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

The Handmaid's Tail is quite jolly

Did we read the same book? Or is it different to 'the handmaid's tale'?

Cecelia Aherne might be good, her stories are like contemporary fairy tales. 'If you could see me now' is about a 6 year old's imaginary friend who falls in love with a real woman.

Lots of great ideas here. For mysteries that are never too heavy, I like John Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey books: amusing and easy reads.
Totally agree about how much popular culture is melancholic these days....it's hard to escape it!

My go-to comfort reading are Arthur Ransome's children's books. Not just the first (Swallows and Amazons) - there are 12 in the series altogether. Pigeon Post (hence my user name) and Winter Holiday are my favourites.
I'm a Coot Club / Big Six fan myself...

NRTFT but Rachel Hartman's books are great, very well written young adult fiction. Seraphina and Shadow Scale. Highly, highly recommend.

Another vote for The Tent, The Bucket and Me - so funny & light that I've gone back to it for a reread and I rarely do that!

Harry Potter is always a good comfort read but it has to be left a while to enjoy a re-read. Would also recommend:

Ready Player One for eighties themed sci-fi fun
Jane Fallon & Lucy Diamond are easy chick lit type books
Noel Streatfield - Ballet Shoes was a really gentle read
At Home by Bill Bryson
84 Charing Cross Road

In times of need I re-read every book by Diana Wynne Jones, particularly the Chrestomanci books, the Green Knowe books by Lucy Boston, all the Terry Pratchett Discworld books, and the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin books.

I agree with you about miserable books though. I have not joined any of my local book groups because they seem to churn through endless amounts of utter despair. Maybe there are some people who enjoy reading really sad books because at the end they feel better about their own lives by comparison? I think I enter into the stories too much and feel like it's actually happening to me, if you see what I mean - so reading sad books makes me feel worse not better!!

Ooh, "uplit" fantastic, didn't realise it was a thing now. I've got an "uplift" on submission, previously it seemed everyone wanted dark, but given how dark the world is I wanted to write something more uplifting. I'll check out that article.

Call the Midwife- please be warned that the books are far more harrowing than the TV series, particularly the soapy type storylines coming out more recently. Some of the stories are the same, but there's a lot more to some of them, and it was definitely sanitised for TV. It's not so much the births themselves sanitised, as the extreme prostitution and abuse, incest etc.

Tea - I re-read the Potters every year

I had to stop watching Call the Midwife. It started off so lovey and was manageable for me. Now that's all death too. And the soaps! Corrie used to be comedic and now it's just ridiculous.

5foot5 - did you know there's a sequel to "future homemakers"?? It's called "the early birds" and it came out a few months ago!!

Thanks WittyJack I spotted it in the library a while back and was so delighted! I think she is doing a sequel to one of her others too - Perfect Meringues I think?

Call the Midwife

Oh dear God no!

I love CTM and I have all the books and think they are very good. But honestly some of them are such a harrowing read, some of the most painful things I have ever read. If the OP wants something uplifting this definitely doesn't fit the bill!!

Interestingly, I've just read an article in The Guardian about a new genre of books called "Up Lit" and Eleanor is listed as well as How to Stop Time by Matt Haig.

I have never heard of "Up" lit but I have read quite a bit of Matt Haig including How to Stop Time. It is very good but does have some sad bits in there so I am not sure it is completely "up"

Somebody earlier suggested Jill Mansell (although don't agree with the term 'trashy being used, but that's just me!). There are a couple you will want to avoid if you're trying to avoid sad subjects - -To The Moon and Back, This Could Change Everything (most recent book) and Three Amazing Things About You: - they're brilliant books, but not so good if you're trying to avoid the subject of death and loss....

I'd recommend something by Sue Townsend, especially the Adrian Mole Books - they're great for a giggle....

Oh and also Christina Jones - her books are brilliant, very funny and will make you want to live in the countryside!!

Thank you for starting this thread OP and everyone for all these suggestions!
I am glad it's not just me being fed up with seeing the same things on blurbs time and again:

a terrible secret
a missing child
a harrowing murder
an unexpected twist (no it is never unexpected)

All complete with morbid details... it's unnecessarily grim and so unoriginal

I default to mauve binchley or Rosamund Pilcher when I want a feel good book. I do find books affect my mood so I try and alternative gripping stories with feel good ones.

Xiaoxiong I love The Children of Green Knowe. I re-read it a few months ago, and I can honestly say I felt so happy for a good few days afterwards, it's such a beautiful book with such a peaceful, reassuring message. I really want to visit Green Knowe itself - it's open to the public for guided tours.

I'm surprised the Neil Caiman ones that have been recommended are considered uplifting, they are in the end but very dark the rest of the way through and definitely not YA. I love his books though and Stardust is YA and is uplifting, the film is a very direct interpretation of it so you may not want to bother if you've seen the film.
My recommendations-
This Book Will Save Your Life by A. M. Homes
Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About by Mil Killington
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman, these last two have some sad bits but generally uplifting.

The night circus. I read it ages ago it had lovely imagery and nothing to dark.

Agree with lots already mentioned but don’t think anyone has suggested Penny Vincenzi?
Pure escapism

Janine Mcmullen - a small country living (a trilogy of books (non-fictions) )about an author who escaped to the welsh countryside.
I have read and re-read them and apart of getting upset when one of her dogs was ill these are happy books. She writes very well and there is a happy ending as it were.

sorry that should read - Jeanine Mcmullen and the books start with My small country living.

Love all these suggestions. My offering is the alphabet series by Sue Grafton. A is for Alibi is the first one. Set in the 80s, plucky heroine who works as a PI in LA. I devoured them all!

Haven't RTFT yet, so apologies if this has either been mentioned or discounted.

Try the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch.

It is a police procedural, but with magic.
Like a really grown up Harry Potter.

It does have some murders/ grisly bits, but it is lovely, well written and the juxtaposition of modern London, the met police and magic is really.good.
It also has loads of humour...plenty of lol moments.

It always gives me a nice magical feeling finishing one.
There are even unicorns!

I'm similar OP, I find it difficult psychologically to read anything disturbing or with a shock or unexpected twist. I've read quite a bit of non- fiction type stuff recently (parenting, economics, history). I also like autobiographies and things like "My good life in France", "To the poles without a beard", "Why French children don't throw food" and everything by Nina Stibbe.

Read the new Phillip Pullman one - that’s good. Not sad.

Also isabel allende books aren’t really sad.

The Dresden Files are fun. Same for Terry Prachet.

Driving over Lemons is quite uplifting