Comfort Food Books: Which Ones Call You Back, Again and Again?

[scarynikki12]

All the Potter books.  In fact, I just realized I'm due for a reread so I'll be getting on that pretty soon.  Outside of that, my comfort books are a handful of romance novels that I read back in high school when the cynic hadn't yet taken over the romantic part of my brain.  Mostly Nora Roberts (Lawless, the MacGregor books) but a few Linda Howard (Dream Man, Mr Perfect) and Johanna Lindsay (Malory books) as well.  They're mindless yet have a sweetness that appealed to teenage me.  But it's only the ones that I read back then.  I've tried to read some of their recent books out of nostalgia and I just can't.  All three have become By-The-Numbers and, when paired with my more cynical view of relationships, it just doesn't appeal anymore.

[Princess Sparkle]

On 11/25/2016 at 3:06 PM, nodorothyparker said:

 

I also hit The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson every year around Christmas time.  I'm not at all religious anymore so that particular aspect of the story doesn't really do anything for me, but it's a nice nostalgia trip with the Herdmans (aka the worst kids in the world) back to being a kid when my own mother and her church lady friends would force us into the annual church pageant.

Omg, I haven't thought about that book in years, but my mom and I read that every year when I was a kid, and she would laugh while reading it out loud to me, and I would giggle like a maniac when she did.  

There are only a few books I read over and over again (although, I never get rid of any after I read them - a librarian's kid always keeps her books I guess), but I have reread David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day" more times than I can count, and the same goes for Little Women.  Trite as this may sound, I also reread Catcher in the Rye quite a bit, as well as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night. And while I haven't picked it up in a few years, I remember reading The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier over and over again in high school and college. I ranted to my mom for 20 minutes after I saw the film version and they changed the ending. 

ETA: I forgot about Matilda, which I read at least once a year.  They may be dark, but Roald Dahl made some of my favorite childhood books. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Princess Sparkle

[Ms Blue Jay]

I think I've read JPod by Douglas Coupland once a year since it came out.  I love any type of workplace comedy stuff (or mundane life comedy stuff) because I find it so cathartic.

[blueray]

Harry Potter: all of them. Which now I really wish I could reread right now (had a bad a day at work). They were a great part of my childhood and helped me survive high school. And continue to be my favorite series that I never can read to many times.

Edited December 14, 2016 by blueray

[HoosierJen]

I read To Kill a Mockingbird every summer because it's the perfect book to ease me into summer vacation and it lets me instantly decompress after a year with 8th graders! In nonfiction, I read every year Nickle and Dimed and books by A. J. Jacobs, both The Know It All and The Year of Living Biblically. 

[hendersonrocks]

Would definitely ditto the Pride & Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird folks, and would add The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume.

[CalamityBoPeep]

On 12/18/2016 at 4:34 PM, hendersonrocks said:

Would definitely ditto the Pride & Prejudice and To Kill a Mockingbird folks, and would add The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume.

Back in the '80's I was that weird young teen whose favorite Judy Blume book was Tiger Eyes, while my friends were all talking about Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.  I never cared that much about how flat-chested I was, but man, I felt anger and loss in a big way. I always wanted my own Wolf. 

[DeLurker]

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry.

Delightfully dark and twisted for a kid's book and one that improved the vocabulary of me and my daughter.  We both reread it about once a year.

[SherriAnt]

1 hour ago, 17wheatthins said:

Boy's Life by Robert R McCammon

Swan Song is my Robert McCammon fix. I love how descriptive he is, and how realistic the devastation sounds. And, since I'm a sucker for magic, the whole showing the outside your inside thing made me happy, and slightly nervous about how I'd look, lol.

[AuntiePam]

My favorite McCammon is Stinger.  I think he did a better job showing what happens when people are confined than King did in Under the Dome. 

[SherriAnt]

1 hour ago, 17wheatthins said:

2 hours ago, AuntiePam said:

My favorite McCammon is Stinger.  I think he did a better job showing what happens when people are confined than King did in Under the Dome. 

Haven't read that one yet, but it's going on my list now! Thank you! :-)

I just put it on hold at my library.

[Haleth]

On 12/3/2016 at 1:40 PM, stillshimpy said:

Then this one is a book that is, again, hopeful in the final analysis.  David Mitchell's Ghostwritten.  It was his first novel and it has one of the most genuinely surprising endings I've ever seen.  It's a story told from multiple perspectives and can make you rethink loneliness, individuality, and basic kindness in an uncertain world.   GIANT spoiler for the book to follow

  Reveal hidden contents

it's the story of the transmigrating spirit that is almost crushing and yet hopeful.  The spirit is that of a 9-year-old boy who was an apprentice to a monk during a revolution.  The monk dies trying to save him but in particular, his soul, to give him another chance in life and the ending and what the spirit does with that gift makes me cry to even think about.

 

 

So that's a good one for anyone that needs hope and doesn't mind shedding three or four pounds worth of tears to get there.  

Hey, shimpy, I read this last week and enjoyed it a lot.  I agree the story you put in the spoiler was the best.  What a beautiful resolution.  It was almost a fairy tale, a story of losing something then finding something.  I read the last chapter a couple times to make sure I understood:  

Spoiler

Was it all (all the stories) in the mind of the terrorist on the subway?  I thought it was going to turn out that all those narrative characters were somehow on the doomed train but it seemed as if they really didn't exist except in the mind of the terrorist anyway.  Is that what you got out of it?

[stillshimpy]

Hey, Haleth, I'm so glad you read that  :-)  I'm glad you enjoyed it.    That isn't what I got out of that but that's a really  interesting take on it and must have made for a thought-provoking moment or eighty at the very end.   I don't think that was the author's intent (which really only ever matters if "great, that's what you intended, but did you actually execute that intent?)  but it's also....if that's what you took from the book...it's as valid as anything else, since the story really does more than a few "choose how you will feel about this as you go...." points.   Here's what I got out of it:  

Spoiler

 

The terrorist is delusional but all of the other stories do exist (you know what I mean, within the book, those stories all exist :-) ) .   The woman talking to the tree is actually dealing with the transmigrating spirit, but his chapter clears up all the things he was doing and the different ways he's appeared in the narrative.   All of the other characters exist and are dealing with some form of haunting, emotional, spiritual, etc.  and the stories intersect at different times.  

I frankly could have done without the Irish Physicist and the "someone is a scifi fan, I see, who thinks a lot about artificial intelligence....and Hal" stuff with the Zookeeper which was -- by far, I thought -- the weakest plotline in the book.  That's why I said it has some of the pitfalls of a first novel. Tropes ahoy on that one but they were well-written, if not dazzlingly (or originally) plotted.   That storyline stood a chance of turning the whole book into a rather too predictable story.  

Then Mitchell pulls that out by revealing who the spirit in the tree was, how he intersects with almost all the stories and realities at different points, which while cool, is a structural tool....it was revealing who the spirit was that really rescues the book from that, I thought.  Then when he chooses to return via the sheepherders -- and it suddenly just made me laugh, thinking how bizarre and disjointed this will seem to anyone reading this who has never read the book because that's one of the nuttier sentences I've written in a while, come to think of it -- that ...you're right, it's like a hopeful fairytale in the end.   A lot of things fall into place when it's revealed that this mysterious presence is actually a child and in the end, when he chooses the sort of hope offered by the monk who died as he was trying to help save him, rather than judging the world by the actions of the people doing the murdering, that just elevates it to something hopeful without being scolding or preachy about it.    I get that he's essentially the line from Anne Frank's diary, "In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart"  made into a character what with all the death, destruction, war and mistreatment he sees in the years he's migrating but it was choosing to go back, to help, despite our cyclical ways and how as human beings, we just struggle and struggle to try and find, maintain and uphold our better selves that makes the entire story, I thought.  

Also, there's a line in there from the musician in Tokyo about trying to create his own space with earphones as it was almost impossible to be alone anywhere that was really moving to me.  It was just something I'd never considered before in my life.   Trying to find some way to keep the world out, combined with some of the other stories that featured just such aching loneliness.  I felt so bad for the old woman when the spirit in the tree left her, one of the few things she'd been able to rely on in that uncertain and often violent world....on the road where the destroying armies and changes were constantly marching through.  

 

 

It's not a perfect book, but it has an emotional core that just stayed with me all these years.  I'm sure everyone in here will get this:  after a certain point in an adult reading life, there aren't that many plot twists one will fail to see coming.  And man, I did not see anything about that key storyline coming, at all.  Particularly in the end.  

It really didn't seem like a book, at the midway point, that I envisioned, "Oh, I'll sit here crying because this is ultimately the most hopeful....in the least sugar-coated way....book that I've read in ages."   I think that's what makes it a good book.  It is ultimately a hopeful story but that hope is not gained by putting on rose-colored glasses and steaming ahead, damn the reality!  It's not about obscuring the world so that you can pretend to have hope via "I will LA LA LA my way to hope"  ....instead, it's this often really brutal look at the world ...that then chooses hopes at the end in way that's earned.  

So it's like a fairytale but it's the most clear-headed "this is what the world is....and we can still hope" sort of fairytale.  

Grim, grim ride to get to the light at the end of the tunnel and that light even includes thinking about the freaking heads down the well -- a detail that is both jarring as hell but the kind of thing the ending needed to include -- before choosing hope.  

[Haleth]

20 hours ago, stillshimpy said:

So it's like a fairytale but it's the most clear-headed "this is what the world is....and we can still hope" sort of fairytale.  

This is a pretty apt description of Mitchell's The Bone Clocks and Cloud Atlas as well.  (Shoot, there was another one about a haunted house but I can't remember the title.  It wasn't as good and didn't end on a hopeful note.)  He weaves several stories together around a particular theme, like isolation.  Some of the individual stories are better than others, but taken as a whole he does a nice job of exploring that theme.  I generally don't enjoy short stories because as soon as I get invested in a character the story ends and I have to start over with the next one.  The way Mitchell does it is ok though since we do get hints about what happened to the previous character through the brief overlapping of their stories.  We get closure. (LOL)

Anyway, my reason for thinking about the ending the way I did was because

Spoiler

while riding the train the terrorist sees flashes of some of the other characters-- the old Chinese woman, the albino bat, etc.  I figured either he created these people himself or His Serendipity was a real omniscient being, and not a con artist, who projected images of the future into his head.  I'd rather it all be a figment of his imagination.

[stillshimpy]

Haleth,  yes, he does, but the answers to that are contained in the chapter I keep talking about:  

The spirit very briefly migrates into the Terrorist and back out because he's so disturbed.   Remember, the boy's ghost moves around? That's how the terrorist sees the flashes.   The boy's spirit is hitching a ride with him because that's the only way he can move from place to place.   He left the tree with the hikers (I am nowhere near as insane as describing this plot keeps making me sound) and that resolution chapter with the boy's spirit, when you find out how he died and what he is ....and all the places he's been in the narrative.  Including in the terrorist.

I think you're referring to Number 9 Dream?  Yeah, ugh, I didn't finish that one because whatever he was going for, Mitchell kind of lost me by putting me in the head of that serial killer, pretty much right away. 

Back to this, I agree, that's why I like intersecting characters in a novel.  I never like short stories as much as I do long form because it takes me a while to invest in characters.  Mitchell is usually good at drawing very vivid and often appealing character traits, right off the bat.  So I don't find his characters to suffer from that "I don't care about you...yet" as much.  Although Ghostwritten has a couple of those characters: the art dealer, for instance.   

Ghostwritten does have pitfalls, including a few too many plot elements, the hackneyed stuff with the Zookeeper and the Irish Physicist who is essentially on an avoidance walkabout the entire time we're around her.  

It really is kind of weird that I think of Ghostwritten as a comforting book but I guess I just appreciate the ability to find hope in the ways that he does.  I'm a sucker for hope.  

[magdalene]

I have read the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik multiple times.  Yes, the titular character is a highly intelligent dragon who talks.  I adore precious Temeraire.

About every two years I re-read The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. Those books are probably not what one would call "easy reading" but I fall into these books and immerse myself completely in this world.  The main character is a charismatic Scottish noble man called Francis Crawford of Lymond.  He is beautiful and endlessly fascinating and tragic and damaged.  People always fall in love with him or want to kill him - often both at the same time. The series also has one of the most awesome and likable female character ever. I won't say her name because that would be a spoiler.  Prepare to bawl your eyes out though at certain sections.

[millennium]

Salem's Lot by Stephen King 

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft

The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James

Cold Hand in Mine (a short story collection) by Robert Aickman

[festivus]

On 1/11/2017 at 7:17 PM, magdalene said:

About every two years I re-read The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett. Those books are probably not what one would call "easy reading" but I fall into these books and immerse myself completely in this world.  The main character is a charismatic Scottish noble man called Francis Crawford of Lymond.  He is beautiful and endlessly fascinating and tragic and damaged.  People always fall in love with him or want to kill him - often both at the same time. The series also has one of the most awesome and likable female character ever. I won't say her name because that would be a spoiler.  Prepare to bawl your eyes out though at certain sections.

Those sound interesting, I've put them on my Amazon list. I've also added Ghostwritten.

 

One from my childhood that I take out and read every now and then is It's Murder At St. Baskets. I don't know where this book came from I just remember finding it in my home when I was kid. That was the book that started my love of all things British. 

[SmithW6079]

On 11/5/2016 at 0:32 AM, CalamityBoPeep said:

For me, the main one has to be The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. I first read it when I was visiting my Grandmother's house, at age 14. Every time we'd make the trip to visit, after that, I'd go upstairs in her old house, pull it from the shelves, and snuggle down on this ancient pink satiny wing-back sofa for a re-read.

Oh my goodness. I read that book ages ago, and I  always thought I was the only one who had read it. Now I'll have to check it out again. 

My "comfort" books include Maeve Binchy books -- "Evening Class" and "The Copper Beech" especially.

[Mick Lady]

Like many here, I go to childhood favorites. Elizabeth Enright is a favorite. Gone-Away Lake and Return To Gone Away are my favorites, but I love The Saturdays series too!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Enright

Thanks for starting this thread CalamityBoPeep!   

[Calvada]

Coming Home and Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher, and anything by Maeve Binchy.  Stories about ordinary people, and they make me think about my mother, who loved everything written by these two authors.

I also return to books from my childhood --- From Anna by Jean Little, The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, A Little Princess, The Boxcar Children, Anne of Green Gables, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase . . . .  I could go on and on!

[psychoticstate]

Pride and Prejudice.  V. C. Andrews' Flowers in the Attic series.  Ann Rule's true crime.  Judy Blume.  Laura Ingalls Wilder.

[Hanahope]

Someday, I hope to have time to reread some old books.  I have so many new books on my list (and in my bookshelf, and on my kindle) that I currently don't have the time to reread anything.

[OtterMommy]

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

Someday, I hope to have time to reread some old books.  I have so many new books on my list (and in my bookshelf, and on my kindle) that I currently don't have the time to reread anything.

I'm in the same boat.  When I do re-read, I usually do an audiobook.  Fiction is not my go-to on audio, but it does work for me if I've already read the book.

[henrysmom]

Quote

For me, the main one has to be The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser. 

Oh wow--I remember that book.  <Loved> it when I was young.  I'd be afraid to reread it.  So many books just don't hold up for me when I reread them years later.

[NutMeg]

This may look weird, but my go to feel good book is Diane Ackerman's A Natural History of the Senses. It just always brings a lot of feelings and memories back. My favourite part is the one about smell, but the whole book is very soothing to me.

[Deanie87]

Probably not exactly comfort food, but I have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn quite a few times.  It is my all time favorite book, and Huck is my all time favorite character, and I find that I read it nearly once a decade, starting with my first time in high school.  I am not nearly as ambitious of a reader as I used to be (I try, I check the books out, don't read them and then I go back to my mysteries!)  But I find that I get different things out of the book as I age.  The last time I read it I had just had my son, and wow, what a horrific book it is in all reality.  Huck is such a sweet soul and real parental love eludes him his whole childhood, except for Jim.  Twain uses a lot of "characters", dialect and humor, but at heart it is just kind of a tragedy all around.  The older I get, the less I laugh and the more I cry.   I have always wanted a Twain sequel to see how Huck ends up, but alas.  I was so excited when Jon Clinch's Finn came out, which told the story of Huck's father, but it just didn't do it for me.

One thing never changes though - how much I end up loathing that spoiled little shit Tom Sawyer!

[Mystery]

Like a few other people, I have a seasonal book that I read: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It takes place during December and that's when I read it, every year. 

I also like to reread the Vicky Bliss books by Elizabeth Peters, and the Julian Kestrel books by Kate Ross. Such a tragedy that she died so young--a tragedy, really, when all authors die, and most of the time their characters die with them. 

[OtterMommy]

10 hours ago, Mystery said:

Like a few other people, I have a seasonal book that I read: The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis. It takes place during December and that's when I read it, every year. 

 

I read this years ago and still remember how much I enjoyed it.  Maybe I'll have to go see if there is an audio version available....

[nodorothyparker]

19 hours ago, Deanie87 said:

Probably not exactly comfort food, but I have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn quite a few times.  It is my all time favorite book, and Huck is my all time favorite character, and I find that I read it nearly once a decade, starting with my first time in high school.  I am not nearly as ambitious of a reader as I used to be (I try, I check the books out, don't read them and then I go back to my mysteries!)  But I find that I get different things out of the book as I age.  The last time I read it I had just had my son, and wow, what a horrific book it is in all reality.  Huck is such a sweet soul and real parental love eludes him his whole childhood, except for Jim.  Twain uses a lot of "characters", dialect and humor, but at heart it is just kind of a tragedy all around.  The older I get, the less I laugh and the more I cry.   I have always wanted a Twain sequel to see how Huck ends up, but alas.  I was so excited when Jon Clinch's Finn came out, which told the story of Huck's father, but it just didn't do it for me.

One thing never changes though - how much I end up loathing that spoiled little shit Tom Sawyer!

This is one of my favorites too and found my entire perspective on this changed when I had my son as well.  Whereas before I saw mostly the adventure of it, now I also saw how awful it was that Huck was mostly alone in the world.  I usually reread it every couple of summers and now that my son is just shy of 11, I see so clearly some of the things Twain was writing about in this one and in Tom Sawyer, like where he writes "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere to dig for hidden treasure."

[nodorothyparker]

We're officially under a blizzard warning now.  It seems about time to put everything else aside and break out LI Wilder's The Long Winter to remind us that as sucky as the next couple of days might be, at least we aren't likely to end up freezing for months in an unheated house and grinding wheat in the dark just to stay alive.

[Browncoat]

And twisting hay. 

[OtterMommy]

1 hour ago, nodorothyparker said:

We're officially under a blizzard warning now.  It seems about time to put everything else aside and break out LI Wilder's The Long Winter to remind us that as sucky as the next couple of days might be, at least we aren't likely to end up freezing for months in an unheated house and grinding wheat in the dark just to stay alive.

You're brave.  I might just lose it if I read that book in the winter.  When I read it the last time (to my daughter), it was during an unusually hot August and it almost brought on a case of SAD.

[nodorothyparker]

I read it every winter, usually about the time the gray is really getting to me and I think I'm going to snap on one of the kids.  I find it weirdly comforting in a whole could be worse kind of thing when we're holed up like we're likely to be for the next day or so.

[BlackberryJam]

On 3/13/2017 at 2:44 AM, Mystery said:

read the Vicky Bliss books by Elizabeth Peters, and the Julian Kestrel books by Kate Ross. Such a tragedy that she died so young--a tragedy, really, when all authors die, and most of the time their characters die with them. 

I'm not fond of Elizabeth Peters, but I loved the Julian Kestrel books.

[proserpina65]

On ‎03‎/‎13‎/‎2017 at 7:12 PM, nodorothyparker said:

We're officially under a blizzard warning now.  It seems about time to put everything else aside and break out LI Wilder's The Long Winter to remind us that as sucky as the next couple of days might be, at least we aren't likely to end up freezing for months in an unheated house and grinding wheat in the dark just to stay alive.

I actually broke a decades-long habit and did not re-read The Long Winter yesterday.  Not sure why, exactly.  Maybe because my power was out and thus the heat was off, making the unheated house/reading by candlelight hit a little too close to home.

[nodorothyparker]

I could see that.  We still have power and heat so we're good on that front.  Our only similarity to the story is the piles and piles of snow that won't stop coming and feeling cut off.

[Qoass]

A couple of you like the poem I linked to for autumn in this thread and since I'm easily encouraged, this is the one I visit every April.

[Mindthinkr]

I've gone back to The Shell Seekers a few times. The ending always reminds me to be true to myself. 

[Minneapple]

Other than the Harry Potter books, my comfort food books are mostly from my childhood:

The Narnia Chronicles
Anne of Green Gables
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (I still remember reading it for the first time as a child and planning my own runaway adventure).
Watership Down

On 12/12/2016 at 11:14 AM, Princess Sparkle said:

ETA: I forgot about Matilda, which I read at least once a year.  They may be dark, but Roald Dahl made some of my favorite childhood books. 

I've read and re-read Matilda and the Witches so many times I can practically recite them by heart.

[Constant Viewer]

Most of my comfort books are books from my childhood as well, like Noel Streatfeild's Shoes books (especially Dancing Shoes, Ballet Shoes, and Theater Shoes) I also recently reread LM Montgomery's the Story Girl and The Golden Road.

My grownup reads are:

Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry series

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

How to Make an American Quilt  and The Passion Dream Book by Whitney Otto

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

[DearEvette]

I usually hit a comfort read if I get a book hangover... meaning I finished a great book and want something like it but can't find anything that engages me right away.  So I fall back.  Some of my favorites are:

The Talisman Ring by by Georgette Heyer (especially the audiobook read by Phyllida Nash)

Astro City: Confession by Kurt Busiek  -- it is a graphic novel and I love the whole series, but the Confession mini-series is my favorite

Path of the Fury by David Weber

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold or any of the Miles Vorkosigan books by her

Mystic & Rider by Sharon Shinn

Any of the City Watch books in Discworld

[Miss Dee]

• All the Agatha Christie mysteries
• Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey (in order of interest level)
• Anne of Green Gables series
• Emily of New Moon series
• David Eddings' four main series: The Belgariad, The Mallorean, The Elenium and The Tamuli
• Harry Potter series
• C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, and The Horse and His Boy. (I lose interest at Caspian.)
• Laura Ingalls Wilder series
• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
• Intruder (Louis Charbonneau)
• The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
• White Fang (Jack London)
• Under the Tuscan Sun (Frances Mayes)

At this point in my life, I'm more of a re-reader than a reader. I've recently discovered the Amelia Peabody mysteries and have a strong feeling they will end up on the list!

Kudos to those who reread The First Man in Rome and its subsequent books. They are dense, massive reads. As much as I enjoy the first one, I think the books and parts covering Caesar are my favourites. McCullough really makes you understand how he was the true First Man in Rome.

Oh, The Trixie Belden Mysteries! I loved The Gatehouse Mystery as a kid. I was obsessed. I would finish the novel and flip it right back to the beginning and start again. I had entire sections committed to memory - as I demonstrated one memorable evening during the supper hour at my Girl Guide camp. (Not sure if the girls were impressed or weirded out.) My mother eventually threw out the novel behind my back because my love for it creeped her out so much.

Edited June 10, 2017 by Miss Dee
Spelling

[rmcrae]

All 12 of L. Frank Baum's original Oz books (Ozma of Oz in particular, because I LOVE Billina, the talking hen!)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas by Maya Angelou

As Hot as it Was You Ought to Thank Me (YA novel reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird)

The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

[whateverhappened]

Quote

 

All the Agatha Christie mysteries

Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey (in order of interest level)

Emily of New Moon series

Harry Potter series

 

Seriously, get out of my brain! :) I've been obsessed with Agatha Christie mysteries since elementary school. I've reread them all multiple times and my brother and I, who have relatively little else in common, will still bond over her books and the film adaptations of them that we used to watch over and over. The one downside is that somehow nearly all other whodunits fall short for me by comparison, so instead of getting hooked on new mystery series, I nearly always end up returning to Agatha's.  They're so compulsively readable, so clever and oddly charming, and have a lot more insight into human nature than they're generally given credit for. And one of the hidden benefits of aging is that I now tend to forget 'whodunit', so when the killer is revealed I get to be surprised all over again as if I'm reading these mysteries for the first time! 

I, too, adore Jane Austen and her unparalleled gift for language. There's so much wit, insight, and brilliant turns of phrase that reward multiple readings. Northanger Abbey is my personal favorite for reasons I won't bore you all with, and there are few characters I love and relate to as much as imaginative, dreamy, loyal, curious, honest, conflates-fiction-with-reality-but-is-more-insightful-than-she's-given-credit-for Catherine Morland :) I realize I have odd taste!

As for Harry Potter, they really are gems, and even when the writing itself falls a bit short for me, I'm forever enamored with the amazingly vivid characters and magical world that JK Rowling gave us. 

And it's a thrill to see someone else mention Emily of New Moon! I was always the only person who loved them even more than the far more popular Anne of Green Gables series, but see above about how I have odd taste :) 

I can't believe we get to talk about books here rather than just TV shows! My weekend is made :) I already wrote down a few of the titles mentioned in the above post and will hunt for them on Amazon, aka the site where I spend 90% of my waking hours.   

Edited June 10, 2017 by whateverhappened

[PamelaMaeSnap]

Starting with a few mentioned here, though they probably couldn't be any different from one another, they're all at the top of my list: The Stand, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn ... and, of course, I've reread "The Handmaid's Tale" a few times and did a recent reread right before the series started airing.

From my childhood, I adored a series I called "the Jennifer books" by Eunice Young Smith and also (kind of surprised not to see them here, though maybe I missed them?) the Betsy-Tacy-Tib series, especially the later ones when they're teens ("Betsy In Spite of Herself" was probably my favorite) I think the author is Maud Hart Lovelace? ... The two series are not dissimilar, both about girls growing up in the midwest around the turn of the century. 

As an adult, I've been sort of obsessed with a few of the James Michener books, especially "The Source" which I have reread several times despite the fact that it's over 1000 pages.

But probably my favorite read-reread-reread is a book that was my friends' and my obsession in high school (I graduated in 1977 to give a basic time frame) ... I've never heard of anyone else being familiar with it ... it's called "The Cheerleader" by Ruth Doan MacDougall. Written in 1973, the cover (and the cover blurb) makes it look like soft porn ("What was it like before the sex revolution? A bittersweet novel of lost innocence") but it was ... well, a little risque but just a great novel about high schoolers in the 50s in New Hampshire. I think it's time for a re-read now, in fact!

ETA: Oh, HOW could I forget ... also ALL of the Amy Tan novels ... have them stacked up to go through them again this summer (hey, I'm unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands). She is overdue for a new one ... I also love Lisa See's books. 

Edited June 21, 2017 by PamelaMaeSnap

[rmcrae]

1 hour ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

Starting with a few mentioned here, though they probably couldn't be any different from one another, they're all at the top of my list: The Stand, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn ... and, of course, I've reread "The Handmaid's Tale" a few times and did a recent reread right before the series started airing.

From my childhood, I adored a series I called "the Jennifer books" by Eunice Young Smith and also (kind of surprised not to see them here, though maybe I missed them?) the Betsy-Tacy-Tib series, especially the later ones when they're teens ("Betsy In Spite of Herself" was probably my favorite) I think the author is Maud Hart Lovelace? ... The two series are not dissimilar, both about girls growing up in the midwest around the turn of the century. 

As an adult, I've been sort of obsessed with a few of the James Michener books, especially "The Source" which I have reread several times despite the fact that it's over 1000 pages.

But probably my favorite read-reread-reread is a book that was my friends' and my obsession in high school (I graduated in 1977 to give a basic time frame) ... I've never heard of anyone else being familiar with it ... it's called "The Cheerleader" by Ruth Doan MacDougall. Written in 1973, the cover (and the cover blurb) makes it look like soft porn ("What was it like before the sex revolution? A bittersweet novel of lost innocence") but it was ... well, a little risque but just a great novel about high schoolers in the 50s in New Hampshire. I think it's time for a re-read now, in fact!

ETA: Oh, HOW could I forget ... also ALL of the Amy Tan novels ... have them stacked up to go through them again this summer (hey, I'm unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands). She is overdue for a new one ... I also love Lisa See's books. 

A little risqué with a cover and blurb that looks like soft porn? WHERE CAN I GET IT?! LOL. It does sound interesting.

[Mindthinkr]

2 hours ago, PamelaMaeSnap said:

Starting with a few mentioned here, though they probably couldn't be any different from one another, they're all at the top of my list: The Stand, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and A Tree Grows In Brooklyn ... and, of course, I've reread "The Handmaid's Tale" a few times and did a recent reread right before the series started airing.

From my childhood, I adored a series I called "the Jennifer books" by Eunice Young Smith and also (kind of surprised not to see them here, though maybe I missed them?) the Betsy-Tacy-Tib series, especially the later ones when they're teens ("Betsy In Spite of Herself" was probably my favorite) I think the author is Maud Hart Lovelace? ... The two series are not dissimilar, both about girls growing up in the midwest around the turn of the century. 

As an adult, I've been sort of obsessed with a few of the James Michener books, especially "The Source" which I have reread several times despite the fact that it's over 1000 pages.

But probably my favorite read-reread-reread is a book that was my friends' and my obsession in high school (I graduated in 1977 to give a basic time frame) ... I've never heard of anyone else being familiar with it ... it's called "The Cheerleader" by Ruth Doan MacDougall. Written in 1973, the cover (and the cover blurb) makes it look like soft porn ("What was it like before the sex revolution? A bittersweet novel of lost innocence") but it was ... well, a little risque but just a great novel about high schoolers in the 50s in New Hampshire. I think it's time for a re-read now, in fact!

ETA: Oh, HOW could I forget ... also ALL of the Amy Tan novels ... have them stacked up to go through them again this summer (hey, I'm unemployed and have a lot of time on my hands). She is overdue for a new one ... I also love Lisa See's books. 

I also have gone back to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and many of the James Michener books. I like your taste. Have you read the Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher? You might like it. 

[2727]

Richard Brautigan. I like all his books, but especially The Abortion and A Confederate General from Big Sur. I first read them in the 70s and maybe some of the carefree, hippy-dippy attitude in his poetry especially doesn't hold up that well, but his novels remain very nostalgic for me and I still re-read them.

I also still dip into Lawrence Ferlinghetti's poetry.

Quote

At this point in my life, I'm more of a re-reader than a reader. I've recently discovered the Amelia Peabody mysteries and have a strong feeling they will end up on the list!

Thanks for the reminder! I might have to splurge and buy the ebooks just to reread. Who can resist Amelia?

Edited June 21, 2017 by 2727

[PamelaMaeSnap]

21 hours ago, rmcrae said:

A little risqué with a cover and blurb that looks like soft porn? WHERE CAN I GET IT?! LOL. It does sound interesting.

HOLY MOLY do I owe you guys a HUGE thank you ... when I went over to Amazon to find you a link to the book I found out that she wrote a SEQUEL to the original following the next 30 years of the main character's life ... WHO KNEW? I DIDN'T?

Just got it for my Kindle and I suspect it will be the first thing I read on my upcoming vacation! SO THANK YOU! And here is a link to Amazon and the book ... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VUI2162/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

ETA: OMG there are SIX sequels ... one for each main character and I guess a few reunions. I know we talk about bingewatching on here a lot but I just bingebought. 

Edited June 22, 2017 by PamelaMaeSnap