What are your comfort reads - books that you can read over and over again?

[harpomarx]

You know, those books that you have been reading for years, have old dog-eared copies of and will pick up when there is nothing new that takes your fancy.

Mine are:

Almost anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but especially The Beautiful and Damned.

Betty MacDonald - The Egg and I etc

Nancy Mitford Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate etc

J. D. Salinger Catcher in the Rye

Cold Comfort Farm

[ifyoudidntlaughyoudcry]

Rebecca

Love love love it!

[Kimi]

Anne of green gables
Time and time again

[arthursmum]

Sorry if I am repeating anyone but here goes..

Pratchett (Guards or Witches)
St Clare's (ah Mamzelle Abominable!)
Daddy Long Legs
Ballet Shoes
Toast (Nigel Slater)
Little Women
To Kill A Mockingbird
Darling Buds of May
Rebecca
Adrian Mole
Harry Potter
Any Jasper Fforde
Cold Comfort Farm

Feel like tucking myself up in bed and reading them all back to back now...

[mooki]

The Compleet Molesworth
The Blue Door series - Pamela Brown
Little Women

[queenrollo]

another one for Cider With Rosie......and also for A Christmas Carol which i have read every December for the last 8 years, but have been known to read in the middle of summer too when my mood needs lifting.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl and a collection of Sherlock Holmes.....

[mistyamica]

Christine by Stephen King.

I have read it dozens of times and it still never ceases to thrill me! It's much better than the film they made of it.

Oh yeah I like Carrie by Stephen King too!

[chipmonkey]

Jane Austen
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables
Harry Potter
The Mapp and Lucia books by E.F Benson
A Christmas Carol by Dickens
Silas Marner by George Eliot.

[christywhisty]

Jane Eye
Rebecca
Harry Potter
Anne of Greengables
Little Women

I haven't read the Chrysalids in ages,but read it several times

I have only read the No1 ladies Detective Agency series once but could imagine reading them again.

[chunkychips]

If I'm anxious etc I have to read something like Bill Bryson or Wind in the Willows.

[mymblemummy]

George and Weedon Grossmith: Diary of a Nobody

Keith Waterhouse: Mrs Pooter's Diary

Jerome K Jerome: Three Men in a Boat
Three Men on a Bummel

EF Benson: Queen Lucia
Lucia in London
Miss Mapp
Mapp and Lucia
Trouble for Lucia
Lucia's Progress
Paying Guests
Secret Lives

Tom Holt: Lucia Triumphant
Lucia in Wartime

Betty MacDonald: Onions in the Stew
Anyone Can Do Anything
The Egg and I

Ruth McKenney: My Sister Eileen
Far, Far from Home

Mrs Gaskell: Cranford

Flora Thompson: Lark Rise to Candleford.

All very hot water bottle sort of books to me.
I'm very pleased to see some more Betty MacDonald enthusiasts. I came across a tatty paperback of Onions in the Stew when I was a child and I thought it was so funny. I've never met anyone who had even heard of her before, so I was amazed to heard Lynne Truss talking about her on Radio 4 fairly recently.

[BeckyBendyLegs]

Cold Comfort Farm is lovely. I might have to rea-read that one next time I have flu...Actually what am I talking about? When I have flu I don't get to lie in bed reading I have to look after children dossed up to my eyeballs on lemsip!!! I'm more likely to spend my time reading Thomas the TE books.

How Not to be a Perfect Mother by Libby Purves is definitely the best motherhood book - made me laugh so much.

[MaryAnnSingleton]

oh yes to Cold Comfort Farm..

[susiecutiebananas]

COld COmfort Farm,
The great Gatsby
My Family and Other Animals - Gerrald Durrel
The wind in the willows - I know, not adult fiction but i've read that book more times than I cold count!
To Kill a mockingbird
A Room with a view

THere are a few more,but can't recall of the top of my head at this hour!

[JayneF]

Silas Marner -George Eliot

[Slickbird]

How Not to be a Perfect Mother, by Libby Purves - Simply the only book on motherhood I personally think you need!! So sensible, funny and down to earth. It has been my bible for nearly 8 years!! Even if it is a little out of date!

Any of the 'Broons' books. But you might have to be Scottish to understand that one!

[LANDGIRL71]

The Chamomile Lawn by Mary Wesley - I always want to start reading it again as soon as I finish.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, always start reading this at the beginning of December to get me in the mood

[zaphod]

The Narnia books
LHOP books
Six Cousins at Mistletoe Farm and Sequel by Enid Blyton
Harry Potter books
I know there are some grown up books but can't think of any at the moment.

[RaggedRobin]

jitterbug perfume by tom robbins
any kurt vonnegut
any robert anton wilson

[MaryAnnSingleton]

Tales of the City,of course

[AnnVan]

Becky - I also have What Katie did. An I also read Enid Blyton when ill. I think cos when I had chicken pox or flu when I was young my mum would buy me Enid BLyton books.

[Mayakovskyandme]

Any PG Wodehouse
Diary Of A Nobody
Three Men In A Boat
Calvin and Hobbes
Trollope
Dorothy L. Sayers
Monica Dickens

[BeckyBendyLegs]

Mine are childhood things as well:
Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee
What Katie Did
Little Women

Whenever I am really, really ill or depressed I like to read Enid Blyton books! Sad I know but I devoured them as a kid.

[AnnVan]

CMOT - yes Veronica at the wells, I've been trying for years to get copies of these books to no avail.

A lot of mine are ones that I fell in love with as a child, and still reread regularly - Goodnight Mr Tom, Anne of Green Gables, The Hobbit, The Chronicles OF Narnia, A little princess (Francis Hodgson Burnett)
Also Jane Eyre, Pride & Predudice, Terry PRatchett is my favourite author ever, gutted at Alzheimer's news

[JammyQueenOfTheSewers]

Dancing to the Pipers by Kate Fenton
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
A Widow for One Year by John Irving
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Insomnia by Stephen King
bag of Bones by Stephen King

[eemie]

Books I have read so often I practically know them by heart but still come back to again and again:-

All of Mary Renault, especially the Alexander books and The Charioteer and The Last of the Wine;

The Once and Future King, TH White;

Jane Austen especially P&P, S&S, Persuasion;

All of CS Lewis;

The Day of the Triffids, Chocky, The Chrysalids (John Wyndham);

The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey);

Georgette Heyer for when I'm ill.

The Narnia chronicles, especially TLTWATW, Prince Caspian and the Voyage of the Dawn Treader - what a joy to read them all to dd!

Oooooh - must go quick and read them all again.

Also - The Shipping News (Annie Proulx);
The Time Traveller's Wife;
Michelle Paver - A Place in the Hills, Without Charity, And all of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.