. "At Sea" is a great giggle and I love "Future Homemakers of America". I think my favourite of hers is "Dress Circle" but it does have a bit of hospital in it so might not fit your hill.

Agree with everyone about Bill Bryson.

There have been so many great suggestions so far, but I wanted to contribute a few, too. (Apologies if they've already been mentioned and I missed them.)

Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson
(Old-fashioned, but sweet and gently humorous.)

Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
(Again, old-fashioned, but funny.)

If you enjoy Three Men in a Boat (mentioned earlier), maybe try To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis. It's a romantic comedy about time travel-- and is even better if you're familiar with Three Men in a Boat.

(Actually, come to think of it, there's one sad/depressing part of TMiaB near the end, I think that really doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the book at all... You could just skim over that part, when you come to it. The bulk of the book is great-- light and funny.)

Another vote for PG Wodehouse, although I like the Blandings stories best - can't beat a priz-winning pig, love-struck imposters and Gally Threepwood.

Also yes to Highly recommending Betty MacDonald. Egg and I and her second book Onions in the stew.

Onions In The Stew was her fourth, however books two and three, "The Plague and I" and "Anybody Can Do Anything" really inspire me whenever I'm feeling down because they are such a clear example of how a sense of humour can keep you afloat when life isn't going smoothly, but without bringing the reader down.

If I regress to childhood then it's Swallows & Amazons for me; simple fun in simple times.

Hope you find something that's up your street from all these suggestions, OP!

prize-winning!

I just finished reading Little Fires Everywhere and though I loved it, I personally wouldn't have described it as uplifting. It deals with some very harrowing topics.

The Princess Bride - very clever and funny book. A book within a book really as you have the classic story "by" Morganstern then the commentary to it by William Goldman (who wrote the film). In reality it's all fictional by Goldman. It's a bit weird at first to get your head round, but going off some of the other stuff you are into, I really think you'll like it! Esp if you are a fan of the film. I've read it at least 5 times.

Gwen Raverat's Period Piece.

O Douglas's Olivia in India - free at Gutenberg and recommended as a happy book by a reviewer when it was first published.

I'm going to have to print this thread and cross them off as I go

Some of my favourites have been mentioned but I think I'll re-read everything. It will certainly keep me busy!

Thank you to everyone who has commented.

AmericanEskimoDoge
Love love love Diary of a Nobody! Especially the bit with the red paint!

There's a set of books from a teacher turned school inspector in Yorkshire, Gervase Phinn. They're gentle and funny if reading about schools wouldn't be too much of a busman's holiday for you

The Olive Tree by Lucinda Riley is a good book. It is a happy one.

I came on to say Miss Pettigrew lives for a day! It's such a darling book! I love it.

Other happy place reads for me are most Nancy Mitford novels, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and the already mentioned Diary of a Provincial Lady and A Little Love Song, although there is one slightly sad bit in love song. I also love a Jilly Cooper binge!

Another set of books that made me chuckle were the Year in the Merde books about a man moving to France. Made me giggle.