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

Diary of a Nobody
Three Men in a Boat
Any Bill Bryson.

All good for a laugh.

I would rather stick pins in my eyes than read a Terry Pratchet book

Another vote for River God (but I always cry at the bit where the horse dies )

The Triffids and the Chrysalids by John Wyndham (although since having children the Chrysalids always makes me cry buckets)

Riders, Rivals & Polo by Jilly Cooper. Fantastic stuff, a real mental enema . Don't much like her later books though.

Maia by Richard Adams.

Pillars of the earth by Ken Follett.

Oh and Thomas Hardy. I love his novels, esp Far From The Madding Crowd and Tess of the d'Urbevilles.

And Lord of the Rings - they're all coming back to me now.

feel the same, omdb

Jane Austen, by a long distance.

Hi overmydeadbody, yes he gets people that way. I know of a book group which fell apart after someone put forward a Prachett and other people didnt like it. Have you read one? What is it about them you hate? It interests me as I often wonder what it is I get from them, why I find them so satisfying. He has a hell of a turn of phrase and also I think the characters are some how safe and reliable and liable to win through at the end. Its an odd feeling, I cant really compare it, may be it is knowing the set up of the whole disc world. I love Ian M Banks Culture novels for the same reason, buts thats my limit more or less for SF type books.

had forgotten Diary of a Nobody, wheresmyhamster.

thanks

I've tried cath, honestly. For me the main thing that doesn't appeal is all the fantasy, I can't be doing with having to use loads of energy trying to imagine things that aren't normal. I struggles through lord of the rings too for similar reasons. I think I have no imagination. That's why I prefer non-fiction and autobiographical books I think.

the surealism of Murikami I can do, the fantasy of Pratchet I can't.

ooo, i thnk i may go get chrysalids from the library again.
triffids is wonderful. i keep waiting for it to get the big hollywood blockbuster treatment though.
good omens is another good one.
i ave only ever read pillars of the earth once, but i think it could become a comfprt read of the future.

His dark Materials

Ooh and I think the Twilight Saga is joining the list

Great Gatsby

Ooh chrysalids too

I love Lord of the Rings, but I can't stand Pratchett.

Love the Chalet school series .... and Harry Potter too

All the John Wyndham too. Never really got Terry Pratchet but I found John Sharpe brilliant! - Blott on the Landscape etc

I remember a book when I was about 16 called Jonathan Livingstone Seagull which I found profound at the time but I've not read since....

aha, good, Great Gatsby gets a second vote

no one for Nancy Mitford? Catcher in the Rye?

looking for my literary soulmate

1984 G orwell
the grass is singing D Lessing
about a boy N Hornby
mice and men J Steinbeck
the trick is to keep breathing D Galloway
after you's gone M O'farrell
my lover's lover M O'farrell
unbearable lightness of being M Kundera

Catcher in Rye certaily a favourite here but not a comfort read as too heartaching

harpo I have read catcher in the rye many times, but probably have outgrown it now, it seems a bit adolescent to me now, although it probably had a profound impact on me at the time!

Scottishmummy, it took me eight (yes eight!!) years to finally get past the first few pages of the Unbearable lightness of being, I think I just wasn't ready for it before, but have now just finished it and will definately be reading it again. It was definately good.

Chalet school series was that were they were permenantly having kaffe and kuchen?

OMDB- I cant stand lord of the rings either. Find hobbits deeply irritating and desire a fiery doom for them all from early on which is clearly unjustified so I stopped reading. I suppose if the Prachett fantasy world is a problem they would be very hard to read. I have some sympathy as occasionally DH tries to press his SF books on me ( known in our house as 'Kaplatha of KThag' as this would be a typical character name, and they are invariably riding multilimbed beasts through desert wilderness commiting random violent acts and I just cant get past all that rubbish to the plot which he assures me is fabulous. I just cant really describe what I get from prachett but it really is a definite prachett only comfort feeling,maybe it is that I can enjoy really enjoy the book without having to cry at any point!