what to read if everything is falling apart around you

[Ididntwetmyself]

Slowly coming out of an unfulfilling and actually quite damaging marriage, failing at work, lonely and socially disconnected - what should I be reading?

Cold comfort farm for lovely, funny writing and a sensible heroine.
The Princess bride
The flashman series
Terry pratchet
Georgette heyre - 'The Grand Sophy is best for sad times.

And courage OP.

Tales of a female Nomad by Rita Golden Gelman

Anthony Trollope. Start with Barchester Towers
The Mapp and Lucia series
Susan Howatch Starbridge series.

Things will get better - wishing you the best.

Jilly Cooper - always Jilly for me when I need a comfort read.
Or children's books - Malory Towers/Trebizon

Marian Keyes' fiction and nonfiction are both wonderful--funny and warm and realistically hopeful.

Christopher Moore is also very funny; I laughed and laughed reading A Dirty Job and Lamb.

LM Montgomery is always comforting to me. Anne of Green Gables, of course, but also Jane of Lantern Hill and Pat of Silver Bush.

All the best to you, OP.

James Herriot for me

I'm thoroughly enjoying The Remains of the Day at the moment.

The Rivers of London series are very good escapist stuff.
Another vote for the Barchester chronicles.
For easy reading enjoyable funny fluff definitely mhairi McFarlane.

I hope things get easier for you soon OP. X

Pride and Prejudice
Narnia
David Eddings' Belgariad
Pratchett, esp. the Tiffany Aching books

Might seem an odd suggestion as its all about grieving, but H is for Hawk. It's about coming to terms and moving on and is surprisingly uplifting.

Hi Everyone

I am a huge fan of Historical Fiction and absolutely adored Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. I am looking for similar books if anyone has any suggestions? I think it was the setting (Iceland) and the time scale rather than the story itself, that grabbed me so much.
Im not a huge fan of romance but anything else, so long as its set in the past, I am very interested in.
Looking forward to some great suggestions. Thanks in advance :-)

Hi Eviesmummy

I think you'll get more responses if you start your own thread .. click on start near the top and add your own title and post asking for suggestions.

In the meantime, have a look at:

The Observations by Jane Harris
Music and Silence and Restoration by Rose Tremain

and if you're open to more recent history look at Small Island by Andrea Levy.

you might also like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, set in 19th century China

Hi OP sorry for the derail.

Yy to James Herriot as mentioned above and can I also suggest the No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith.

Also Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a lovely escapist story.

Wishing you all the best

I found The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison to be very good escapist fiction.
The protagonist is adorable and since the whole story is told from his point of view, it makes for good comfort reading.

However, the protagonist shares some of your problems (his parents had a very unhappy arranged marriage, and, well, it is lonely at the top) so if you want to get away from that, perhaps some other book would be better. But some people like about people who have similar problems, and it is a fantasy world, anyway.

In times of trouble, I always read Georgette Heyer, or something like Mrs Harris goes to Paris. Nothing traumatic happens, and everything is sorted out in the end to the satisfaction of all. Like a big warm hug really.

I'm with you, Ididn't. I've found it very hard to read fiction since DH died a few months ago, and we have thousands of books. A woman I meet when walking the dog said she (an avid reader) took five years to get back into reading after a bereavement. .

For me, re-reading has been the key, so I'm on China Mieville's "The City and the City" entirely because I heard last week it was going to be made into film. This gave me impetus to get back into a challenging, though very enjoyable book.

YY to the Flashman series, which got me into reading real history. :o

Agree that the Barchester chronicles and Lucia books are fab, too.

All the best.

Miss Read, a real comfort Read for me. No violence or nastiness, just gentle country life. Only thing that soothed me during a very difficult period in my life a few years back. Wishing you all the best op.

I go back to old favourites, so Swallows and Amazons, Toast by Nigel Slater, Maya Angelou. Nothing too challenging.

Books that take me to happier mental places:

Any P G Wodehouse
Anne of Green Gables etc.
Harry Potter series
Anything Victorian, yy to Barchester series

For comfort food reading, I turn to Marian Keyes early books, the first two Bridget Jones (before she started writing for Hollywood surefire adaptations) Harry Potter, and grim homicidal murders (oddly, their distance from my own reality makes them easy to read) or things like Morse, Dalziel and Pascoe....

Jane Austen. It's my go-to comfort reading. When times are tough, everything stays lovely in AustenLand.

Jane fallon

Joanne Trollope & Jane Austen. I really enjoyed The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society.

Already mentioned, but you can't beat the modern Cinderella story that is Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day - it makes me smile every time I read it, and I think I've read it nearly 10 times! Pride and Prejudice also works for me although you may not want to read about relationships at the moment, and Cold Comfort Farm is hilarious.
Good luck OP, things will get better

Jane Austen - especially P & P
Nancy Mitford - especially Pursuit of Love, but all of them really, letters too
Susan Cooper - Over Sea Under Stone series
Marian Keyes - I also loved her latest collection of non fiction, hilarious

for you OP, things will get better