Feel good books you would urge your fellow Mumsnetters to read?

[bibbitybobbityhat]

I always fly the flag for The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle, particularly The Van (although I love the others, too).

Will also add to this The Third Policeman by Flan O'Brien (sp?).

Restoration by Rose Tremain (omg what an near-perfect novel that is).

Lots of Fay Weldons and Mary Wesleys make me laugh, but I've read all those.

So - any other suggestions?

I need an upbeat, cheerful read, but I don't do chicklit or light and frothy stuff. Not that I have anything against those genres, at all, but I just don't have much time to read fiction, and at the moment I really really want intelligent but not tragic.

Any ideas?

I really enjoy Maggie O'farrell - all of hers are fab.

I also love Iris Murdoch - but they can get a bit philosophy heavy. They have great characters though and make me laugh out loud. 'The bell' is especially good.

Also read a great novel recently called 'consolation' by James Wilson - fantastic book!

(I enjoyed Restoration too. )

Oh yes, Iris Murdoch. Of course .

Just remembered Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons - tis hilarious

Pride And Prejudice, of course. :)

Yes to Cold Comfort Farm.

I Capture The Castle.

Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day.

Any Bill Bryson but especially The Lost Continent or the Australian one (not fiction of course though).

I read a Rose Tremain recently called 'The Road Home' which was okay, although not desperately cheerful.

Vile Bodies or Scoop maybe?

Some Jeeves and Wooster?

Yes to 'cold comfort farm' and yes to 'I capture the castle' and 'miss pettigrew', didn't enjoy 'scoop'much but 'vile bodies' is great. How about brideshead revisited? not a barrel of laughs - but it's so good.

I loved Everything I've Ever Done That Worked, a collection of essays by Lesley Garner, great to dip into , well written and often very uplifting and inspiring without being too self-help iykwim

love Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Oooh thanks for your suggestions!

I've read all the Evelyn Waughs and Bill Brysons, but I like the look of that Lesley Garner collection, thank you.

Its surprisingly difficult to come up with intelligent but funny/upbeat novels, isn't it?

not a laugh a minute, but how about Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

An old one but a classic and still SO funny - Diary of a no-body x

I love the Blandings books by PG Wodehouse much more than Jeeves and Wooster. Also 1066 and All That makes me absolutely hoot with laughter. Yes yes yes to Cold Comfort Farm. I clearly have the sense of humour of a 13 yr old from 1936.

Anything by Christopher Brookmyre - quite dark, but makes me laugh out loud.

Precious Bane by Mary Webb

Rosamunde Pilchard books are essentially happy and have really beautiful cornish settings.

pilchard? very Cornish

Andrew Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano books, very funny and evoke the atmosphere of Sicily fabulously

Andrea

oops

For laugh out loud funny: "The tent, the bucket and me" by Emma Fielding - hilarious camping mishaps in 1970s

For a wonderful, warm, feelgood read: "Prodigal summer" by Barbara Kingsolver

A short history of tractors in Ukrainian, any of Tony Hawks books, 'playing the Moldovans at tennis'