Comfort Reads

I was actually going to title this post "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Read Emma," but I thought that was a bit fey, even for me.  But let's face it, stress can make people do strange, even embarrassing things.  I saw the first Twilight movie under such circumstances, I bake when I'm frustrated, I take weekend walks along the Gowanus, and while we're at it, sometimes I drink soy milk from the carton on nights when procuring and then cleaning a fresh glass is too much effort. After some research, I've concluded that it's a particular yet imparticular variety of 20something angst-- an unnameable anxiety about our careers, our love lives, our friendships, our apartments--that makes us turn to our guilty pleasures for comfort.  For me, the complete and unequivocal cure-all is a BBC miniseries or a classic novel, complete with corsets, bustles, and English accents.  I melt away into the countryside and let the gentility, the sonorous and round syllables of a Mr. Darcy, wash away the dank heat of summer, the smell of garbage day, the train re-routes and cancellations.  So you won't be surprised when I confess that this week has been bad enough to make me turn to Charlotte Bronte's Villette and the stellar 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth.  Villette started off pretty drily, even for my taste, but after 100 patient pages, I've been entirely sucked in.  So it got me to thinking...what are your comfort reads? After all, as Mr. Darcy says, "I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours."

Comments

[Chewie93]

My comfort read is Lord of the Rings or some other traditional fantasy, (e.g., the Shannara books). A little heavy, I know, but it takes me back to a simpler time when my main concern was writing up an adventure for Dungeons and Dragons night.

[Rin]

It has to be 'old lady' reads for me - Maeve Binchy, Rosamund Pilcher, that sort of thing. Agatha Christie too, though I've reread hers so many times now that they don't quite work in the same way as they used to!

[Diane]

My comfort reads are usually memoirs, and chick lit, ooh, and YA. Actually much of my reading is comfort reading, and I don't see any problem with that :)

[Ben Rubinstein]

Like Chewie, I'm a big fantasy fan. Although it's not really "comfort reading." Now that I think about it, I think I really like angsty poetry for my comfort reading, which is usually when I need to let off some steam.

Liiiiike this one. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=176985

[Jamie]

I just blogged about this a couple weeks ago when I was going through a hard time. Books really let me escape and comfort me for a little bit so it is important to me to find ones that always have that power. I tend to go back to old childhood favorites when I need some comfort reads.

So random that I found your blog, the college students group on Goodreads (I'm the creator and mod) created a blog and one of our potential names was going to be The Roaring Twenties..and then someone found your blog! lol

[Kayleigh George]

Awesome answers, guys! Jamie, what were you reading? Also, are we goodreads friends?

[Isabelle]

Harry Potter (particularly the Prisoner of Azkaban) is my ultimate comfort read, mostly because it is just such a pleasurable, fantastic escape from reality.

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