I need a book with a happy ending

Life has kicked me in the ass lately, and I need something light-hearted to read. Preferably not a romance novel, but I am open to anything.

I tend to like novels (Water for Elephants, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, The Time Traveller’s Wife, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) and mystery novels. I also like nonfiction. I was reading Unbroken, but had to give it up as it was just too dark.

Right now, though, I am looking for something a bit lighter than what I usually read. My only condition is that no one dies.

Hannah’s Dream, by Diane Hammond. This is what I recommend whenever someone’s looking for a “feel good” read that’s not too schmaltzy. Even the “villain” of the book is sympathetic enough.

The book is about an elephant, Hannah, and her aging handler at a tiny down-at-heals zoo. The handler is getting older and having health problems, but won’t retire until he’s found a replacement that will love Hannah as much as he has. Complications occur, of course, but

The elephant lives, which is always what I’m worried about when I read books with a central animal character.

Well, I can’t exactly promise that no one dies, but it’s a 2000+ year old spoiler at this point. And this book always cheers me up: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Thanks for the spoiler and the recommendation.

Re: the spoiler. I had to quit reading Unbroken because of that issue. I just can’t take it.

P.G. Wodehouse. Anything. Everything.

Have you read any Connie Willis?

Don’t pick up her works at random - she can be pretty harrowing. (The Doomsday Book is the exact opposite of what you’re asking for, as is Lincoln’s Dreams.)

But when she’s in the mood she does comedy hugely well. Bellwether is an amusing short novel with frustration upon frustration piling on the main characters until that pushes them into new directions. To Say Nothing of the Dog is a time travel story that begins with the reader and the main character utterly lost in terms of what’s going on, what the important mission he’s on might be, and what his goals are. In the course of finding out what’s going on the main character encounters Jerome K Jerome and the crew from Three Men in a Boat. (Another good comedic story, btw.)

Harpo Marx’s autobiography, Harpo Speaks! It has its ups and downs and inevitably a death or two, but once he joins the Algonquin Round Table, there’s plenty of laughs. Preview it at Google Books. Here are a couple of excerpts.

How he got rid of some unwanted guests: Harpo Speaks! - Harpo Marx - Google Books

How he met George Bernard Shaw: Harpo Speaks! - Harpo Marx - Google Books

Have you ever wondered about the member named Exapno Mapcase? The source of the name is in this book. And you’ll never guess how he got the greatest laugh of his career.

National Lampoon’s Bored of the Rings has the most jokes per page on any book ever written. Characters do die, but it’s funny. I’ll second To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Harpo’s autobiography. John M. Ford’s How Much for Just the Planet is a hoot, if you know anything about Star Trek. Eric Idle’s The Greedy Bastard Tour is also fun.

Seconded and thirded. For a bonus. Get the Jeeves & Wooster DVDs from Netflix. You’ll bust a gut.

And I’d recommend the audiobooks. Jonathan Cecil does a wonderful job “being” Bertie and Jeeves. Do NOT cheap out by getting the books off Librivox (why, they even let those bloody colonists read Wodehouse!). Does Hugh Laurie read any of them? If not, DO get the DVDs.

What I “self-medicate” with are books with a certain optimism underlying them. Wodehouse reigns supreme, as does Twain (I’m rereading Huck Finn, and it’s excellent!).

But nothing tops the “Young Adventurer”-types of books from the 30s and 40s. Leo Edwards wrote the quintessential Poppy Ott and Jerry Todd books, if you can find them.

Seriously, if I’m dealing with depression you’ll find me in a funky little coffee joint, reading an old linen-bound first printing of… The Hardy Boys.

Terry Pratchett’s books always have a happy ending.

Oh, but sometimes people die. They tend to need it, though.

Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden.

Assuming you haven’t been spoiled by the movie, that is.

I like the Drake Maijstral novels by Walter Jon Williams. They’re funny, weird, and things always work out for the good guys in the end.

Here are a few cozy British mysteries in which no one dies, and I’m sure they’ll all leave a smile on your face. Best of all, they’re available on line for free, so you can start reading right now.

The Absence of Mr. Glass

The Blast of the Book

The Tremendous Adventures of Major Brown

The Awful Reason of the Vicar’s Visit

Me Talk Pretty Some Day by David Sedaris, the second half especially. MrWhatsit and I took turns reading it aloud to each other and wound up laughing uproariously at it while we were in Whatsit Jr.'s NICU room, if that tells you anything.

Sedaris doesn’t die, but isn’t the title a reference to his recovery from a horrible motorcycle accident, from which he never really recovers actually because he was really fucked up badly? I’ll grant you Sedaris is hilarious, but to me there was always a certain grim undertone beneath the hilarity. Might not be a great idea …

I’ll second “Bored of the Rings” it’s hilarious, as is Harry Harrison’s parody of E.E. Smith kinda novels, “Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers.”

Er, I believe it’s a reference to his time taking a French class when he was living in France. I don’t remember anything about a horrible motorcycle accident. Are you thinking of a different book or author?

That book is funny in places, but just because you know what’s coming doesn’t keep the ending from being terribly sad.
How about the Amelia Peabody mysteries? Murder and archaeology and romance in late 19th-century British-controlled Egypt. Ok, there is obviously a death in a murder mystery, but the books are lighthearted and funny and always have a happy ending.

Yeah, no idea what **Evil Captor **is thinking of, but I don’t recall ever hearing Sedaris being in, or writing about, an accident like that.

Me Talk Pretty One Day has one of my favorite pieces by him. An incredibly moving story (“The Youth in Asia”) about losing a beloved pet. It’s poignant, and also very funny.

If you want movies:

The In-Laws (Peter Falk/Alan Arkin version), though there are some casualties
One, Two, Three (James Cagney) - no deaths as far as I recall, but hilarius and perfectly frenzied pace.
Some Like It Hot - starts with teh St. Valentine’s Day massacre, but the rest is brillianly funny.
Operation Petticoat - I don’t recall anyone dying in that one.
The Meanest Man in the World - Jack Benny, a short film that brings the funny.
The Marx Brothers: Animal Crackers, Horsefeathers, Duck Soup, A Day at the Races, A Night at the Opera, A Night in Casablanca

TV:

Corner Gas - a Canadian sitcom that is just perfect, and perfectly funny.