Come with your broken dreams and your ruined fancies

[sovay]

I dreamed last night that I asked for comfort reading recommendations and came away from the bookstore with a recently reprinted YA novel about a crew of downed airmen raising a baby in a German POW camp in World War II (a childhood favorite of several people in the dream) and a relatively new lesbian mermaid romance with a gorgeous tropical cover (almost certainly influenced by this gifset and photoset). I was looking forward to reading both of them and was somewhat put out when instead I was woken by Harvard Vanguard calling to remind me of a doctor's appointment tomorrow at nine in the morning.

Now I'm just curious. What do people read when they want comfort reading? I re-read Strong Poison (1930) right before the 'Thon and am three-quarters of the way through Have His Carcase (1932), which very possibly counts.

Comments

[selidor]

Kage Baker. Certain Le Guin, mostly one of the short story collections. Certain Bujold, Vorkosigan ones. Denise Levertov's poetry. Banks, Iain M. rather than Iain. Early McKillip if I need something ornate. Some Swanwick. Robert L Forward's Dragon's Egg (these things are not rational). Brin's Uplift books used to be on that list but I suspect I might get grumpy with them now. Cordwainer Smith.

[pameladean]

Oh, yes indeed, I should have added McKillip's first few books and also a vast deal of Robin McKinley to my list.

And no, these things certainly are not rational.

It's sad when things fall off your comfort list, for whatever reason.

P.