Help please - uplifting recommendations

[TallulahDoris]

I’m having a tough time at the moment and desperately need some escapism. Can anyone recommend any books please which may provide a bit of hope and humour? Thanks x

Sorry to hear you're having a tough time OP

Well, my go-to is P. G. Wodehouse. I read him out loud. Makes me look like a nut, I'm sure, but who cares. I do a pretty good Bertie Wooster, and a mean Jeeves. There is nothing like it in all literature. One critic compared reading him to "swimming in champagne," and Stephen Fry called his prose "sunlit perfection." (I say prose, but it's really more like poetry – beautiful comic poetry.)

I also find Patrick Fermor's travel book A Time of Gifts uplifting. It's about his backpacking adventure across Europe in the 1930s. Fermor is so warm and joyful and full of life that he never ceases to cheer me up.

Aldous Huxley's debut novel Crome Yellow is a joy, and also anything by Douglas Adams. I find Bill Bryson a pleasure to read, no matter what the subject. And Evelyn Waugh makes me laugh out loud. The funniest thing I've ever heard is Michael Maloney's audiobook recording of Waugh's Decline and Fall.

My comfort reads are PG Wodehouse (especially the Blandings novels which describe the perfect British summer wonderfully), Georgette Heyer and I would recommend Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair which is completely bonkers and wonderful. It's the first of a series and I think the best. The Driving over Lemons series by Chris Stewart is also a lovely escapist series. Hope you feel better soon. I find writing my troubles down (journalling) really helps deal with them.

Have you tried Miss Read?

The Beach Hut by Veronica Henry?

Hmm, sounds like I need to start on PG Wodehouse.

Sorry you're in the trenches OP, actually I am too so can relate! I'm reverting to childhood- Malory Towers, The Faraway Tree, Judy Blume.

When I get sick of that, I love escapist authors like Jane Fallon, Adele Parks, Penny Vincenzi (hers are historical and really drag you away from your thoughts with the sweeping detail and saga).

Sally Hepworth does great family/psych dramas but nothing heavy. Just mildly intriguing enough to steady my thoughts.

Best wishes X

Bill Bryson’s Notes on a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods & Made in America make me laugh out loud. 🤣

Cecelia Ahern - any of them, they are like modern fairy tales and are nothing like the films.

+1 for Wodehouse but also Diary of a Provincial Lady which is stone cold hilarious

Thanks for all your replies and recommendations 💐