In my inbox this week is an email from regular reader Gry, who lives in Oslo, Norway, where the news has been terrifying and heartbreaking:
Gry writes:
I live in Oslo. (‘nuff said, I think) I am also a very serious bookaholic.
Whenever I have a spare minute, you will vind I have my nose buried in a
book (or its electronic equivalent). So what kind of book should I choose
when the world has suddenly turned dark, violent and bloody?
My usual fare of action-packed SF and Fantasy books are just too bloody (pun
intended) relevant right now – some of my favorite authors tend to end up
with too hefty body counts for me to be entirely happy with them right now.Or, occasionally, as in S. M. Stirling’s books (which I am usually very
happy to reread) the villains’ personalities are also too bloody (pun
intended, again) similar to what I imagine the local contribution to world
terrorism (sort of hanging onto my composure by my fingernails here) is
likely to be. So no go.Another all-time favorite is Lois McMaster Bujold. The theme of her latest
book is mortality, and despite her genius as an author, it is not one I
would want to read (or reread) right now, but something like her A Civil
Campaign, is just about what I need. Because it is fun. And light-hearted.
And incredibly well-written. And has a happy ending. And did I mention fun?I can do with a bit more fun in my life right now. So perhaps the Bitchery
can help out with their favorite happy, light-hearted and fun books?
I totally understand the desire for fun, lighthearted, and happy books right now. We’ve talked about comfort reads that provide respite from grief and unhappiness in the past, but we haven’t done a happy, funny, light-hearted recommendation list.
My immediate recommendations are for books that make me laugh out loud, and that are on the goofy-humor side of amusement, such as Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan (my review), or Exclusively Yours and Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey, which cracked me up as well.
What books made you laugh, and feel happy? Anyone got any suggestions?
Patricia Wrede also has a funny set of books about dragons, princesses, and princes—the first is called Dealing with Dragons, about a princess who runs away from her home castle to live with a dragon. On purpose.
Two other SF books that have not yet been mentioned are:
Eleanor Arnason’s A Woman of the Iron People which is pretty funny in spots, about Earth explorers on a planet where the people are covered with fur and have quite different gender relations.
Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin is a lovely book retelling the Scottish ballad in the setting of a small liberal arts college (university). There’s romance in that, though frankly I love it because I too went to such a college, though I was never as clever as Janet is.
And in Tam Lin is a reference to Christopher Fry’s play The Lady’s Not For Burning, which manages to be funny, poetic, romantic, and nonviolent despite the set up that a young woman is condemned to be burned as a witch.
As a big children’s fantasy fan, I have to second the vote for Wrede’s Dealing with Dragons. The second book, Searching for Dragons, is also a lot of fun, but 3 and 4 not so much. I also have to agree with the suggestion for Eva Ibbotson. Countess Below Stairs is one of my favorites, and she had a lot of charming younger fantasies. I’d recommend The Secret of Platform 13 and Which Witch?
As for romances, Linnea Sinclair’s Accidental Goddess and Finders, Keepers are fun and light. But the one that always cheers me up is Nora Roberts’ Jewels of the Sun. It’s so sweet, and watching the main character blossom over the course of the book always makes me smile.
And, for the sheer fun of it, I love Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way by (of course) Bruce Campbell. It’s a not-quite-true account of how he’s hired for a classy Mike Nicholls film and it ends up turning into a B-movie nightmare. Also, it has pictures.
To end — I’m re-reading Angels Fall right now, and just came to the part where Reece mentions she’s reading Brody’s first book, and says she hopes it has a HEA, cause “If justice doesn’t triumph and love doesn’t make the circle in entertainment fiction, what’s the point? Real life sucks too often.” Hope all of these happy books take you away from the suck for a little bit.
My goodness, someone else who’s read The Hounds of the Morrigan; I remember coming across that years back and being utterly enchanted.
In addition to endorsing the several Patricia Wrede titles already mentioned (with and without Caroline Stevermer’s collaboration), I’d add Mairelon the Magician and its sequel—and her earlier series of boks set in the world of Lyra, if those can be found.
Like some of those above, my comfort reading also veers strongly into “cozy” mysteries. I have lately managed to recover a sizeable stash of Emma Lathen paperbacks, and have been revisiting her John Putnam Thatcher series with much pleasure. Thatcher is a senior executive for a Wall Street investment bank, and tends to find himself dealing with clients whose businesses have just had dead bodies turn up. Lathen, the pen name for a pair of very sharp career women, makes high finance entertaining and weaves very good plots. I also tend to binge on Elizabeth Peters—not so much the Amelia Peabody books as the Jacqueline Kirby group and her earlier stand-alone mystery/romance titles.
In SF/F, I’ll suggest Diane Duane. I have yet to meet a Duane novel I haven’t liked, from her “Young Wizards” YA series to her Star Trek novels (particularly the “Rihannsu” sequence beginning with My Enemy, My Ally), to her non-series work. The plots may make the Rihannsu titles (which involve a good deal of intrigue and pyrotechnics among the Romulans) awkward for Gry’s current purposes, but her newest book, Omnitopia Dawn, is also well worth looking up.
The last title I’ll mention is long out of print, but it’s one I keep coming back to as a “comfort read” because it’s funny and charming and gentle and swashbuckling in all the right ways at once. The book is called The Lastborn of Elvinwood, was published by Linda Haldeman back in the early ‘80s. It’s an English-village piece, in which actor Ian James is walking home one night when he observes the local real estate lady and the local vicar walking purposefully off into the woods…and vanishing. When he follows, he lands in the midst of a faery banquet, and as punished for his curiosity by being drafted to help orchestrate a switch: one of the faeries is to be exchanged for the infant daughter of a visiting American couple. It’s not as sinister as it sounds, I promise; Haldeman weaves in bits of Shakespeare, Gilbert & Sullivan, and Peter Pan, invokes the spirits of T. H. White and C. S. Lewis, and supplies just the right soupcon of romance along the way. This is one of my all-time favorite books, and deserves to be much better known than it is. (The author produced a couple of other excellent and even more obscure novels and some short fiction, but died—of cancer, I think—before her career could really take off.)
When I was in the worst of my PhD program (which I know is not as serious as a natural disaster, although it sure feels like it) I stumbled upon Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation. It’s the book that started me reading romance, and it is still one of my favorites. All of Crusie’s works are amazing, but Welcome to Temptation, Bet Me and Faking It are in a league of their own. Agnes and The Hitman is the funniest, though.
One of my old SF favorite comfort reads is Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey. Also Dragonsong and Dragonsinger.
I completely agree with The Princess Bride by William Goldman and Belleweather. And a lot of the other recommendations.
Not so sure about the Sharon Shinn rec – I love her work, but the Archangel / Samaria books do have a body count and so does Heart of Gold – I haven’t read her more traditional fantasy books so I don’t know how intense they are. I can recommend Quatrain – her short story collection with 4 stories, each one set in a different world. The stories are more sweet than funny. And a nice intro to her work if you don’t know it.
I also heartily second the Jennifer Crusie recommendations – except the ones with dead bodies (Welcome to Temptation, Fast Women, What the Lady Wants and all of her collaborations). The three I named are still comedies, but I think a romantic comedy that deals lightly with murder or possible murder would be jarring right now.
I’ve been mulling this request since yesterday morning and I’m really struck by how many of my “comfort” reads come with a body count and/or epic battles. I’m going to try some of these “happy reads” myself.
I highly recommend Bet me, Welcome to Tempation, and Charlie All Night, all by Jennifer Crusie. Or just read her joint website with Bob Mayer, its a hoot.
Well, I enjoyed Dogs & Goddesses. Because it has not one but three different heroines and three different heroes it’s a bit light on character development – but it’s still a pretty light, fun read. I know I’d love to be able to talk to my dog and have her talk back. It would probably make potty training easier.
I guess there’s another book with the same title, but totally different plot and author. The one I’m recommending was co-written by Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart and Lucy March. I never read the one by Linda Segall Anable.
If you like mysteries at all – well, a librarian put this one on hold for me when she read the plot and I kind of enjoyed it. It’s the first in the Magical Cats mysteries called Curiosity Thrilled The Cat – the librarian had put it on my list because both the heroine and one of her cats are Barry Manilow fans. It’s got some supernatural elements, being that the cats are magical, but otherwise it’s a typical cozy mystery. Being more of a dog person, just like Barry is (you should see the pictures of him with his first dog, Bagel the beagle), I couldn’t get too much into it. If it had been magical dogs instead I probably would’ve enjoyed it more. But cat people who like mysteries and a touch of supernatural might like it.
Completely agree with many of the suggestions above. I would add that I think Terry Pratchett soothes the soul in times of trouble, but he is NOT completely light hearted and fluffy the way (say) Patricia Wrede’s Enchanted Forest chronicles are. I too love the city watch novels, and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. But the second book, Men At Arms might be something to read more for catharsis than to avoid reality. Ditto the later Night Watch. Both of these books make me cry (in a good way), and sometimes crying is what you need to do to heal, but they’re not light-hearted escapism.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips. No violence and laugh out loud moments and as well as really heartfelt romance in every one of her books. I love her.
I second the motion for Patricia Wrede’s books. Two other great YA authors are Tamora Pierce (especially her more recent books) and Shannon Hale (Princess Academy and the Goose Girl; don’t bother with Enna Burning).
One author I loved who managed to keep up her dignity and humor during very difficult time was D.E. Stevenson. Most of her books were writing during WWII. Her own husband was in the army and deployed most of the time. Some of the books cannot have the HEA because the war wasn’t over when she wrote them, and the outcome was still in doubt. In spite of this, her books are full of gentle good humor, lovely decent human beings who treat each other kindly. A modern writer who reminds me of Ms Stevenson is Helen Simonson. Her Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is funny and sweet. A true delight.
I laugh at Sookie Stackhouse. Who can’t love a heroine who sits in the sun, painting her toenails, enumerating the down side of having a vampire for a boyfriend: he’ll never go to church with you, no picnics in the sun, etc.
I add my voice to those who recommended Wodehouse and Heyer. Some of the are laugh-out-loud funny, and all of them are lighthearted and upbeat.
Hope you are able to find some consolation in our recommendations and reminders that human beings can be very kind as well as cruel to each other. Blessings.
The Witches of Karres by James Schmitz is one very funny and absolutely endearing scifi novel. A naive young man goes off into the universe to make his fortune and inadvertently rescues three young sibling witches and winds up taking care of them. The relationship between the four of them and the adventures they go on are absolutely hilarious. A little known gem that is well loved nevertheless. It is not a romance though it will make you long for a sequel since it is clear that a romance follows the ending of this novel.
Susan Elizabeth Phillips is another recommendation I echo: Heaven, Texas; Natural Born Charmer; Breathing Room; and Ain’t She Sweet? come to mind right off the bat.
And Loretta Chase, absolutely.
I can’t believe so many people mentioned Heyer without pointing out that A Civil Campaign is dedicated to her. (And several other authors as well, but they’re all much darker.) You can spot several Heyer influences in Shards of Honor and Barrayar by Bujold, as well—scenes taken from Venetia and The Unknown Ajax. I always liked that little shout out to romance in Bujold! Her latest series is very romantic, but also very dark.
In addition to the Crusie romances which I have read multiple times, especially Faking It, Bet Me and Welcome to Temptation, I often go back to Rosamund Pilcher. Winter Solstice is all about healing. There is a death that happens “off screen”, but it takes the characters on a gentle path to a new beginning together. Very gentle. I always feel renewed after reading it.
My heart goes out to you.
I think you should try SCOOP by Evelyn Waugh, if you haven’t already read it. It’s laugh-aloud funny and ve-ry irreverent!
My thoughts are with you and your country.