Cheer up with a good book?

[Over_the_Pond]

I can't quite shake my winter blues. Things aren't going quite as planned with work. DH and I need to move house again shortly, and it's tricky to coordinate with our child's school timetable. I used to read a lot, but I fell into an exhausted postnatal slump and lost my momentum. Lately a I find myself reading a lot of short articles online and not being able to focus on anything longer. I think it's time I returned to reading paperbacks, but I spent half and hour in a bookshop at the airport last week and couldn't find anything to pique my interest.

I like scifi (eg Heinlein, Le Guin etc) and books with quirky humor (eg Pratchett or Tom Robbins). I don't think I can stomach anything sad or dramatic atm, and certainly nothing too philosophical/esoteric. I'm looking for something really engaging, it doesn't necessarily need to be fiction. It probably shouldn't be too long, or I'll lose the plot -- literally.

Any suggestions, Forumites?

:)

[Dopamine1979]

P.G Wodehouse always cheers me up. Not exactly quirky but very witty.

[Jeremy]

If you like sci-fi-ish stuff, and quirky humour... Robert Rankin?

[holloway]

'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell' is a brilliant book. A mixture of Victoriana and magic. It is a bit long but very, very engaging.

[goosey-goosey]

Try John Lanchester. A Debt to Pleasure or Mr Phillips. The former is darkly funny, the latter innocent and uplifting in a nostalgic way.

[siousxiesue]

The Lacuna-Barbara Kingsolver. Superb

White Tiger-Aravind Adiga. Fantastic

[tomskip]

For general cheeriness I find you can't beat The Barrytown Trilogy by Roddy Doyle.

[alice]

anything by am holmes

[intexasatthe moment]

well ... I find novels which are set outside in wide open spaces or woods and where the geographical setting is a strong component very soothing .

re reading Lee Child and C J Box has got me through a lot when concentration was not available to me .

Good plots ,v satisfactory endings ,99% of the time happy ones and ,especially with CJ Box a lovely sense of place ,strong geographical setting .

And Guy Gavriel Kay is heavenly for sense of place - sort of fantasy set in medieval and pre medieval times . But possibly a little too dark for you at the moment .

[Michael Palaeologus]

Louis de Bernieres, Captain Corelli is well known, but his Latin American trilogy are great literature and laugh out-loud funny with some magical-realism thrown in to give you a good mix of fantasy-humour-narrative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_de_Berni%C3%A8res

If you fancy something chewier how about some Gabriel Garcia Marquez? One Hundred Years of Solitude is a good start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Garc%C3%ADa_M%C3%A1rquez

[SLad]

Look who's back - really funny book imagining the return of Hitler.

[Over_the_Pond]

Update--

So I was toying with the idea of getting Glen Duncan's The Last Werewolf (because what's more cheerful than the existential crisis of a werewolf, right?)... but then Matt Haig's The Humans crossed my path, so I'm going with that for now. It's proving quite entertaining in a quirky philosophical way, though I'm only about 20 pages into it.

[jacks09]

Ken follets - the century trilogy is just SO good....

[rendelharris]

Have you tried Haroun and the Sea of Stories? Although marketed as a children's book it's very good fun for adults, especially if you like fantasy, very funny and very apposite for the times in which we live. Having read six of Rushdie's novels I'd say it's possibly his finest book.

[WorkingMummy]

Jonathan Sumption's new biography of Edward III is manageably small and great for taking the long view of the tension between England v Scotland v continental Europe.

[Robert Poste's Child]

I just read Absolute Pandemonium, an instalment of Brian Blessed's autobiography, which was very entertaining and uplifting. Got it from the library.

If you don't have much headspace or energy, I'd also recommend the Agatha Raisin detective series by MC Beaton. Far from literary and the editor needs a serious talking-to but the characterisation is amusing.

[Nigello]

The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. It's warming and chilling and not very long!

[rendelharris]

Nigello Wrote:

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> The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.

> It's warming and chilling and not very long!

Second that - and The Ballad of the Sad Caf? by the same author.

[Jah Lush]

Anything by Carson McCullers is good in my book. Clock Without Hands is another but my personal favourite is The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter though that's a little longer but really worth the little extra effort.

[camberwell70]

Two books:

Penguins Stopped Play, Harry Thompson

Angry White Pyjamas, Robert Twigger

Both great, very funny!

[camberwell70]

Agreed, Heart is a Lonely Hunter is excellent.