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

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

*blushes and stares resolutely at the floor* On the subject of comfort reading, I've worn out two copies of Tam Lin and am working on a third.

*deep breath*

Right. To those, I'd add several books by L.M. Montgomery and Louisa May Alcott, Emma Bull's Finder and War For The Oaks, and about half of the Discworld series.

On the other hand, I also have a small stack of books (most of the complete works of William Gibson, The Dubious Hills, and L'Engle's A Severed Wasp) which I turn to specifically when I want to become un comfortable in a particular way that I can't really explain. The example that comes immediately to mind is that I always pack my copy of Gibson's Pattern Recognition when I'm traveling, and inevitably re-read it in airports.

[pameladean]

Thank you; that is one of my favorite things to hear about any of my books. And there, now we are both embarrassed, so maybe it will cancel out.

Alcott has been on my comfort list and will be on it again, but I'm having to give her a rest at the moment, except for Little Men. When I was about eight, my mother gave me her childhood hardcover set of Alcott, but she was missing that one, and I didn't start reading it for about ten more years, so it has less wear on it.

I'm fascinated that you have discomfort reading too, or stirring-up reading, or whatever one might call it. The Dubious Hills was exceedingly uncomfortable to write, so I'm not surprised it is on that list. And I certainly see why A Severed Wasp is there. I sometimes reread only portions of it if I have read all my other L'Engle.

I've never been able to get on with Gibson's work, but maybe I should give it another go.

P.