Comfort Reading

On Twitter earlier I saw someone posting about how anxiety and depression over the lockdown was making it hard for him to read. I wrote back, recommending a book that my once and future housemate sent me as perfect escapist lighthearted reading: Miss Buncle's Book, by DE Stevenson, written in 1934. Miss Buncle is a naive yet perspicacious country spinster who, having lost all her money in the great depression, is urged by her maid to write a novel (having rejected taking paying guests or getting hens as too disruptive) and writes a thinly-disguised account of her village, which causes chaos when said villagers get their hands on it. It's sweet and light as marshmallow but it's got a smart satirical edge and it's the perfect pick-me-up if you're feeling stressed and exhausted.  This got me thinking about which other books I'd recommend for Covid burn out. People read all kinds of things for escapism. The sister of a friend of mine once mentioned having selected some Noam Chomsky for "a bit of light reading for the plane." The mother of the same friend does a relaxing reread of Proust every summer. More than one person of my acquaintance loves nothing more than disappearing into a nice grizzly thriller, and I took Philip Roth's American Pastoral with me to a psychiatric hospital (not recommended.) For this, though, I am going to stick to objectively fun, funny, uplifting books that I think anyone finding things tough at the moment could enjoy. Which is pretty much everyone, isn't it? There is nothing comprehensive or particularly well-thought-through about this list - just books that spring to mind or that I have on the shelves around me. You may already know many or all of them, but a reread can be comforting too.  The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend. I honestly think this might be the funniest book ever written. My copy is falling apart, I have gone back to it so often. Adrian Mole obsesses over - amongst other matters - his bad skin, his parents' failing marriage, school bully Barry Kent, his Noddy wallpaper, his idiot dog, the scrofulous OAP he is assigned to visit, his incipient relationship with new girl in school Pandora, and, not unrelated, the size of his thing, all the while striving to become an intellectual.  Diary of a Provincial Lady, by EM Delafield. Another offering from the 1930s, apparently a vintage time for witty novels by women about English villages. And another diary. Maybe it's because there is something comforting about the hilarity of the everyday, rather than a big adventure which could be rather too stressful. (I could probably also include Diary of a Nobody, which is said to be wonderful, but I have never read it.) This book is based on a series of autobiographical columns written by Delafield for the feminist weekly Time and Tide, and you can feel the truth in it even as the characters all become larger than life, the situations mined for their funniest aspects, the nightmare of not having planted your bulbs in time ever more disastrous.  While we are on the subject of women writing about 20th century English eccentricity, you could do a lot worse than The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, and the Blessing, all by Nancy Mitford, all joyous novels of rich young women falling in love and the crazy families that surround them. They are published by Penguin in one volume as Love In A Cold Climate. If you want even more eccentricity than that, then Stella Gibbons's masterfully surreal Cold Comfort Farm is the one for you. (Is there a female equivalent of masterful? Mistressful?)  And of course the Bridget Jones books are worthy successors to these. More diaries! I am reminded of the line from The Importance of Being Earnest: "I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train." (Earnest is also a great escapist read, if you fancy a play.) The film of the second book was abysmal, but I remember the book itself being fun enough to read in one go on a long haul flight. I sometimes wonder if the books are underrated due to being part of the "chicklit" wave, but they are so sharp and well-observed.  Seeing as we are in the zone of "good books that people might dismiss as chicklit", I adore Girls In White Dresses by Jennifer Close and went through a phase of recommending it to anyone who would listen, including one friend who I made sit silently watching me finish reading it in a cafe just so I could give my copy to her. It's about a group of young women trying to navigate life and love and it all going wrong. It's been so long since I read it that I actually can't remember any of it other than one vividly disastrous skiing trip, and I am therefore going to read it again myself. (I see they still haven't changed the dreadful 'headless bridesmaid' cover.)  This has been a very female-dominated list - now for some books by men. (Or, more accurately, males. As you will see.)  Any PG Wodehouse, they are all the same. Just grab a Jeeves and Wooster book and off you go.  Any David Sedaris, they are also all the same. The most scurrilous autobiographical essays you can imagine.  Me Cheeta. The outrageous memoirs of the ape who starred in the Tarzan films.  The Sword in the Stone by TH White. This is a children's book, though the sequels that together with it make up The Once And Future King are more adult in tone. It was made into a film by Disney and I reread it a few years back when I was researching The Table of Less Valued Knights and I remembered how delightful it was: the future King Arthur is educated by the wizard Merlyn to prepare him for life on the throne. Its so funny and charming and full of magic, literally and figuratively. I particularly love the sequences where Wart (Arthur as will be) is transformed into different animals. You can read more about TH White in the beautiful but sombre H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, which I also recommend, but not for lighthearted reading.  All My Friends Are Superheroes, by Andrew Kaufman, who I think is a subscriber to this list - hi Andrew! This is a small, perfect love story that you can read in an afternoon. All of Tom's friends are indeed superheroes, but their superpowers are surprisingly similar to our own.  Hopefully you will find something in that list to pep you up. Please reply with your own suggestions, and I can do a follow-up post.