Uplifting joyful reads

[TheGirlOnTheLanding]

I seem to have gone through a period of reading very good but fairly harrowing books and would like a complete contrast - well written literary fiction, not chick lit, but a book to make me feel happy rather than emotionally drained. Is there such a thing?

Yes! Jane Austen, obviously, but also the following:

• a number of traditional children's books but Daddy Long Legs would be my first choice

• Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

• The Number One Ladies' Detective Agency books are light reads, but v sweet

I enjoyed the 100 year old man who climbed out of a window and disappeared by Jonas Jonasson, and Mr Rosenblum's list by Natasha Solomon fairly recently.

Is Miss Pettigrew the book of the film that Frances McDormand is in Remus? I should track that down, I watched the film one Christmas and liked it very much. Jane Austen I have pretty much read and reread. I really can't be doing with anything by Alexander McCall Smith, lovely man though he seems, I've tried Ladies Detective Agency and the other series set in Edinburgh and found them really tedious.

Oh haven't heard of either of those Hobbes, than you, will google them now.

No idea who Frances M is, but it has the Moaning Myrtle woman with the very silly voice. It's a good film too.

The Edinburgh ones are unreadable, but I did like the Botswana ones.

Have you read any Wilkie Collins? I'm recommending him left, right and centre at the moment!

Agree re Wilkie Collins - much more fun than Dickens with a great range of characters.

Possession by A S Byatt is my go-to read for cheering up. Glorious writing and romance and scholarly skulduggery.

Wise Children by Angela Carter is likewise lovely with Shakespearean themes and backstage gossip spanning the twentieth century, following Nora and Dora, twins and showgirls. It's spangly!

Enchanted April and Elizabeth in her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim are joyful, although you have to keep going through the first few pages, which read like children's books, and allow yourself to melt into them.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons is possibly the funniest book ever.

What a great idea - read yourself happy. I might try some of the others on this thread myself.

John Meade Falkner. Moonfleet if really boy's derring do, but The Nebuly Coat is fun. Victorian shocker

Completely agree Cold Comfort Farm.

Anything by Angela Thirkell, hysterically funny v snobbish tales of the 30s, prob recommend wild strawberries and summer half.

Nancy Mitford. V v funny. Almost anything. I'm v fond of The.Blessing..

Mrs Braddon, Lady Audley's secret, more Victorian shocker..

Silas Marner

If you find erotic literature funny, Fanny Hill, the great 18 th century erotic n

Novel.

The Moonstone is Wilkie Collins isn't it? I think that's the only one of his I've read, a long time ago, quite possibly when I was too young to appreciate it properly; will revisit.

I love Angela Carter but always think of her stuff as fairly dark, will have to dig that one out of the bookcase and revisit it too.

Elizabeth van Arnim I haven't come across at all, so that's another to google. Thank you!

I agree about the 100 year old man.....lovely book.

Also Nancy Mitford, fab! Love in a cold climate and the pursuit of love are big faves of mine.

Jeeves and Wooster always put a smile on my face.

Another book I loved which was very uplifting was Terra Incognita which is about the author's trip to Antarctica. Very funny and beautifully written.

And my guilty pleasure has to be Jilly Cooper! Very cheering.

The song of Achilles is very well written. There's a sad ending but not harrowing (and you know it's coming!).

It's a non traditional love story

The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield is very amusing.

Elizabeth Goudge's books are very uplifting, I like The Scent of Water very much, and A City of Bells is lovely.

Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford is a book I find very cheering, full of charm and humour.

Barbara Pym's books are well written and amusing, Jane and Prudence is my favourite, very entertaining.

I Capture The Castle, by Dodie Smith

I agree about Cold Comfort Farm. I read it 30 years ago and have yet to find a book as funny. (And I read A LOT!)

Anne Tyler: There is often sadness in her books, but on the whole her vision is very life affirming.

What about Evelyn Waugh?

Agree Josephine Tey, what about John Buchan? Well written dated adventure stories.

Edmund Crispin The Moving Toyshop is quite fun.

Nevile Shute's Pied Piper. It has some sad moments, but overall is a really uplifting, life afirming story. One of my favourites, I much prefer it to A Town Like Alice.

Almost any Neville Shute, save On the Beach.

I love A town like Alice. Also beyond the black stump.

Rumer Godden. Black Narcissus, Greengage Summer, the Battle of the Villa Favorita, An episode of Sparrows, Coromandel sea change.

What lovely books- some of my favourites here, Elizabeth Goudge The Dean's Watch, Dorothy Sayers Gaudy Night,Laurie Lee Cider With Rosie, Dirk Bogarde Great Meadow, Adrian Bell Apple Acre

I would like to recommend anything by Elizatheth Taylor, Barbara Pym and EF Benson.
I go to them inbetween other books.