Fenris – I’m delighted you like my sig line, and that you suspect those fine gentlemen of writing it.
I wrote it myself.
I could kick myself for not adding The Mists of Avalon to my list. This book was given to me on my 17th birthday and in the almost 17 years since then I’ve read it numerous times. Truly a magnificent book.
I should also be ashamed for leaving off Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Hell, I collect Alice stuff and own quite a few different editions of the books.
I should also add Clan of the Cave Bear to that list, another book I’ve read more times than I can remember.
As long as we can include plays: I love Hamlet and read it every so often.
I feel like such a dork for saying this, but…
Harry Potter frickin’ rules!!!
This book just makes me feel all warm inside, except when those damn Dursleys make Harry’s life miserable. Oh and Draco Malfoy, don’t get me started on that jerk…
Fenris, I think you will be impressed with the Mars series. I’ve read it twice now, and I love the combination of fleshed-out characters allowed to develop over time, and amazingly well-researched technological background. It really takes a new approach to epic fiction.
sk8rixtx, I’d have to add the Harry Potter books to my list too. Truly one of the best “I’ll just pick this up and read a couple of chapters, no way am I going to finish this tonight… damn, is that the sun coming up?” sort of experiences out there. Great books.
I have to add these to my list too…
Edgar Rice Burroughs - A Princess of Mars
Pure, happy escapist adventure yarn. I read them all when I was thirteen, and have read them many times since.
Lord Dunsany - anything
The best way to be totally transported to another time and place I know of.
Tom Robbins - Still Life With Woodpecker
Completely involving, beautifully written, gently surreal, funny as hell, and has some great bomb recipes.
The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, definitely.
The Complete Collection of Robert Burns…heh…makes me smile just remembering a few of his poems. 
Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. When I’m feeling down, I read it and…it helps.
Any Calvin & Hobbes collection.
There’s a lot of books that I read over again, but I don’t know if I’d call them comfort books. They’re just books that I really enjoy…which I suppose qualifies them. So, also Irvine Welsh books (Trainspotting and many others), Chuck Palahniuk books (Survivor at the top of that list), and The Illuminati! Trilogy. I’d probably add the Preacher TPB’s to that list, too.
Where the hell was my head? Lovecraft, Lovecraft, Lovecraft. Can’t believe I didn’t mention him. Truly comfort books.
Anyone worried about Edgar Eager, put your fears at rest. His books are still in print. We have a complete collection at my bookstore at the moment (recommended them to a kid today!).
My favorite “comfort” books have already been mentioned: the Belgariad/Malloreon by Eddings. They’re totally silly, I know, but I was doing a reread my senior year of college, and I couldn’t stop (I think I ended up reading through them twice…and I had read them a couple times previously!). That was an extremely stressful year, and if I ever had a spare moment, I would pick up my book and completely forget about the crap going on in my life. That escapist mentality comes back to mind every time I look at them on my shelf. If I had been reading something else at the time, I would probably feel that way about it.
I sold some of my old fantasy books to my used book store a couple weeks ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of those.
And I’m off to the library to find out just how badly J.Carroll can write. E-mail me, if you like, and we’ll compare notes.
Mentioning Inferno earlier made me remember a similarly-themed favorite by C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce.
The Smiley books of John Le Carre and the Inspector Maigret stories by Georges Simenon.I was in bed with the flu recently and read “Smileys People” for about the seventh time.
Theodore Sturgeon has become my comfort read. Heck, he demands re-reading, I think. A BB buddy recently sent me a mint condition hardcover of More Than Human to replace my PB that was falling apart. I’m still looking for Some of Your Blood.
You Jonathan Carroll fans might like William Browning Spencer too. Except he seems to have stopped writing. Anyone know what’s up with that?
Thanks for the tip on Land of Laughs! (Off to Amazon, tra la tra la.)
Carroll’s recent Heidelberg Cylinder was good too. The book was overpriced, considering the publisher messed up and doubled up on some of the pages. But I guess that’s better than leaving them out.
A Porpentine after my own heart! I absolutely love ‘Pride & Prejudice’.
I know it sounds corny, but the Bible is my best comfort food, followed by almost anything by Jane Austen, except ‘Mansfield’ I didn’t care for that.
‘Up the Down Staircase’
‘Many a Green Isle’
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’
Many of my favorite authors have already been mentioned multiple times, but here’s another vote for Spider Robinson and RAH. And one author who was mentioned just once early in the thread, H. Beam Piper. I have ALL of his works that I know about.(I wanna be a Paratimer!)
Yet another vote for The Princess Bride and anything by Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett.
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende is kind of a no-brainer choice for me (it even inspired my username). I’ve read it a minimum of 25 times, and it never gets old.
Strangely enough, there’s a non-fiction book that falls into the category of “comfort book” for me Scott Turow, the guy who wrote Presumed Innocent, also wrote a darned good non-fiction book about his experiences as a first-year law student. It’s called One L, and I enjoyed it tremendously, even though I’ve never been interested in entering the law profession. I must have read it at least four times during my graduate school days, since I found it therapeutic to read about someone having a more stressful time than myself. I think I’ve read that one at least ten times.
Try searching at Abebooks. They list several copies of the novel at reasonable prices. (I read Some of Your Blood as a short story, and had no idea he had expanded it into a novel.)
John Brunner’s publisher for The Shockwave Rider decided that two similarly-named characters were the same person, changed one of the names, and published the novel that way. They protested that Brunner was often sloppy about names in his manuscripts.
That last post of mine was of course a reply to Auntie Pam at the end of Page 1- I somehow missed Page 2.
So, let’s see- oh, yes, George McDonald Frazer’s stories about Dand McNeill and his Highland regiment- Common Reader has collected them (with a new introduction by Frazer) as MacAuslan Entire, McAuslan being the proverbial world’s dirtiest soldier, who figures prominently or in the background in most of the stories. They were originally published in three volumes:The General Danced at Dawn,MacAuslan in the Rough, and The Sheik and the Dustbin.
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin and the five boks in the series that follow it.
The Last Unicorn:Peter S. Beagle
What’s this? Why, I’m reading it even as I type!
The Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, The Castle of Llyr, Taran Wanderer, and The High King): Lloyd Alexander
Fabulously cool story, and Eilonwy is one of my favorite characters in all literature.
Neverwhere: Neil Gaiman
OK, so I’m in love with the Marquis de Carabas, so what?
Good Omens: Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
To be read whenever one is disgusted with humanity. Also it’s f*ckin hilarious.
And of course, The Lord of the Rings, the Princess Bride, and The Chronicles of Narnia, which have all already been mentioned ad infinitum.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Any books of Susie Bright essays
The Straight Dope books
Well, there are two classes for me. Comfort books, ones which I read when I am genuinely upset that cheer me up, ar truly what you mean by comfort books, and book I just love and will read over and over again.
Comfort books:
Blue Castle by L.M. Mongomery. Goodness, I love that book. Only for use when I’m really upset.
Anne of Green Gables by the same. Only up to House of Dreams, the rest when she’s grown up depress me. I also have to hide those in my room, people make fun of me for reading them so often.
Ones I read often:
The Avalon series by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Especially Forest House
Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough
Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel.
Dave Barry, Cecil Adams, Agatha Christie… Ohh, Gordon Korman’s up there.
It’s a wonder I ever read anything new, eh?
The Princess Bride is a definite.
Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams rule.
Good Omens by Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Lyrics by F. Mercury.
And some more Gaiman: Neverwhere has been mentioned, but I don’t think Stardust or Smoke and Mirrors have. At the very least you have to pick up the latter to read “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale”.
Spider Robinson and the good people of Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon are always good relief…
I have shelves more, but that’s quite enough, I think.