For the better part of these two months I took a break from blogging to deal with some personal issues, but things have settled down and I’m so glad to be back. Not to mention so grateful for all the support from this wonderful book blogging community. Thank you, again.
I’ll just list the books I read, as there was no other action going on here — other than my April discussion post, Do you read or write poetry?
You’ll notice a lot of comfort reads on the list: Diana Wynne Jones, Georgette Heyer, and Elizabeth Goudge are authors I can always turn to for some thoughtful escape reading. What are your go-to books or authors when life gets tough?
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Books Read
Deep Secret and The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones – reread- The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett – review to come
- Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin
- A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively
- Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge
- Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer – reread
- Sylvester by Georgette Heyer – reread
Shared in the Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer, the Month in Review linkup at The Book Date, and the Monthly Wrap-up Round-up hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction
The Emerald City Book Review Archive 
Hope you enjoyed the Penelope Lively — I read it as part of a binge read of books with ‘time’ in the title (the others being ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ and Alison Uttley’s ‘A Traveller in Time’) and was fascinated to see the similarities as well as the differences in themes and approaches.
And I’m reminded I should try Elizabeth Goudge this year, just a question of when to fit it in…
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I did enjoy A Stitch in Time, and I’ve been meaning to reread A Traveller in Time, so I’ll be sure to look for those parallels. It would be fun to collect more on the theme…
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Happy June!!
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Thanks Erica, you too!
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I’m glad you’re back! My comfort reads are often favorite children’s books, but this month it was my other guilty pleasure, historical romances. I’ve never read The Shuttle but love Burnett, so I look forward to hearing about it!
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I think you’d like it!
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I still need to finish my copy of Goudge’s Green Dolphin Street. Well, maybe for next year’s Elizabeth Goudge Day!
I find that I go to nature poetry when I need to be lifted up: Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry my collections of various poets or passages from the Mary Austin and John Muir. We are so lucky we have people who can speak to us when we need them….
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Yes, poetry is wonderful for lifting the heart! Also good when I have a short attention span and tend to read the same line over and over again anyway.
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I’m so glad you’re back! I do comfort reading too. Elizabeth Goudge is one of my top go-to authors. I also reread childhood favorites like Louisa May Alcott, L.M. Montgomery, and Frances Hodgson Burnett. And fantasy favorites from MG to adult: C.S. Lewis, Susan Cooper, Tamora Pierce, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, J.R.R. Tolkien… mysteries by Dorothy Sayers, Laurie R. King, Ngaio Marsh, Catherine Aird, Agatha Christie, and Mary Stewart… honestly, “comfort reading” for me can be almost anything I’ve enjoyed before; the familiarity alone can make it comforting. But the authors I’ve just listed have remained some of my favorites for many years, read and reread many times over.
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You’ve listed some more of my favorite authors there! I just introduced my husband to Dorothy Sayers and now I want to reread her myself.
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Agatha Christie is my go to for comfort reads as well as the adaptation of her novels for comfort TV if needed!
I am considering reading of I didn’t participate in Elizabeth Goudge Day unfortunately but am considering reading Green Dolphin Street for The 1944 club hosted by Stuck in a Book and Kaggsys Bookish Ramblings. 🙂
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I must admit I’ve never gotten into Agatha Christie, for no particular reason. I’ve read one or two books but that’s it. I think I should try some others – what would be your recommendation to start with?
Green Dolphin Street would be great for the 1944 club!
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I think Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple) or The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot) are good places to start. Or any of the more famous Poirots: Death on the Nile, Murder on the Orient Express, Evil under the Sun etc.
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Goodness, I could almost have written that list! Isn’t it nice to have such comfort reads?
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Makes life possible, sometimes.
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What a lovely selection of books! Though I must admit, despite having read quite a bit about Temple Grandin, I’ve never read anything BY her.
My comfort books are much like yours and everyone else’s: children’s books, definitely including Diana Wynne Jones, some Golden Age detective writers, Mary Stewart, Georgette Heyer (though I did ‘go off’ her for a bit after I read rather too many in rather too short a space of time, they get a bit samey or at least so I felt, but in more moderate doses she is the tops).
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Too much Heyer does get repetitive, especially the later books that rehash old themes and characters. My other criticism is the use of so many exclamation marks. (These are also less prominent in the earliest books for some reason — did she start to be “untouchable” for editors as she got more successful?) But at her best she’s terrific.
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Lory, it is wonderful to be able to lose yourself in comforting books when we have issues and problems in our lives, isn’t it? My go to comfort authors are Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Susanna Kearsley. M.C. Beaton and J.K. Rowling. 🙂
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Great choices.
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L.M. Montgomery is the only author that pops into my head when I think of “comfort reading”. Any reading is comforting to me, really, but LMM is probably the only author I consistently re-read.
What did you think of Animals in Translation?
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I thought it was fascinating. I’m not much of an animal person but I thought it shed a lot of light on human thinking and behavior as well.
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