There are times to be challenged by a book, and times when you need the literary equivalent of a very large slice of coffee and walnut cake. I don’t pretend that literature holds miracle cures, and it is slender protection against the great crises and tragedies of life. But what it can offer is wonderful distraction when the rain is hissing down and the world is an unlovely place and one’s edges are blurred by loneliness. There are certain books I will always buy for friends who have recently suffered the end of a relationship, and books that I turn to when nothing seems to go my way. Losing myself in a book seems a better gesture of postponed hope than pulling the duvet over my head. The following is my list of books that I think are better than prozac:
Barbara Trapido – Brother of the More Famous Jack. Ah the angsty joy of being adolescent, discovering an exotic, unorthodox family, and falling in love with them all.
Elizabeth von Armin – The Enchanted April. Four women rediscover themselves in Italy: funny, shrewd and compassionate. My mother didn’t like it though: ‘far too cheerful for me,’ she sniffed.
Dodie Smith – I Capture the Castle. Mad stepmothers, fathers with writer’s block, crumbling family pile, rich Americans, first love, sibling rivalry. What’s not to like?
Sybille Bedford – A Favourite of the Gods. A recent find for me, this author, and a splendid, luminous writer. Three generations of women live unconventional lives across Europe through the tumult of two world wars.
William Maxwell – The Chateau. How I love this man’s prose. An American couple travel to France in 1948 as the barriers to travel come down after the war. If you’ve ever fallen in love with a place you’ve visited, despite the cultural barriers, this is for you.
Nancy Mitford – Love in a Cold Climate. Why are we Brits so nostalgic for a time before central heating? Undoubtedly because we are never wittier than when we are under duress.
David Lodge – Nice Work. Academia meets middle management in this funny, clever story of a mismatched love affair.
Barbara Pym – Excellent Women. A hugely underrated author because she makes it all look so simple. Women seeking a little excitement despite the mundane, churchy community they have committed themselves to. Unfulfilled longings, blistering wit.
E. F. Benson – the Lucia stories. I tried to cut it down to one book and just couldn’t. Tales of village rivalry in the jazz age, done with sparkle and pizzazz.
W. Somerset Maugham – Cakes and Ale. The fictionalised account of Thomas Hardy’s life and writing career. Why don’t people write like this in English any more? Edible sentences, elegant insight.
Tales from the Reading Room 
I *Love* I Capture the Castle!! And Enchanted April is wonderful, too! I have several more of the same authors on my TBR pile–great choices! I thrive on books like this I have to admit!
Thank you for that. On a Monday, there are few things better than discovering new things to read, in lieu of pulling the covers over one’s head. Cheers, BL
I love the idea of comfort reading! Comfort reading for me would be southern literature – Willie Morris’s North Towards HOme, all of Pat Conroy (of course), Eudora Welty, Rebecca Wells…I think this kind of literature calls to me because it’s a world so very different from my Northern climate, worlds away in terms of culture and yet, often, easily identifiable? Not sure. Anyway, you have made my reading list impossibly long.
I love the idea of comfort reading, too. Alas, not read any on your list, but I am most intrigued by Cakes and Ale! The title alone does it for me!
Thanks for the list! Except for Lodge, I haven’t read these, so I’m glad to have the recommendations.
Terry Pratchett is probably my number one comfort read. I’m increasingly liking and rereading the Jasper Fford books when I’ve got a cold too. P. G Wodehouse too obviously.
Some of the ones on your list are on mine too- all of the Mitfords and “I Capture the Castle.” I find I reread most of Trapido’s books every now and again too.
I am very intrigued by “Cakes and Ale”
Hmm. My comfort reading may seem odd (there is no reason I can think of why it comforts me):
Margaret Atwood – The Robber Bride
Evelyn Waugh – Brideshead Revisited
Adele Parks – Larger Than Life [real trash!]
AS Byatt – anything really
Can’t think of my others!
But I agree about the Chateau, which you bought me at a horrible moment in my life and which alleviated something, somehow – the writing is really gently and yet sharply warming.
K
“I Capture the Castle” is one of my all time favourites as well. I haven’t read any of the others on your list but they sound most appealing and I’m noting them all down! My own comfort reading generally runs to rereads of childhood favourites (anything by Maud Hart Lovelace, L.M. Montgomery, Elizabeth Enright, E. Nesbit, and a host of others) or first reads of mystery novels (I’m particularly fond of the sort that have clever puzzles at the centre that the reader can figure out along with the sleuth).
Ah, I was just thinking of comfort books myself. I agree with Enchanted April and I Capture the Castle. Have you read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. Very wonderful and comforting. I will definitely look for some of the others you’ve mentioned.
Nice to know there are so many other comfort readers out there! And great suggestions to add to my list – thank you all so much.
Comfort reading for me is a book about books or reading. It could be Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris, or something by Nicholas Basbanes. I agree that Barbara Pym makes things look so simple, but Excellent Women is really a gem.
I like your list. I adored The Chateau and introduced it to my bookclub. As someone living in a different culture to my own, I loved how he set up the misunderstandings that arise no matter how well you speak the language. I loved how the couple were so tentative, so anxious not to offend. I thought it was a beautiful book. I’m also a Barbara Trapido, Barbara Pym and David Lodge fan. Since I read for escape, usually in the bath, late at night when my family are sleeping, all books are comfort books to me.