In Case of Emergency

[rj_anderson]

After giving myself a month off after finishing the revisions of Knife (well, not counting the crash-and-burn I did at the end of February when I was trying to work on Touching Indigo and my brain was having none of it), I resolved to start in on Wayfarer again, and try to reestablish the habit of writing 2-3 hours a day, every day.

The first session today went... not so well. In fact, it was positively depressing. After a while I gave up and tried to read one of the books my editor sent me, but I just wasn't feeling the love. So I turned to one of my favorite comfort reads, Patricia McKillip's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and it felt like relaxing into a warm mental bath. Even my tortured inner line-editor shut up after the first few pages.

What are your favorite comfort reads?

Comments

Comfort reads?

[avarill.livejournal.com]

Oh yes... let's see. When I am ill and it looks like a week in bed, it's usually the first few Harry Potters. Flipping and dipping LOTR works, too. And lately, when I'm stuck on an airplane for 6 hours, I like to read "In Death" mysteries.

[sarahsan]

Shadow Castle, by Marian Cockrell--An oldie, but a goodie that reminds me of being a kid, when my mom would read it to me.

A Candle In Her Room, by Ruth M. Arthur--Chick-lit before chick-lit was a genre, involving an evil doll passed down through generations of girls.

Charlotte's Web, which I haven't read in years but which used to be my default when I ran out of things to read (well, that and Little House On Rocky Ridge).

Hmm, apparently my brain defaults to my childhood literature for comfort...Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, is a quick, ridiculously fun read, and a good book of short stories is always a comfort because it requires so much less commitment. ^_^;;

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

Good heavens, someone else knows A Candle in Her Room! I've never forgotten that book, and it's at least 35 years since I first read it.

[sarahsan]

My mother read Ruth Arthur books when she was much younger, and so has spent the last ten years or so collecting all of them (or nearly all :P). Of the ones I have read, I think Candle is still my favorite, though I liked Whistling Boy a lot, too. <3 Both so haunting...love 'em.

[leah-s.livejournal.com]

Jane Eyre
And Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

So You Want to Be a Wizard or High Wizardry from Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, sometimes. (And yes, I know, just about everybody else likes Deep Wizardry best.)

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Anything by Bujold. Curse of Chalion or Paladin of Souls if I'm depressed about where my life is headed, early Vorkosigan series if I'm depressed about where the world is headed, Memory if I'm depressed about absolutely everything.

Barbara Hambly's Darwath and Windrose Chronicles series.

Tea With The Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy.

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

The Little World of Don Camillo (or one of its sequels).

All Creatures Great and Small (or one of its sequels).

A Jeeves book (take your pick).

Gaudy Night.

[yahtzee63.livejournal.com]

Gone With The Wind, most Jane Austen, my Roman histories, Alison Weir's histories, The Shell Seekers and my own fanfic, especially the stuff old enough that I have more or less blanked out on its writing process, because then I can simply enjoy it as this story that happens to be written just as I like and in agreement with my takes on all the characters.

Don't get discouraged. Don't force it. Ease back in. I suspect at this point, the "I have to" urge is becoming A Thing. Don't let it.

[shoebox2.livejournal.com]

Rosamund Pilcher makes wonderful comfort reading - the literary equivalent of an old pair of slippers; you know exactly what's going to happen, and yet the experience is so warm and cozy as to be irresistible. Lucy Maud Montgomery has much the same effect on me, especially the short story collections.

When I'm feeling anxious over stuff I can't control I often retreat to the safe, gentle worlds created by some of my favourite humourists - Patrick McManus, PG Wodehouse and Bob & Ray are especially useful for this. When what I want is a brisk, reassuring voice of good sense, Bill Bryson fits the post.

Or sometimes, weirdly enough, I'll just go on a rampage through my classic mystery favourites, Agatha Christie, Rex Stout and so on. Shoemom theorises that a world in which every problem is tied up with a neat bow is reassuring somehow, and she's probably right.

depend on the comfort required, but...

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

DLS: Busman's Honeymoon or Gaudy Night. Or both.

Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog. Also, Bellwether. Or, in more serious mode, Passage.

Madeleine L'Engle: A Ring of Endless Light.

Diana Wynne Jones: Dark Lord of Derkholm. And sometimes The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

[robinellen.livejournal.com]

I think Mary Stewart is my favorite comfort read -- and the book I choose depends on the kind of comfort I seek :) Right now, WILDFIRE AT MIDNIGHT is sounding really good.

THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD was my favorite book in the scifi/fantasty class I took once upon a time, btw :)

Comfort books.

[lurkerm1e.livejournal.com]

Let's start with the 'Little Prince', then on to C.S. Forester, then Narnia and on to Nancy Shaw's 'Sheep in a Shop'. For some reason these toddler age stories with sheep who follow all the toddler rules amuse me enormously. The art is simple, but the sheep are always up to something in the background. Often they can be found knitting. I also love Sendak and 'Where the Wild Things Are'. I always wanted to be Max.

When ill, I tend to revert to childhood.

lurker

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm...probably the Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner.

- Reader Rabbit
http://readerrabbit.blogspot.com

[olmue.livejournal.com]

The Harry Potters
Dorothy Sayers
Madeleine L'Engle
Fire and Hemlock (Diana Wynne Jones)
The Perilous Gard (Elizabeth Marie Pope)
Narnia

And um...sometimes I go back and reread other people's prepublished books that I can't understand why they haven't been published yet.

[kerravonsen]

I really must re-read "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" again.

My comfort reads?

"Scout's Progress" by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller has become one of my comfort reads in recent years. I think it pushes many of my favourite buttons:
- the ugly-duckling heroine (shy, low self-esteem, but actually very talented in certain areas)
- the dark-and-brooding hero
- that it is friendshippy before it gets 'shippy
- In Space (as astrogirl2 says, everything is better when it's In Space)
- it's a trading empire, not a war situation
- a touch of psi

"Paladin of Souls" by Lois McMaster Bujold is one I keep coming back to, partly because I love the idea of a non-young heroine having adventures (and of course, it's Chalion, which has much deep thoughts).

"The Beacon At Alexandria" by Gillian Bradshaw because it has everything: the past as an alien planet, a heroine, a secret identity, doctoring, politics, unrequited love, and a happy ending. Is the best.

I also keep on re-reading her "Island of Ghosts" because I really like the hero in it; a warrior, a leader, who is honourable and true, and intelligent enough to work his way through to honour and truth in a new culture, despite all the dangers and traps around him.

[rowana.livejournal.com]

Anything by Diana Wynne Jones, The Vorkosigan Series by Lois Mc Master Bujold, and Margaret Mahy's 'The Changeover'. I've a feeling that Sayers' books might be joining that list shortly too.

[po-thang.livejournal.com]

I'd have to say the Malloreon books and Belgariad books by David Eddings. I've been utterly hooked on him since I first picked up Pawn of Prophecy.

I also love Kathleen Korbel's books.

[thremma.livejournal.com]

Mary Russell books by Laurie King, esp Beekeeper's Apprentice
The Chronicles of Narnia
Amelia Bedelia books (yes, the little kids ones)
David Eddings books


and, not a book, but watching the Princess Bride

[camillofan.livejournal.com]

Oh, wait-- if we can have movies, then Roman Holiday.

[suzannemcleod.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I hate starting writing again after having time off, it usually feels like my brain is full of wooze and I just can't quite grasp what it is I want to say ;(

Comfort reads, has to be Carrie Vaughn's Kitty series just now ;)

[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not much of a reader of fantasy fiction, but when I want comfort, I find myself dipping back into Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" series. I didn't discover it until college and simply loved it.

I'll also re-read Laurie Colwin's "Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object," which is heartbreaking and gorgeous, and a select handful of Dick Francis' horseracing mysteries. Of those, I particularly love "Nerve," which I first read when I was 12, and the series written around detective Sid Halley.

[kestrelhill.livejournal.com]

"Period Piece," by Gwen Raverat, a memoir of her brilliant and eccentric late-Victorian family. She was Darwin's granddaughter.

Peter Beagle, "The Last Unicorn."
Christopher Fry, "The Lady's Not For Burning."

[infiniteviking]

The Riddle-Master of Hed.

Also Sherlock Holmes; there is no way to maintain an angsty, critical state while reading Doyle's crisp prose.

[snickelish.livejournal.com]

L.M. Montgomery, especially The Blue Castle
Narnia, especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Horse and His Boy
Practically anything British that's not "litrachur": Sayers, Tolkein, Neil Gaiman, Patricia Wentworth, A.S. Byatt's Possession... The list goes on.
Jim Kjelgaard's dog books

[cette-vie.livejournal.com]

Anne of Green Gables, the Martian Chronicles. =)

[kalquessa.livejournal.com]

Oh, Forgotten Beasts of Eld! I need to re-read that sometime.

My comfort reads are The Last Unicorn, Till We Have Faces, and certain sections of LOTR (Hobbit stuff to cheer me upon, Rohirrim war-cries and death-charges to, as Sarojini Naidu would say, "conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song").

[miladygrey.livejournal.com]

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, like you. *grins*

Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean; Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, and any of Robert Parker's early Spencer novels. And during hard times, Robin McKinley's Deerskin.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, I'm a lurker here usually...but I just couldn't pass up a chance to recommend a book!

I have to second A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. I also always seem to go to I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

...And I've just realized that both of those books have aspiring writers as their main characters...hmm...

[sboman.livejournal.com]

I like reading books from simpler times: Cheaper by the Dozen, all of Edward Eager, the Secret Garden.
It's the same idea with movies. I never watched Titanic, because you know how it ends, and who needs the stress of watching that? My life has enough drama. If I want to relax, I watch relaxing movies: Nacho Libre, Sense and Sensibility, Emma.
I'm a weenie.

[lind3n-tree.livejournal.com]

I love the Secret Garden as well. It's one of my favorite childhood books. ^_^