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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Comfort reading

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12:06 / 02.07.02

When I was at university, it was generally agreed among my female friends that Jilly Cooper was the best comfort-reading author around. I disagree - my comfort reads are more likely to be Georgette Heyer, Dorothy L Sayers, Wodehouse, Chalet School books and children's fantasy... (I would have included DWJ here, but obviously I read her all the time and so she doesn't count).

It struck me that these authors, and others like them, are extremely collectable these days - partly the series factor, of course, but also I think that there's a certain something about them which many people find very satisfying.

What makes a good comfort read, and what are yours?

12:12 / 02.07.02

*promptly*

Little House on the Prairie. I love these books inordinately & have read them so many times, I must qualify as a Little House scholar.

Also The Wizard of Oz, which happily Husb has collected since he was a boy & we have all the hardcovers with their spooky illustrations.

And Watership Down and The Once And Future King.

12:25 / 02.07.02

Oh, I love the Little House books too... though funnily enough my favourite was always Farmer Boy. The parts (in Happy Golden Years? where Mary keeps not coming home to find her organ are heart-rending... Louisa M Alcott fulfils a similar function, but hers aren't so simple, and Jo marrying Professor Bhaer is all wrong, grrrr.

TH White is one of my household gods too. I love him, but some of his books are really hard to get hold of. The Once and Future King is best though... my copy is absolutely shredded.

14:16 / 02.07.02

Generally my comfort reading has always been fantasy, or was when I was a slumming student and had long holidays. Whole weeks of not straying from the armchair and re-reading a whole shelf of Tolkien, Feist and Eddings. That's probably why I've never delved into other fantasy, as my earlier discoveries have given me enough to fill that comfort slot.

These days when I want a comfort read that can be integrated into daily life rather than involving whole weeks of sloth, it's usually something easily readable yet with a degree of style and ennui, like Graham Greene or Iris Murdoch, and now Saul Bellow, someone whom I've always wanted to give a try but into whom I only recently took the plunge.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

15:05 / 02.07.02

My comfort reading is, like most most people, I guess, the stuff I loved when I was about 12. Doc Savage books, the Susan Cooper "Dark is Rising" series and oddly enough, early Stephen King (like Salem's Lot). They have such a nice, familiar ring to them, while being well-written enough that I always find something new.

And for those who say that Doc Savage wasn't well-written...pshaw, they are one of the few pulp series with a nice dose of character based humor as well as action. As for King, what can I say, I like his work before "It" and feel that as an author, he has just been phoning it in since then.

The Return Of Rothkoid

15:46 / 02.07.02

Haruki Murakami, baby. Stillness with Lynchean overtones. Makes me feel all warm inside.

Well, yes, OK. That and Oscar And Lucinda. That still rocks with fists of steel, years on from my first reading...

Jack The Bodiless

17:38 / 02.07.02

Leslie Charteris' 'Saint' novels, novellas and short stories. Got about half of them over the last eleven or twelve years, and they're gorgeous. Literate, compassionate, idiosyncratically self-mocking, relatively hard-boiled pulp, with enough of a fantastic element to keep it firmly on the 'naughty, but nice' side.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:20 / 02.07.02

I've said it before and I'll say it again- Martin Millar's "Ruby & The Stone Age Diet".

Or the Moomins. Obviously.

21:45 / 02.07.02

Also Trollope, Anthony. I *know* it's all the same book, but I love them still --especially The Warden and Barchester Towers.

(My favorite Little House book is The Long Winter, though Farmer Boy is very close second.)

I must read some of these. What is Diana Wynne Jones, sci fi? How many titles? And tell me more about Moonmins, these are kids books? Do they have pictures, or are they older?

11:35 / 03.07.02

Ah, Diana Wynne Jones... *gets on hobby horse* ...well. She is fantasy yes, mostly children's/YA but some adult as well (though there is practically no difference); I don't know how many there are, but it must be twenty or so, some of which are linked but many of which are not. And they're reeeeallly good, no one else is quite like her... There's a thread here somewhere, let me dig... here, though it's not exactly an Underground classic...

20:15 / 03.07.02

Well I've got shelves of trashy sci-fi from when I was younger, along with Eddings and Fiest for fantasy to stun small animals with. Also have a bunch of military sci-fi by david weber, all about captain Honor Harrington, full of daring do and the like. I'm not proud.

Read two Diana Wynne Jones books, the first one was quite odd about a family of wizards and witches protecting the world from a bunch of wizards from a parallel world. Can't remember the title but it definately felt like it needed a better editor or something.

On the other hand Fire and Hemlock was very cool indeed, if a little obvious to students of BBC childrens TV and fantasy books

. Can't tell you any more apart from that its apparently one of her better books.

Btw anyone read any Tamora Pierce? I read her Alanna series years ago and its a lot of fun, not on a par with Northern Lights but a good read.

20:32 / 03.07.02

If I want to make myself sick I read PR Week and Campaign, the two magazines of my studied-for-but-never-practiced trade that I still receive even though my subscriptions expired a year ago.

If I need to feel better I read Donn Kushner's "A Book Dragon". That book always makes me feel better in a nice, fuzzy, warm-hearted sort of way. If I'm really sick and have to shack up in club duvet for a while, a pile of sci-fi anthologies and Terry Pratchett is permanently installed next to the bed for just such a purpose.

20:37 / 03.07.02

For some bizarre reason, Douglas Coupland's Microserfs is comfort reading. It's battered, smudged, and I can probably recite it, but it kind-of touched a nerve with the failed-geek within me. So I often dip into that. Other than that... Norwegian Wood tends to go everywhere with me now, old Alastair Maclean and Desmond Bagley's, of which there are many at home are often great - Bagley's The Spoilers and Where Eagles Dare are particular favourites when I just need a couple of hours in enjoyable, exciting trash.

Swallows and Amazons, and indeed most of Ransome's books bar the bad ones are also definitely on the list, though nowadays I just tend to remember them rather than reread, but they're still all on the shelf. Oh, and Vurt and Snow Crash are beginning to edge towards Comfort Reading territory. It's not about quality, but pleasure, and I've enjoyed all these books in very personal ways.

(I also find idly flipping through Leonard Maltin's Film Guide 2000 most enjoyable, and have pretty much read the damn thing cover to cover now. It's not too battered, because it replaces the highly battered 1997 version...)

04:46 / 04.07.02

Not entirely sure what you mean by 'comfort reading', but judging from context, I'll say Terry Pratchett.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:03 / 04.07.02

"And tell me more about Moomins, these are kids books? Do they have pictures, or are they older?"

The Moomin books are children's books about a family of trolls that live in Finland and have really bizarre adventures. They're by Tove Jansson (who tragically died last year), and they have cool illustrations. They're simultaneously very sweet and a little sinister. And they rock, incidentally.

ONLY NICE THINGS

08:12 / 04.07.02

If we take "comfort readign" to mean books read while ill - Dorothy L Sayers and Diana Wynne Jones also high on my list. Also "the Phantom Tollbooth", natch. Teen romances are good.

When everything has gone horribly wrong and I want to hide away in a tiny corner being a scared mouse, the Making Out books are the only way forward. 28 books of teen romance action centring on the lives and loves of the children of a tiny island off the coast of Maine. They think they know everything about each other. They're only just beginning to find out. You don't really have to read beyond the first 8, but it's kind of hard not to...

09:27 / 04.07.02

If I am actually sick, I often prefer to read short stories or poetry. I confess to having a volume by my bed, called The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats, chosen by Joyce Carol Oates and Daniel Halpern for this purpose. (And Kit-Cat will perhaps be interested to know that it *does* have an extract from Archy and Mehitabel to keep me toujours gai).

If however, it's a matter of beguiling away an hour or two of sorrow, then it needs to be a novel or non-fictional work which is new and engrossing for some reason at the time.

It's at times of nostalgia and whimsy (or during searches)that I discover, pick up and re-read my old favourites.

11:46 / 04.07.02

See, the thing is that teen romances usually have a higher angst quotient than I can bear when feeling low.

I forgot - LOTR. Duh.

RiffRaff - I mean things you read when, for whatever reason, you are too miserable/ill to cope with anything requiring brainwork.

11:54 / 04.07.02

calvin and hobbes collections have got to win in my top comfort reading stakes

The Planet of Sound

13:02 / 04.07.02

George Melly: Owning Up, Rum, Bum & Concertina, Scouse Mouse,
Mellymobile. Stories about greasy Northern B&Bs and jazz-zurrealist drinking exploits always warm my bath for me...

13:21 / 04.07.02

Comfort reading for me tends to mean regression to childhood. Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov short stories, largely. When I'm at a loose end and can't get into any new reading I might pick up Lovecraft. Which is an odd definition of "comfort" reading, I know.

Also saw a re-issued volume of the Borribles books in Waterstones the other day, which I just have to buy for the next time I'm feeling low.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:26 / 04.07.02

fab topic idea. think I *only* seem to be doing comfort reading at the moment! I'm taking this to mean books i read when needing comfort, whether this is because Im actually physically/mentally ill, or just 'down'/ in need of a literary cuddle. (steering away from the conversation about where these connect as this ain't the head shop!)

This tends to mean lots of DLS (again. what is it with Sayers and this place? outside of here I know precisely 0 people who read her), books i've read thousands of times before (Douglas Rushkoff's The Ecstasy Club tops this list) Jacqueline Susaan, EF Benson, Neil Bartlett

And, for some reason 50s/60s stuff like Sheila Delaney, Up the JUnction etc...

But my all time top comfort reading is definitely Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series.

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:26 / 04.07.02

Ooh! and Russell Hoban's The Mouse and His Child.

15:31 / 04.07.02

Did you ever read David Blaize? Combines EF Benson and school stories in one glorious semi-homoerotic tome...

15:32 / 04.07.02

Actually, there's no semi about it.

02:09 / 05.07.02

RiffRaff - I mean things you read when, for whatever reason, you are too miserable/ill to cope with anything requiring brainwork

Definitely Pratchett then.

02:25 / 05.07.02

Anything by Mercedes Lackey. Best thing about them is you can pick up any book you've already read, turn to pretty much any place in the book, and not have to worry about any important plot points you may have missed.

11:10 / 05.07.02

So it seems that most of us (with the honourable exception of Cavatina) prefer to comfort-read books we have read before - or at least authors we have read before. Something to do with predictability, and being able to enjoy the reading without having to worry too much about what is going to happen? Also, of course, the pleasure of revisiting one's favourite parts. And I suppose, with series, you know that you can carry on reading once you've finished this particular book...

Interesting that children's books seem popular for this kind of reading - do people read them anyway, or only when miserable/ill?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:22 / 05.07.02

Children's books? read all the time?
I always read the Moomins, but I don't really consider them kids' books (with the possible exception of The Book Of Moomintroll, Mymble & Little My, which is a kid's book. Though a very warped one.) In fact, I think Snufkin has a lot to say on the subject of Anarchism... (and no, I'm not taking the piss... if I'm ever foolish enough to have kids, they're being brought up to think that Snufkin's speech to Moomintroll about how he needs no possessions because the entire world is his...)
...sorry. got all nostalgic about growing up in Moominvalley then.

Yes, for comfort reading, familiarity is key. Even if it's not something you've already read, read something that sticks to a genre/formula you know you like.

Unless a total headfuck's in order to take your mind off stuff. In which case, may I direct you to Richard Calder (sf. but very very fucked sf. Hardly comfortable, but will take you away from your own woes for ages.)

I also find Tolkien and Lewis very good comfort reading- but that's largely because my Mum used to read 'em to me as a kid. And anything that reminds you of something that nice can't be anything BUT comforting. (Although seeing my Mum cry for the first time in my life while reading me LotR as a bedtime story upset me quite a lot.)

Or, failing all that, bring in the big guns. Call in a Dr Seuss-strike.

14:24 / 05.07.02

The Rev. JP Martin's "Uncle the Elephant" stories are fierce and MIGHTY, and have been great for preventing me from going insane during a hideously busy time at work.
Martin wrote them for his own kids in the 1930s and they were published in the 60s with illustrations by Quentin Blake. Six books in total, I believe. I reckon they'd appeal to people who appreciate PG Wodehouse and Norman Hunter (a contemporary of Martin's and author of the Professor Branestawm books).

From Uncle:

"Uncle is an elephant. He's immensely rich, and he's a B.A. He dresses well, generally in a purple dressing-gown, and often rides about on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car.

"He lives in a house called Homeward, which is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea of it. The towers are of many colours, and there are bathing pools and gardens among them, also switchback railways running from tower to tower, and water-chutes from top to bottom.

"Many dwarfs live in the top storeys. They pay rent to Uncle every Saturday. It's only a farthing a week, but it mounts up when there are thousands of dwarfs."

Features lovely character names like Butterskin Mute, Hitmouse, Jellytussle and Beaver Hateman. Won't go down well with members of Class War, mind.

Goodness Gracious Meme

22:49 / 05.07.02

You have just made me very happy indeed, Sav. The uncle books (while being as you say, entirely unsound, class-wise) are fabfabfab. Found a copy of Uncle and the treacle trouble in a charity shop the other day, and it's perfect comfort reading. D'you know if they're still in print?

Sleepy Sam! Sleepy Sam!

16:14 / 07.07.02

I'm loathe to admit that my current comfort reading is chick-lit-trash. THere's something very reassuring about knowing that the plots going to work out exactly the way you expect - that's the deal when you open up page one - and it's all about the journey. Some are truly tosh, but I have enjoyed Jenny Colgan and Lisa Jewell.

I feel like I've just done penance or said three hail mary's or something.

Comfort reading that I always go back to: White Noise/Don DeLillo. He just makes me feel everything is good with the world. And at least he understands it, even if I don't.

17:55 / 07.07.02

All my recent reading has been either technical stuff or really, bad easy reading bestseller stuff. I'll be sitting at work with a bad novel by my side and someone will ask if is any good. Cue five minute tirade about how it being rubbish, dull, and only bought on a whim in Asda because it was cheap.

12:28 / 08.07.02

Plums - Hooray, another Uncle fan! Turns out they were out of print until very recently, for reasons hinted at above. According to David Langford:

"...according to enthusiasts who beg for reprints, the original publishers Jonathan Cape don't wish to reissue Uncle ... owing to the spectre of political correctness, always at its worst in children's publishing. Specifically, the books are regarded as "classist" because Uncle is rich and insufferably complacent. Also they are "over-violent", owing to mighty battles in which Uncle lays about him with a stone club and kicks Hateman hundreds of yards into the air -- all somewhat tamer than Tom and Jerry. No one is ever really hurt."

See here for the rest:

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/introduces/uncle.htm

Right at the bottom there's an update which says that an omnibus of the first two books is to be issued in paperback in August this year, and that "hopefully the others will follow."

22:46 / 08.07.02

Calvin and Hobbes, every time, or if im feeling a bit more attactive, GM JLA, ZENITH, heroes win and in style white hats rise and dominate, moments of joy , happiness, and pure comic magic like only they can.

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