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

Don't think a comfort read has to be 'comforting' Threadworm, iyswim - it's more the idea that it is a book in which you can totally immerse yourself and just read... could be light-hearted or quite dark. I think for me it's the comfort of knowing that I love the book but that every time I read it there will be details that I had forgotten about.

Haven't read it for a while either, omdb - but it's definitely still there on my list!

read catcher as a teen and it seemed deep and profound i later found Holden Caulfield and book not so evocative. maybe age and stage thing

and Winnie the Pooh etc and Alice in Wonderland / Through the Looking Glass (for real comfort!)

Stitch, I'm sure Follett has written the follow up to Pillars of the Earth but I haven't read it so don't know if it's any good.

I used to re-read a lot of fantasy stuff - Katherine Kerr, Guy Gavriel Kay etc but seem to have gone off them a bit. Think I must be getting old! I could never get into Pratchett, though.

Following the theme of children's classics, The Railway Children, The Secret Garden, Little Women, The Little Princess, Chalet School series as I said before (and yes to the kaffee und kutchen).

Is there still a child in me struggling to get out? I think so.

Point taken Harpo. Another book that I love but discounted as not compforting is LOTR. I don't read 'fantasy' stuff in general, but LOTR is so much more than that. Very beautiful and sad. It is a comfort read in your sense because it is just so encompassing. You are there in a satisfyingly complete other world, and the real world can go to hell.

My mum has the Pillars follow up... she is planning it as her summer holiday read though as it is massive

omdb - yes ULOB is such a good gripping read. love , passion,politics the philosophical essence of being. phew it blew me away

Jane Eyre
Pride and Prejudice
The God of Small Things
Brideshead Revisited
Diary of a Nobody
3 Men on a boat
3 Men on a Bummel

Ah! Forgot! Anything by Dickens. Brilliant, esp Bleak House.

This is the one I read, when I need to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Diana's Story.

Synopsis
In 1971, Deric Longden's wife Diana fell ill with the mysterious disorder known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis). She was unable to move without a wheelchair, and was in almost constant pain. Equally distressing, perhaps, was the fact that every doctor she saw was unable to diagnose what was wrong with her. Deric, devoting more and more time to looking after Diana, watched his business gradually fail, and had to neglect his developing career as a broadcaster. He became house husband, nurse and caretaker of the women he loved. "Diana's Story" is told by a writer who can transform the bleakest moment with his warmth and wit. It is an extraordinary funny account of a marriage based on love and on an exceptional sense of humour.

Harpo- I suppose for me comfort reading has to be completely non threatening. For instance I recently read A thousand splendid suns and throughly enjoyed reading it but wont be in any rush to read it again. Ditto time traveller's wife, we need to talk about kevin etc etc I want others to read them and come talk to me about them and I will keep my copy of them, but it will be a long long time before I go to pick them up again. WHen I was younger preprachett days I liked Isabella Allende House of Spirits and Like water for chocolate etc so maybe I just need comfort books to be surreal enough that I can detach emotionally and not be left sobbing (after DH found me with W N TO T about Kevin, in bits, he just kept saying WHY would you read this? Why?)

escapist, non threatening comfort read- no 1 lady's detective agency series.

all patrick white- esp the solid mandala

god of small things

ditto dickens.

am amazed people choosing Dickens for a comfort read; still remember the torture of toiling through Hard Times for O level English...

Oranges are not the only fruit

Yes, to Nancy Mitford. Another vote for Jane Austen.

And Georgette Heyer, and Dorothy L Sayers (I think I can recite Gaudy Night).

Children's books I can always reread - Anne of Green Gables, Sue Barton , Noel Streatfeild, and many many others. In fact, children's literature is my main source of comfort reading.

Dick Francis - any of them really because they are all the same book.

Le Carre, especially The Little Drummer Girl.

I have just looked at my bookshelf and almost all my books have been read more than once, and some a shocking number of times. It's wrong to get rid of a book just because you have read it. Unless of course it is deeply crap.

yes Oranges... and White teeth

All of Nancy Mitford, especially The Pursuit of Love, and Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice. Also Terra Incognita, a travel book on Antarctica by Sara Wheeler. Love it.

"Dick Francis - any of them really because they are all the same book"

Totally agree. All the main charcters are almost identical. I love the one where he has loads of siblings (Hot Money?) and Proof.

Yet another vote for Georgette Heyer and Terry Pratchett. and Cranford, which I have read at least once a year for 25 years - and it still makes me cry.

Barchester Chronicles

Gerald Durrell - My Family and Other Animals
Elizabeth George Speare - The Witch of Blackbird Pond
LM Montgomery - the Anne books
all from childhood

My favourite adult comfort reads are:

Anya Seton - Katherine
Mary McCarthy - The Group
Robert Graves - I Claudius & Claudius the God
Gillian Bradshaw - The Beacon at Alexandria
Georges Perec - La Vie Mode d'Emploi
Francis Iles - Malice Aforethought
Dorothy L Sayers - the Vane/Wimsey mysteries and Murder Must Advertise
Josephine Tey - The Daughter of Time

Marina, we must be the same person.
I love the Anne books too, and the Emily books.
Jane Austen gets read every year
Trollope - Barchester and Palliser and some of the standalone books too.
Dorothy Sayers
Angela Thirkell
Georgette Heyer
Robert Graves
Rosemary Sutcliff
Josephine Tey
Anya Seton
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles' Morland series.

Josephine Tey! How could I have forgotten her!

And Emily books. And Rosemary Sutcliff.

Perhaps we are all the same person ...

Rebecca
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre

Also Bill Bryson's books about Europe and Britain when I need cheering up.