The art of comfort reading

Earlier this week over on bookstagram a friend of mine wrote a post asking for comfort reading recommendations. Wonderful human that she is, she was planning to cheer someone going through a hard time with a parcel of lovely things to read. I’m a HUGE advocate of comfort reading, so the question itself and the many and varied responses she received in the comments heartened me enormously.

Comfort reading is something I come back to over and over. Both as a self-care practice I rely on myself and as a concept in general—I love noticing the correlation between emotional needs and reading choices.

I could wax lyrical all day long about the importance and value of self-care. I truly believe being able to nurture ourselves even in the smallest ways—understanding what we feel and what we need in the moment and, perhaps the most important bit, doing something about it—can have an enormous impact on how we move through the world and are able to cope with all the ups and downs that inevitably entails.

It makes me so happy to witness this blossoming skill in my daughter. Recognising what she needs and taking the steps to make it happen, be that time together, time alone, a cosy nest of blankets and cushions, a favourite film. Or indeed, a favourite book. Last week, full of cold, she put aside the book she had been reading and picked Emma off the shelf for a reread—be still my bookish heart.

So reaching for a book is undoubtedly a way to seek comfort. But as I realise about nearly everything the older (and, cough, wiser) I get, it’s more nuanced than that. Comfort reading can look different for each of us, and can look different for the same person at different times. There’s a LOT to delve into here.

Children’s classics are surely the ultimate comfort reads, for those times when everything ‘real’ is uprooted and unsettled and you simply want to be swaddled in a warm, enveloping world, where life is (mostly) easy and everything works out happily in the end. In the responses to my friend’s bookstagram post, LM Montgomery’s wonderful Anne of Green Gables came up time and again. I read it myself for the first time in 2020 seeking bookish comfort in the early days of the pandemic, and it absolutely hit the spot. Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, The Railway Children, The Wind in the Willows, and The Secret Garden would all serve a similar purpose. I can tell if my daughter is feeling worn down from school when she asks me to read Milly Molly Mandy to her; my version of this was always My Naughty Little Sister, which I continued to reach for when I needed to long after I’d ‘outgrown’ it.

I would also suggest that reading about childhood reading could be comforting in this way too. Taking us back to a simpler time in our own lives. There are lots of lovely books that delve into this utterly joyful subject, Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm is one of my recent favourites.

Taking it down a notch from the all-encompassing bear hug of a children’s classic, there is a rare and wonderful category of books providing general heartwarming loveliness, but that are definitely ‘grown-up’ reads. They may touch more on the realities of life, but overwhelmingly good things happen to good people and we all feel better for it. As someone who isn’t a fan of a saccharine-sweet read, finding a well-balanced, well-written, more literary version of ‘uplit’ always feels like discovering treasure.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Rónán Hession is a wonderful example of this. It was one of the first books I embarked on after an initial pandemic reading slump and was just what I wanted and needed to read—a book celebrating the ordinarily overlooked—human, kind, endearing, uplifting.

‘Family of friends’ books always rank highly in this category for me. Think Amor Towles’ A Gentleman in Moscow (the book I’ve gifted the most) and Sarah Winman’s Still Life (the most suggested book in the comments of my friend’s bookstagram post), and despite its heavier themes, I’d include A Man Called Ove.

And then we move on to the classics. Those of you who’ve known me a while would have been expecting me to refer to the healing powers of a chunky tome. Again I appreciate this is very subjective—if you roll your eyes or shudder at the thought of reading classic literature at the best of times, then you’re obviously not going to find your joy within its old-fashioned pages at the worst of times (a little Dickens reference for free). But for me, disappearing deep into a classic is an instant way to find solace.

With the classics more than any other books, I find reading more of an experience; I remember when and why I became immersed in that fictional world. Reading Vanity Fair under a duvet on the sofa in my little flat in London having taken rare sick leave for a nasty cold. Frenchman’s Creek devoured in a day recovering from the side effects of a vaccination (side note: may we all have friends who suggest medicating with a sexy, heron-drawing pirate). The Count of Monte Cristo last summer sitting in the sunshine isolating with Covid, then sitting in the shade hiding from the heatwave. Disappearing into Dickens when my mind gets too busy. And Austen, always Austen.

The witty read is an obvious but excellent choice for anyone seeking a lightness that in real life is not forthcoming. Persephone Books do an excellent line in uplifting books from the first half of the 20th century. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day has been a January read for me on more than one occasion. Mariana, Diary of a Provincial Lady and The Fortnight in September provide similar joy. I’d also add to this list The Enchanted April and Cold Comfort Farm, The Lark and I Capture the Castle, Mapp and Lucia, anything Nancy Mitford, and, new-to-me discovery, Mrs Harris Goes to Paris. For a more modern take, Nina Stibbe can always be relied upon to raise a smile.

In most cases, these are books I’ve read repeatedly and will continue to do so. Rereading is a comforting practice in itself, but combine that with a book that warms your heart and makes you laugh along the way and you really can’t go wrong.

The pursuit of comfort is, of course, the perfect time to retreat into your reading genre of choice. While romance lovers or cosy crime aficionados are obviously well looked after by their preferred reading matter, like blankets in book form, even if you favour thriller, crime fiction or horror, falling back on the tried and tested is easy, reliable and effortlessly transporting. All that comfort reading should be. At a full-on time last year, I gave in to my secret desire to read the Bridgerton novels and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Begone inner book snob, the search for comfort reads sets no minimum literariness requirements; sometimes quite the opposite.

Poetry can be an ‘easy win’ when you’re looking for comfort and perhaps can’t concentrate or feel overwhelmed at the thought of settling into something longer. A quick but often intense hit of emotion, a new image to hold in your head, a thought or feeling to take you somewhere you weren’t expecting. Like being drip-fed magic.

My love of poetry is new and exploratory, emerging from a friend’s suggestion during the first pandemic summer. My personal preference is for Simon Armitage. His words seek to marvel at the mundane with wit, warmth and intelligence. Mary Oliver is perhaps a more universally appealing choice, often reorienting us outside ourselves to better appreciate our small place in a bigger picture.

A suggestion that feels a little more left-field, and is one perhaps for further down the road to recovery when the worst of the external situation is felt and processed, is to seek out excellent writing. I would add a caveat that this works best with an author you already know you enjoy. I fully acknowledge that in a raw and vulnerable emotional state, you may not want to delve into some stretchy experimental fiction. But I have found reading a writer whose writing always sparks something in me can definitely help shift how I feel.

I would (obviously) include Elizabeth Strout in this category. Although the content of her books can be bleak as bleak, the exceptional writing overcomes that and lights me up. Elena Ferrante and Sally Rooney possess the same power over me. Perhaps my favourite example of this is when I borrowed Ali Smith’s Public Library from the mobile library as a new mum who’d been living in a fog for months, surviving on a reading diet of easy fluff. It was like being kickstarted, a reignition. There can be comfort in finding yourself again through books, when the time is right.

Finally, to the suggestions above I would add short stories (similarly to poetry, providing escapism for a lower level investment), or nature books (lots of beautiful nourishing suggestions in this newsletter and its comments section). You might find comfort in knowing you are not alone by reading the memoir of someone who has been through the same experience you are dealing with (or that might be the very last thing you would find comforting). The ways to seek solace in books are seemingly endless, and that in itself is a very gratifying thought.

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Being able to select a book that feels like a hug or like home, that warms your heart, shifts your mood, eases your mind, takes you away from where you are to somewhere you’d rather be is, quite simply, an invaluable life skill.

So tell me, what does comfort reading look like for you?

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