{"id":418,"date":"2015-09-25T10:53:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-25T10:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/25\/comfortreads\/"},"modified":"2020-10-28T17:54:32","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T17:54:32","slug":"comfortreads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/25\/comfortreads\/","title":{"rendered":"When life hands you lemons…"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.<\/p>\n

But sometimes life keeps throwing lemons at you at high velocity and you don’t have any sugar and your pitcher is broken and the water is contaminated.<\/p>\n

It has been that kind of week. \u00a0That is another reason my husband gave me my anniversary gift<\/a> early. He was trying to improve the week. I am not going to go into detail about what made the week bad, some of it is other people’s personal business. \u00a0However, this week has gotten me thinking about comfort books because when life stinks the best thing to do is curl up on the sofa under a big afghan with a hot cup of tea and read something that makes you happy. \u00a0Thank goodness it has cooled off in the last couple of days so the cup of tea and the afghan are possible. So without further ado here are the books that make me happy even on the worst days.<\/p>\n

Pride and Prejudice<\/i> by Jane Austen. \u00a0It was the first Austen I ever read and I have since read it dozens of times. \u00a0It is possible that Persuasion<\/i> is my favorite now, but on bad days it is Pride<\/i> and<\/i>\u00a0Prejudice<\/i> that I pull from the shelf. \u00a0Who can resist Lizzie and Mr. Darcy? \u00a0Mr. Collins is always good for a laugh, especially his letter of thanks after his visit. \u00a0If you finish reading it and still need more comfort you can always watch the miniseries. \u00a0If you emerge after all of that and your week is still bad, well, I am not sure there is any hope.<\/p>\n

Anything by Georgette Heyer. \u00a0I have an entire shelf of her books. \u00a0I discovered her at the public library when I was about thirteen. \u00a0The first one I read was Friday’s Child<\/i>. \u00a0I know they are Regency romances but what you have to realize is that she basically started the genre and they are well written. \u00a0Heyer did a lot of research to make sure her novels were historically accurate. \u00a0Besides, they are just plain fun and quite witty. They may not be great literature but they make me happy. Even the ridiculous covers make me smile.<\/p>\n

\"books--Georgette<\/a><\/div>\n

Coming Home<\/i> by Rosamunde Pilcher. I am not sure why this one is a comfort book. \u00a0After all, quite a few sad things happen in it. \u00a0But it ticks all the boxes in other ways. \u00a0It is hugely long, I love reading about England during WWII, and it pulls you in so you forget the real world exists. \u00a0Just what is needed on a bad day.<\/p>\n

Angela Thirkell, especially her earlier books. \u00a0Some of her later ones can become a bit labored but the early ones are a pleasure. \u00a0You fall into this English country life world, full of characters, where nothing much ever happens but what does happen is peaceful. \u00a0Even the deaths are never a surprise. \u00a0All the characters connect from book to book and reading her books is like sinking into a Victoria Sponge cake, if that were possible. \u00a0(I am tired and I am not sure that made any sense but I am going to leave it for the one person who can follow my bizarre comparisons.)<\/p>\n

The Little House<\/i> books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. \u00a0These were some of my first loves. \u00a0Sometimes going all the way back to your childhood is the only thing to do.<\/p>\n

I’ll stop there or this will just turn into a giant list of all the books I love. \u00a0And since if I like a book I am pretty much guaranteed to reread it, many books turn into comfort books.<\/p>\n

What do you read when you are having a bad day? \u00a0I would love to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But sometimes life keeps throwing lemons at you at high velocity and you don’t have any sugar and your pitcher is broken and the water is contaminated. It has been that kind of week. \u00a0That is another reason my husband gave me my anniversary gift early. He was trying to improve the week. I am not going to go into detail about what made the week bad, some of it is other people’s personal business. \u00a0However, this week has gotten me thinking about comfort books because when life stinks the best thing to do is curl up on the sofa under a big afghan with a hot cup of tea and read something that makes you happy. \u00a0Thank goodness it has cooled off in the last couple of days so the cup of tea and the afghan are possible. So without further ado here are the books that make me happy even on the worst days. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. \u00a0It was the first Austen I ever read and I have since read it dozens of times. \u00a0It is possible that Persuasion is my favorite now, but on bad days it is Pride and\u00a0Prejudice that I pull from the shelf. \u00a0Who can resist Lizzie and Mr. Darcy? \u00a0Mr. Collins is always good for a laugh, especially his letter of thanks after his visit. \u00a0If you finish reading it and still need more comfort you can always watch the miniseries. \u00a0If you emerge after all of that and your week is still bad, well, I am not sure there is any hope. Anything by Georgette Heyer. \u00a0I have an entire shelf of her books. \u00a0I discovered her at the public library when I was about thirteen. \u00a0The first one I read was Friday’s Child. \u00a0I know they are Regency romances but what you have to realize is that she basically started the genre and they are well written. \u00a0Heyer did a lot of research to make sure her novels were historically accurate. \u00a0Besides, they are just plain fun and quite witty. They may not be great literature but they make me happy. Even the ridiculous covers make me smile. Coming Home by Rosamunde Pilcher. I am not sure why this one is a comfort book. \u00a0After all, quite a few sad things happen in it. \u00a0But it ticks all the boxes in other ways. \u00a0It is hugely long, I love reading about England during WWII, and it pulls you in so you forget the real world exists. \u00a0Just what is needed on a bad day. Angela Thirkell, especially her earlier books. \u00a0Some of her later ones can become a bit labored but the early ones are a pleasure. \u00a0You fall into this English country life world, full of characters, where nothing much ever happens but what does happen is peaceful. \u00a0Even the deaths are never a surprise. \u00a0All the characters connect from book to book and reading her books is like sinking into a Victoria Sponge cake, if that were possible. \u00a0(I am tired and I am not sure that made any sense but I am going to leave it for the one person who can follow my bizarre comparisons.) The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. \u00a0These were some of my first loves. \u00a0Sometimes going all the way back to your childhood is the only thing to do. I’ll stop there or this will just turn into a giant list of all the books I love. \u00a0And since if I like a book I am pretty much guaranteed to reread it, many books turn into comfort books. What do you read when you are having a bad day? \u00a0I would love to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,47,59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-jane-austen","category-mutterings"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2938,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/2938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}