Just need something undemanding to read in the middle of the night!

[NeedingEasyReading]

Have NC for this as going through a tough time. I'm not sleeping very well and reaching for my Kindle in the middle of the night before I nod off again.

My usual crime and psychological thrillers aren't doing it for me at the moment sadly. Amazon is full of 'you read this so here's more of the same'.

Does anyone have any recommendations for really easy reading that doesn't require much brainpower at 3am? I'd be happy with cheesy 'girl inherits a café in Cornwall and gets it together with the local author' or 'divorced woman holidays in Italy and decides to buy a bookshop' type things as long as they aren't really badly written. My guilty pleasure is Danielle Steel (if only all problems could be solved with a cashmere sweater and pair of slacks!) but I've run out of those.

Any suggestions of books/authors would be appreciated.

Sorry I can't reply to everyone individually but thank you for so many great suggestions of books, audio books and podcasts. Lots of authors that I've read previously and forgotten about and I'll definitely work my way through what is now a very long list.

The idea of listening to something familiar is a good one - I've added some childhood favourites - Laura Ingalls Wilder and Noel Streatfeild - to Audible and looking forward to listing to those - I think I probably still know some of them backwards.

And thanks for the kind words - definitely the best of Mumsnet on this thread. 💐

Absolutely not dross (they’re brilliant), but engaging, light-hearted and witty, and focusing on love, sex, class and food amidst upper-middle-class Manhattanites— Laurie Colwin’s novels.

Start with Family Happiness, about the perfect, well-behaved daughter of a wealthy, high-achieving, united New York family having an extramarital affair with an artist, or Happy All the Time, just about the courtship of two New York couples. Very much ‘lingering influence of Jane Austen on late 20thc fiction’.

Almost all on Kindle, bar Goodbye Without Leaving.

How about a Catherine Cookson or a Jean Plaidy (including their pseudonyms).

Hope things get better soon @NeedingEasyReading

Milly Johnson, specifically Here Come the Girls. I've just finished it, complete 5 star escapism.

Enjoying ' Wintering ' for late night reads and in the night reads.

Rosamunde Pilcher - Coming Home

This one got me through a stressful time recently 😊

I agree with Lisa Jewell although simply written the plots are very intriguing.

Also Lianne Moriarty. I love they are Australian - you get the references but they aren't the predictable U.K. Irish or US ones. Great characters are interesting stories - hard to guess.

Lucy Foley. Scottish murders but seem to involve young, modern, wealthy people in the countryside.

Good thread, I love a bit of lightweight dress.
My mother used to read what we called "clogs and shalls". Historical fiction like Catherine Cookson. My current favourite is Val Wood who's books are all set in and around Hull.

My comfort books are the Anne books (childhood favourites that have stood up well) and Georgette Heyer, who I only discovered a few years ago. Easy reading and well written.

And I've just seen another poster recommend Elizabeth Peters' Amelia Peabody series - I second that!

Rebecca Pugh books- return to lavender hill or the sunset bay one, exactly what you’ve described!

Was going to say this!

The Outlander series absolutely isn't cosy or comforting at times - there's a lot of graphic violence, rape, and torture.

A Veronica Henry book?

Or the Jennie Godfrey The List of Suspicious Things ?

If you want something gentle where nothing much really ever happens, I'd recommend the Miss Read books, both Thrush Green and Fairacre series.

They are my favourite antidote to insomnia/stress/unpleasantness in life.

I just got a lovely vintage hardback copy of the Chronicles of Fairacre

If I'm understanding you correctly that you're having trouble sleeping, then it seems to me that you should not be reading anything with an involving plot, and certainly not thrillers.
Either you should read something exceedingly dull ... for me, that might be Mrs. Dalloway, and then you have the benefit of feeling virtuous after you finished. Or something that might be quiet amusing household family stories, especially from the past, like Life Among the Savages, by Shirley Jackson (and I see comparison's with Jean Kerr's Please Don't Eat the Daisies).