What makes a comfort book?You don\u2019t have to be ill or even tired, to feel the need for one, but you know you just want something familiar and reassuring. A comfort book won\u2019t hurt you or bewilder you, or tax your brain. It doesn\u2019t have to be sticky or sentimental \u2013 sometimes it can have quite rough edges \u2013 it just depends what works for you at that moment. There are all sorts of books out there \u2013 worthy, good, enjoyable books \u2013 but just for the present, they aren\u2019t for you. You\u2019re after comfort.
\n When I knew that I was to start chemotherapy, I put aside \u2018Middlemarch\u2019 for my comfort read and it\u2019s stood me in good stead over many an evening -Dorothea\u2019s ghastly marriage, Lydgate\u2019s slow corruption and Rosamund\u2019s complacency- so many stories, all against the background of small town intrigue and politics. Dorothea does become annoying as the story progresses, Ladislaw is annoying throughout, but it’s a book to lose yourself in.
\n Where to go from \u2018Middlemarch?\u2019 Well, surely it has to be Trollope. I looked on our shelves and found \u2018Phineas Finn\u2019 which I haven\u2019t read for so many years, I\u2019ve quite forgotten it, and so far am absorbed by this story of a young, confused but ambitious man thrust into Parliament. And I\u2019ve just discovered that I can download most of Trollope for free on my Kindle \u2013 so hooray!
\n Jane Austen is the ultimate comfort read. All of them, of course, but I\u2019m fond of \u2018Mansfield Park\u2019 though I know it isn\u2019t her most popular book. Fanny Price is tougher than she seems at first glance, and Mrs Norris is probably Austen\u2019s most monstrous monster.
\n Here are some more of my comfort books:
\n I Capture The Castle \u2013 Dodie Smith
\n Bilgewater \u2013 Jane Gardham \u2013 a teenage novel, long out of print, but worth chasing up.
\n Enchanted April \u2013 Elizabeth Von Arnim – A friend gave me this once when I was ill. Three women rent an Italian castle on spring in the inter-war years \u2013 lovely.
\n The Great Gatsby \u2013 Scott Fitzgerald. Maybe not an obvious comfort book, with such a strong skein of melancholy and disquiet running through it, but the beauty of the writing, and the atmosphere make it a book to float away on like a dream.
\n And perhaps my favourite contemporary writer for comfort \u2013 Anne Tyler. She writes about ordinary people leading ordinary lives, but transformed by a deep humanity and warmth, and full of unexpected twists and turns. Recently I\u2019ve read \u2018Digging to America\u2019 in which two very different American families adopt Korean babies, and \u2018A Patchwork Planet\u2019 about the black sheep of a stuffy well-to-do family.
\n Of course, comfort books are quite personal and idiosyncratic. What works for one person might not work at all for someone else. You might be bemused by my choice, I might be left cold by yours. So what does work for you? It would be lovely to read some of your suggestions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What makes a comfort book?You don\u2019t have to be ill or even tired, to feel the need for one, but you know you just want something familiar and reassuring. A comfort book won\u2019t hurt you or bewilder you, or tax your brain. It doesn\u2019t have to be sticky or sentimental \u2013 sometimes it can have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/francesthomas.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}