Some evenings you just can’t face Types Of Ethical Theory, A Brief Introduction To Logical Positivism or the latest Booker winner by a controversial Nigerian playwright that you feel you ought to be reading, and reach instead for a well-worn comfort book. It’s like an old friend; you’ve read it half a dozen times before, and know just what to expect. Picking it off the shelf and cracking the covers is like slipping into a warm bath: no effort, no pretense, just slide into it and relax. So what do you choose?
I go for one of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser books when I want trusty familiarity: sure, the series lost its edge a long time ago - Hawk has become the black Santa Claus instead of a wry leg-breaker with an odd sense of honour, and I’m sick of the goddamn dog, and Susan is too perfect and cutesy-poo for words - but for well-crafted tough-guy prose and a straight-shootin’ hard-hittin’ wise-crackin’ PI setting the world to rights a punch and a quip at a time, Spenser can’t be beat. Comfort reading at its best.
Mine is definitely Sharon Penman’s novel, “Here be Dragons”. OK, so it’s a large tome but I’ve read it many times and it’s always been a great book to delve into. In fact, all of her novels are worth the effort.
I’m another compulsive re-reader. I usually have at least one Discworld book on the side as my comfort read. A lot of sci-fi and fantasy that I read as a kid also falls under that heading: Bradbury, Heinlein, Niven & Pournelle, etc. “The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton” and Adrienne Rich’s “The Fact of a Doorframe” are my comfort poetry reads.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Stand, Stephen King
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Addie Pray, Joe David Brown (the book Paper Moon was based on)
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, John Berendt
Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
The World According to Garp, John Irving