Uplifting Books

[Nestinghedgehog]

My only dd is away for the summer and I am really missing her. I have recently read 2 books which I really enjoyed (Five Rivers met on a wooded plain and Where the crawdads sing) but they both deal with loneliness. Started reading End of Days last night but it starts with the death of a child and the mother's despair and loneliness. I think I need to read something a bit more uplifting to stop me wallowing.

Any recommendations to make me smile, laugh or that are life affirming.

Thanks in advance.

OP,

The classic "Cold Comfort Farm" by Stella Gibbons always cheers me up during a rough time.
Hope it does you, too.

Thanhs Zuzu- I think I have a copy of this somewhere- I will dig it out.

I enjoyed The Lido

Also enjoy Love in a Cold climate

Or I re read books from my childhood.

I have PTSD so am careful what I read now. I need quite gentle themes now, but still want literary books not chick lit type stuff

PG Wodehouse or EF Benson.

Thank you NeverTwerkNaked and FagashJackie. I will have look at your suggestions

Me too nevertwerk I read some horrible books after my sister died that I wasn't ready for and am much more cautious. But if the content or style isn't depressing, new is good.

I think reading books is very therapeutic anyway. I would particularly recommend Blandings by pg Wodehouse or Mapp and Lucia by EF Benson.

I keep recommending Laurie King’s Folly. A severely depressed woman goes to an island and builds a house and in the process heals her family. It is such a lovely book. It deals with difficult topics, but as a journey, not an end in itself. Just the details of the house-building are fascinating.

I’ll add one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It’s a gentle, slightly surreal time travel story, based, set loosely, on Three Men in a Boat.