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

A lot of my go-to cheering books have been mentioned: Betty MacDonald's series starting with The Egg & I - such fabulous characters! I also love: E M Delafield's The Diary of A Provincial Lady (A trilogy, my copy has all three books contained therein);
Elizabeth Von Arnim's The Caravanners;
Monica Dickens' autobiographical series One Pair Of Hands, One Pair of Feet, My Turn To Make The Tea (from when she worked as a cook-general, a nurse and a newspaper reporter respectively);
Richard Gordon's "Doctor" books, such as Doctor At Sea;
Shirley Jackson's autobiographical books Life Among The Savages and Raising Demons;
and of course comic strip books like Dilbert and Calvin & Hobbes

I have whole shelves full of Terry Pratchett and PG Wodehouse, highly recommended but above include suggestions you may not have thought of

This might be a silly suggestion so apologies if it is but my all time favourite books are the James Harriet series I've read them so many times and love all the story's some can be a little sad but I just love all his works. I've also started reading the durrels and really enjoying the one I've started

I know what you mean

Adrian mole
The Gerald Durrell books
Jilly Cooper

Old but

Read the Wimpy Kid books. I've been reading them with my kids and they make me laugh out loud so many times. And they have big writing so don't take too long if you're struggling to concentratw

The Agatha Raisin series is great, funny murder mysteries and so easy to read

Driving Over Lemons. True life of an ex pop star buying a farm in Spain.
Wild (?) by Cheryl someone. True story of woman taking off and travelling the Pacific Ridge in the states, on her own.
Camomile Lawn, and anything else by Mary Wesley.

I like children's books.
Chalet School
Anything by Monica Edwards
Bannermere series by Geoffrey Terese
Swish of the curtain series

All feel good and easy to read.

When I think back to the books that have made me laugh out loud (usually on public transport), one sticks out in particular:

Starter For Ten by David Nicholls.

Just glad I read it before my pelvic floor disintegrated.

When real life gets to much for me, I dive into Katie Fforde. All her books are basically the same, middle aged woman in Cotswolds lives in charming but tatty cottage with lovely garden and falls out/in love with evil property developer type chap, who turns out to be lovely. So soothing.

Has anyone said Jilly Cooper's Rutshire Chronicles?

Several of my long-term favourites mentioned already, including Durrell, Pratchett and The Enchanted April
More recently I’ve been completely smitten with The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet - fab book
Cranford is lovely, Jane Austen era, and I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it
The Thirty Nine Steps is a rollicking comfort read (occasionally ‘of its time’ opinions)
I also comfort read children’s/YA fiction - Diana Wynne Jones (Deep Secret is my favourite) Tamara Pierce (Song of the Lioness quartet)
Oh and I just remembered Naomi Novik - Uprooted and the Temeraire series
If I want depressing I read the news. Fiction is for pleasure...

Blatant placemark

Just glad I read it before my pelvic floor disintegrated

I agree, Puffins. I read for pleasure and distraction. Life is horrible enough as it is. My MH nurse told me to avoid the news completely, so I do. But it's hard on social media.

Bookmarking. For... well, books!

Seeing loads of my go-to favourites here!

Interesting to see what people consider "happy books" The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" is beautifully written but I found it quite a harrowing read. I have another book by the same author (Perfect, any one know it?) that I'm waiting to feel resilient enough for.

If you like children's books then I can't recommend "Flora and Ulysses" highly enough. It's one of my all time favourites, although the family is rather dysfunctional

(also the excellent Diane Wynne Jones, who's already been mentioned.)

The louise rennison georgia Nicholson books are very very funny. Like Bridget jones for teenagers.

Yes this is my favourite genre!! Lots and lots of favourites mentioned here including the lost art of keeping secrets - one of my favourites that almost nobody has ever heard of!

I wish this could be a kind of sticky thread that we could add to as we found new examples.

I read a book a long time ago about the wife of a diplomat - it was her autobiography but very, very funny, and very gentle. No trauma, v interesting. I’d read that again if anyone knows its name?

Buzzing54 - Perfect was a fab read with an uplifting end but lots of actual sobbing in the middle!

I've just read Grand Sophie. It's a jane Austin type book so a bit difficult to r as but happy ending and nothing hard to read and adjust to. In fact any jane Austin books are easy to read in that aspect.

If you like children’s books, definitely try E. Nesbit (Five Children & It, The Treasure Seekers, The Wouldbegoods, The Phoenix & The Carpet, The Enchanted Castle). You can tell that she totally ‘got’ children. She actually raised her husband’s love child and seemed an all-round amazing lady.

I’d also second Milly Johnson for excellent ‘chick lit’.

Second Agatha Raisin, really fun.

If you like your books funny, try George Mahood. He has written several travel books, all available on Kindle. I think they are hilarious.
Also Peter Kays autobiography - I think it's called 'The sound of laughter', that will really cheer you up.
Also Danny Bakers books (autobiography). Very funny.
Happy reading.

persisford Diplomatic Baggage?

Try Jerome K Jerome - Three Men in a Boat - always has me laughing out loud

Gerald Durrell's Corfu books are funny as well

JK Rowling's adult books are just as good as the Harry Potter series

I find “Cold Comfort Farm” really funny. Also, David Sedariis. And Danny Wallace’s books “Join Me” and “Yes Man” I found so hilarious, I had to stop reading them on the train as my laughing was getting embarrassing 😂