Fiction books about people making order from chaos

[User57713]

I have no idea how to describe what I mean. My life is a bit of a disaster right now and I'm enjoying fiction about people who get themselves sorted, or sort out a rambling old house or failing shop. Know the kind I mean?

I've just read The Christmas Bookshop by Jenny Colgan- woman sorts out failing dusty bookshop and finds herself at the same time. That sort of thing.

One by Beth Moran with Christmas in the title where she inherits a falling down cottage and has to sort it out and finds happinss at the same time.

Can't remember the name of this one a while back about someone who inherits a knitting shop or an antique shop, it's all dusty and old fashioned and she turns it around, makes amazing window displays etc etc.

Or someone who's just divorced, life is a mess, kids out of control and she sorts it all out and lives happily ever after.

All a bit shallow but comforting for me right now.

Any recommendations along those lines?

Thank you

Saturday Morning At Parkrun - delicious trash
Wintering by Katherine May - more literary and just wonderful.

Best wishes OP and hope chaos eases soon xx

I was going to recommend the Christmas bookshop, but I see you've already read that.

Maybe I should read more books like that too 😄.

Cold Comfort Farm

Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine is a really feel-good read in that vein

The Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan?

Cold Comfort Farm is the classic of the Sorting Things Out genre.

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx is about someone moving to a new place after a series of disasters and building a new life. Really wonderful.

I love this sort of book.

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer might fit the bill.

There's elements of it in her The Reluctant Widows too but unfortunately there's a distracting murder mystery subplot that is less interesting.

The knitting one could have been Divas Don’t Knit, by Gil McNeil. I liked her books a few years back, including The Only Boy For Me and the sequel to Divas.

The Keeper of Stories is definitely this! A lovely book and it's very satisfying. She is a cleaner with a messy life.

For some reason I thought if The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy. I’ve always found her books comforting though, so probably any would do.

The Cathy Glass / Casey Watson fostering books hit this note for me. They are meant to be based on real life but I suspect highly fictionalised. There are often much too perfect endings! Enough detail that somebody is clearly highly familiar with the fostering system, but I suspect wishful tying up of ends at the very least, not to mention privacy issues if these were actual stories of real people.

But the child/ren tend to arrive very unsettled and chaotic, with difficult behaviour and the stories about ordinary everyday activities and slowly winning their trust are very soothing. There is a lot of "I made us both a sandwich and put on some washing" but when I'm struggling to fit those things into my own life I find this very comforting rather than boring.

Some obviously do have details of child abuse but it's normally not graphic - the only one I have to skip parts when re-reading is "A Baby's Cry" (not relating to the baby but relating to another little girl that she fosters temporarily while she has the baby) - that is because she details some abuse towards an animal that the abuser had then threatened to repeat on the people. When the abuse is towards people it is normally alluded to, rather than described in detail. You can also get a bit of a sense from the descriptions what the issues are likely to be.

Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler - about a woman who literally walks away from her life and starts afresh sorting out the lives of others. It's one of my favourites of all time.
Read the missing notice of her in the front page - none of her family can give an adequate description of her physical attributes, she's so unnoticed and taken for granted by them.

Also, The Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan and The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris.

I'm sure I can think of some more...

I like that Sorting Things Out is a genre.

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll look them up later.

I didn't get any decent books for Christmas so I'll just have to buy some for myself

Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido has bits of this. The main character Caroline so capable and the way she plans her wedding and decorates her house are so well written.

The Lemon Tree Cafe by Cathy Bramley is a 'sort it out' book that I've recently read and enjoyed. Based in, unsurprisingly, a family run cafe it's a lovely heartwarming, easy read.

I do like an occasional book of this sort, when new life is breathed into a old place.

Oh, but the mother is SO horrible - made me furious!

Seconding Cold Comfort Farm. Flora Poste is wonderful. A Georgette Heyer along similar lines might be The Grand Sophy.

Can it be non-fiction? I've just read a fabulous book called Castles in the Air by Judy Corbett: she and her partner restored Gwydir Castle. It's an amazing story and she's an excellent writer.

Everything is Beautiful by Eleanor Ray
The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

I’ve just finished The Christmas Bookshop … I loved it too!

Not fiction but I found Banish Clutter Forever by Sheila Chandra immensely helpful.

Summer at the comfort food cafe

Raffaella Barker’s Hens Dancing has everything getting much better by the end (but her other books aren’t as cheering, I found).

I see a PP has already recommended The Grand Sophy.

Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers also has a lot of things getting sorted out well.