What's your comfort book?

[Ellisisland]

The book you return to again and again. I have just finished reading three new quite heavy books and fancy re reading something that I've enjoyed before so hoping to pick your collective brains

If you enjoy Austen, you might like to try Helen by Maria Edgeworth. She wrote around the same time as Austen and Austen read and enjoyed her books.

One of the girls in the Chalet School gets into SERIOUS trouble for reading Forever Amber, it is not a suitable book for a school girl It is a great read, although I find the ending frustrating.

Miss Pettigrew arrived today. Hooray!

Mignotte, I read The Women's Room and The Female Eunuch at a similiar age, plucked from my mother's bookshelf. It really shocked me, tbh - a big leap from Enid Blyton. I haven't reread it, but it's amazing how much has stayed with me (including the Forever Amber detail!).

Yes quite a leap from Enid! I also devoured 'Lace' by Shirley Coran, 'Class Reunion' and After The Reunion' by Rona Jaffe, 'The Watershed' by Erin Pizzey around the same time - all quite eye opening!

BarbaraPym
Catherine Mansfield's short stories
Natalia Ginzburg's lessico famigliare
Wodehouse
Posy Simmond's comic books (especially Mrs Webster's diary). I adore her.

Oops, sorry for mangling your name, mignonette. I think I scuttled back to children's books for another few years after that. The adult world looked like an intimidating place.

That's cool Biblio

yes Toto we were no longer in Laura Ingalls Wilder land that's for sure after reading them!

The House at at Pooh Corner
"Wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing"

Bleak House

Angela Carter's Heroes and Villains.

Jemima J by Jane Green, I have two paperback copies & a kindle version just in case!

P&P/Emma
P&P sequels
Harry Potter
Mistborn
fan fiction

Ooh I read Forever Amber as a teenager, loved it. Might see if I can get hold of a copy.

Cross stitch - Diana Gabaldon
Anne of Green Gables series

Tales of the City
Little House on the Prairie series
Ballet Shoes

Terry Pratchett - any of the Discworld books, especially the earlier books.

The Well of Loneliness is devastating. Don't think I could read it again now.

Pet Sematary (Stephen King)
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (MR James)
The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories (HP Lovecraft)

A blanket, cup of tea and something spooky is my ideal set up!

I have to reread the dark is rising sequence by Susan Cooper at least once a year. It is extremely galling that dd1 as yet is refusing to try it. I also hit the georgette heyers hard whenever the blues hit. Jemima J is another total comfort giver.

Wifey by Judy Blume. In fact this has reminded me that I've not read it for about a year - must dig it out

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets by Eva Rice - love it and always return to it whenever I'm down to cheer me up!

A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
Any Joyce Grenfell

Bridget Jones
Mallory Towers / St Claire's
Any Noel Streatfield
Rebecca / I Capture the Castle / Lost Art of Keeping Secrets (romantic country piles)

Love Rebecca. Might have to dig that one out.

For those of you who said 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn', yes.

I can still feel that novel 35 years later.

I re-read all the time in winter (to make me feel warm and snug).
I always return to the Miss Read Fairacre series.
Also Elizabeth Taylor, Barbara Pym, and the Agatha Raisin mysteries by MC Beaton are always read over and over.
I am currently re-reading Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk. Bliss, absolute heaven !
I have made a list from some of the books people have recommended, some I have been meaning to read but havent yet.
Great thread thankyou !

OOO great question - am in the middle of packing up our house and had to rescue 3 books to keep me sane through the moving process:

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
Riders by Jilly Cooper
Tara Road by Maeve Binchy