What are your favourite comfort re-reads?
This was partially inspired by kwyfre... (damnit)... @kfwyre's thread on 2024's reading retrospective, partially by talking to @cfabbro and @DefinitelyNotaFae about 2024 being much grimmer than post-scarcity sci-fi, and partially because a lot of my reading is re-reading my favourites.
Whenever I get down about the state of the world, I re-read Iain M. Banks' Culture series, with my favourite reading order. My job can be quite high stress and deal with a lot of casualties, so it is comforting reading stories about hyper-smart machines working with humans to provide a utopia for the vast majority, and intervening to stop barbarism where they can.
For the last couple of years, I've been re-reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which I think a Tildes user recommended to me. It feels very cozy and happy to me, which I don't often find in sci-fi.
I've found that some people online look down on re-reading as kinda lazy, but I figure it's like finding something great on a menu at your favourite restaurant - you're not being a coward for not trying something new every time.
I used to think my parents were crazy for rewatching old episodes of formulaic detective dramas when they knew the outcome, but as I get older I realise there's a big comfort in knowing what's coming. It's way easier to wind down when you know things are going to be okay (or not, but, you know - at least no depressing surprises).
What are your favourite comfort re-reads?
This feels like a nerdy version of "basic", but my go-to is the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. If I've read that too recently I look for something from the Discworld, especially anything with the witches, especially the Tiffany Aching books.
Came here to mention that. The first book in the series is, along with The Hobbit, the only 2 books I've ever re-read. Granted I'm not a big reader, so those are quite bitesized, but still!
Am also basic! Adams and Pratchett are my warm fuzzy blanket, with Hitchhiker’s especially having helped get me through the darkest parts of my 20’s.
Gallows humor is underrated.
Weird to think of re-reading books as lazy. I frequently re-read my favorite books. I'd rather feel good about a story I like than take the risk of slogging through some new drivel that leaves me feeling worse for it.
Some of my favorites:
Or if I'm feeling really stressed out I'll even go back to the comic strip books I had when I was little that taught me to enjoy reading in the first place. Calvin & Hobbes, Farside, Garfield etc.
Lord of the rings is mine as well. One of the few books I've reread
So many of these are my favorites as well. I suspect we'd get along quite well! I need to check out A Fire Upon the Deep.
That one actually slipped under my radar too until a few years ago but it was such a fantastic read I had to add it. I think it's right up there with Hyperion, so many wild ideas that all coalesce into a coherent universe.
I've reread Project Hail Mary nearly a dozen times now and it still always hits the right comfy scifi spot in my brain.
The Hobbit
This was the book that sparked my life long love of reading. I was home sick from school when I was ~5 and my Dad stayed home from work and spent the day reading it to me. This is one of the few good memories I have with my Dad that I treasure.
As an adult I've always kept a bookmark in my copy and an ebook copy of it on my phone. When something is rough or I dong want to think too much it's a great book to read. It isn't overly long and if I felt like it I could cruise through the book in a long afternoon/evening or at a relaxed pace during a day or weekend. It's also a perfect book to pair with a drink or after I've been drinking when I'm finishing up an evening and want to unwind before bed. I can enjoy the book without worrying about remembering any of the details since I've read it so many times already.
I'm waiting for a day when my boys are a bit older and are at home sick from school and then I'll take the day off and introduce them to my favorite book.
I'll also add The Lord of the Rings to this. I also tend to keep a book mark in it, it isn't as "cozy* as The Hobbit, but I do tend to find myself reading it in longer bursts when I do get started reading it. It feels like Tolkien sucks me in with his prose in to Middle Earth and I'm struck with the same sense of wonder I felt when I first read the trilogy by myself all those years ago.
The Hobbit as also the beginning of my love affair with reading! And British dry humor, I suspect.
I fondly remember my mom reading it to my brother and I, every night before bed, all the way until Mirkwood. And then she stopped because she claimed that the spiders were too scary. So I filched the book from the shelf and finished it myself over the next couple of nights after lights out.
Watched the Rankin Bass movie adaptation soon after, and to this day I'll sing The Greatest Adventure to myself on bike trips because it makes me feel young, hopeful, and happy.
<singing> Frodo of the nine fingers, and the ring of doom. Why does he have nine fingers? Where is the ring of doom?
Ooh, good question! I definitely have some that I love to re-read from time to time and keep close to hand (many of these are on my bedside bookcase). The great thing about re-reading is that I can just flip open to a random page and start enjoying it and then put it down again a little later. I also find it great for when I'm tired or otherwise distracted and don't really have the concentration for trying to attentively follow new stories.
In my family, we just completed our annual read-aloud of A Christmas Carol, so I suppose that might count too.
Tryna get my book club to take a swing at Canticle for Leibowitz having seen it recommended on here fairly often. Sounds like the sort of thing that could provoke interesting discussion?
It's a bit slow paced and it would be more relateable to someone with at least a little awareness of religious history.
I loved canticle for Leibowitz but not everyone does. It raises big questions.
Hmmm.... Almost sounds as though I ought to read it first to get a sense of its pacing. Besides that it sounds a solid fit, but pace is the book killer for my club. The religious thing I think we'll be able to have a solid stab at analysing perhaps even. The style as elegiac sounds interesting in and of itself even.
We've enjoyed frankenstien and Dracula. Would you judge it slow paced in the old timey way those (or other classics) are, or more deliberately slow paced? If you don't mind my excessive soundboarding you! (@boojum this is a one reply for two comments kinda reply)
If you enjoyed Frankenstein and Dracula, then pace shouldn't be a problem. It's more modern.
It's an exploration of a thought experiment and I loved it.
Yes, it could definitely provoke some discussion. It's got some big ideas in it about human nature. I've described it before as something of a jeremiad, and I'd say that elegiac is a fitting description of the general mood.
It's definitely not a comfort read in terms of warm fuzzies, though there are certainly some comic scenes within it. Instead, it's more of a consoling read -- yeah the world sucks, people are generally awful and self-destructive, but there will always be some small sparks of light in the darkness, aiming for something higher.
I read all 1.7 million words of Worm probably once a year. That's about the same as all current Game Of Thrones books combined. It's just that good.
You go to re-read just a section and find yourself hankering for the full thing, and then it just kinda happens.
Though it's a web serial there's a complete audio booked version available now, as well as a full cast version in progress.
Cage of Souls by Adrian Tzaichovzski is also a work I return to on the regs. Just such a rich world to be immersed in.
Eragon
People have argued that it’s just a LOTR derivative story with some magic elements stolen from other fantasy authors, and that Eragon is a Mary Sue. I just don’t buy it. Is it the most original and in depth story in existence? Certainly not. But it’s a fantastic fantasy story with interesting characters. The magic system is interesting and complex, and avoids the power creep that could have been possible (especially in the new Murtagh book). It’s just a fun read, and I love it every time I go back to it.
I haven't read the books in a while, but the accusation that Eragon is a Mary Sue baffles me. He frequently fails, has an imperfect personality that gets him into trouble, and at the end he doesn't get the girl.
I think it might come from some people using the term Mary Sue too broadly. Eragon certainly feels like an author insert at some points, but an author insert isn’t necessarily bad. It’s when a character becomes too good that it makes the story bland and uninteresting (my best example of that is the Captain Marvel movie). It’s also designed to have a very long timescale, but Paolini isn’t the best author at portraying those long passages of time, especially with the earlier books. So Eragon pretty quickly becomes a fantastic archer and one of the best sword fighters in the land if you don’t realize that it took months of constant practice. And Paolini challenges Eragon with enemies far more able than he is. Just as you say, he doesn’t get the girl, and he also doesn’t even succeed at killing the big bad (I don’t want to spoil anyone too much, but you know what I am talking about).
So yeah I agree. He isn’t the most dynamic character I have seen, but he is far from a Mary Sue.
My favorite thought about the relationship of other work to Tolkien, from another giant in the field:
That is a fantastic quote; thanks for sharing!
I always thought it was 'Star Wars, but fantasy'. Though admittedly I think Paolini did a great job with dragons -- they're much more compelling than the dragons of Earthsea, and feel very Dragonriders of Pern-inspired to me with the rider bond.
I heard an interview with Paolini after he finished the inheritance cycle. He commented about how the dragons inherited many of the more civilized traits of the riders. He also said that he wished he had the riders inherit some more animalistic traits of the dragons. I would have loved to see what an adult Paolini would have done with the earlier novels of the inheritance cycle.
All that to say I agree completely. All the claims of it being a derivative work seem to ignore the complexity of the dragons, or the magic they cast without the help of humanoid races.
Having recently listened to Eragon, there are definitely bits of language that are right out of LotR... But that's it. The reader has to ignore basically every single page of writing in favor of like five sentences to call Eragon an LotR derivative. I can see how that would happen - people latch onto the familiar - but it's a fantasy story with its own life. It just happens to take place over months and involves a lot of walking. There might be some similar plot points, but it's also fantasy, so those are gonna appear in a lot of places,
and they're generally utilized in different ways in Eragon vs in LotR.
I have also heard the argument that Eragon is a Mary Sue, but as you've mentioned, he's not perfect. I don't remember catching that the story took place over months when I read it in 2005, but he practiced his swordsmanship on-screen enough for me to be satisfied, and he's already established as a sufficient hunter and tracker, which could be realistic at that age and in that environment. I definitely caught the time jumps on this read. And the author wrote this when he was 15, so I don't blame him for moments of author-insert when they're noticeable (dialogue between Eragon and Brom sometimes?). He did a really good job for being the age he was when he wrote it. I would totally reread this as a comfort read, though maybe in like 5-10 years since I'm going to be going through the whole series for the first time this year. (Waiting for Eldest to come in from being on hold at the library!)
I hope you enjoy Eldest! Some people claim Eldest is the most boring and worst book, but I really don’t think it is. Paolini starts to explore Roran’s narrative. I personally think Roran is the single best character in the series.
I will second Roran being a high point. His parts of the story were always my favorite.
I think there are things that are aesthetically LotR. It's been a bit since I've read it, but iirc the final battle takes place at not Helm's Deep.
I think the more blatant influence on the books is Star Wars. Eragon's journey in the first two books is pretty much just A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. He even has a colored sword. I think the B plots add a lot to the world, and books 3 and 4 do mostly go in their own direction, but I have to acknowledge that a lot of the initial setting was crafted with heavy handed reverence to popular fiction.
True Grit is my go-to re-read whenever I need a pick-me-up or a pallete cleanser. The characters are interesting and memorable (Mattie may just be my favourite protagonist ever) and Charles Portis has done a fantastic job of capturing the period and having fun with the Western genre.
It's short enough that rereading it never feels like a chore, and Donna Tartt nails the narration in the audiobook version. I've read or listened to this book at least once a year since the first time I read it, and every time I finish it I genuinely have to fight the temptation to start it again immediately.
A lot of great favorites here, but my personal comfort series will always remain Harry Potter. Regardless of how much of an idiot JK has become (absolute money corrupts absolutely?), the core message of love and friendship is solid, the world is fun and truly inventive, and the humor is spot on. I used to reread every summer over a week or so, back before I had a 9-5. Nowadays I try to reread every 3-5 years when I'm feeling down.
I have Harry Potter in my bedtime story rotation, and I am currently on book 5. I think book 5 and 6 are my favorite as bedtime books. Book 4 might be my favorite for actively listening.
Rowling’s bullshit definitely soured my experience of the stories, but I also consider them feel good books.
Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series. I will never be over it. :)
And, for lighter fare, when I just need a quick pick-me-up, Lynn Flewelling’s Nightrunner series is always a go-to.
If kids books are allowed, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is always delightful to return to. Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys wordplay and has a big imagination.
Kids books are definitely allowed
Discworld: accept no substitutes. Whether it's the antics of Nanny Ogg, Dᴇᴀᴛʜ passionately arguing in defense of life, or the only cop who isn't (completely) a barstud, it has something for every mood.
GNU STP
GNU Sir Pterry
Watership Down is a book I revisit every few years.
I'm planning several rereads for next year. They're all series that I started as kid but didn't finish for whatever reason: Unicorns of Balinor, Chronicles of Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lord of the Rings, City of Ember, The Inheritance Cycle (listened to Eragon with my partner a few weeks ago). I've read Pride and Prejudice and part of Emma, and I'm planning to reread those, along reading with the rest of Austen's work.
Sometimes I'll reread a book if I listened to it on audio and want to fully absorb it with my eyeballs as well because I liked it so much. So far, this has applied to Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan, and I have two more I'm planning but haven't gotten to yet - Heartless Hunter/The Crimson Moth by Kristen Ciccarelli and Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas.
Edit: Forgot Jack London. I've read The Call of the Wild and want to reread it, along with reading the rest of his work.
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffeneger - I love the circularity of the story, the hijinks the main character gets up to, and the bittersweet ending gets me every time.
Anathem by Neal Stephenson - I think this one hits for me because of ky time in academia. Any time I have a hankering for academic discourse about the nature of consciousness that includes pink nerve-gas-farting dragons.
I find myself coming back to different books of bill bryson's quite a lot. I read him when I was in primary school (I was an odd child. my comfort reread back then was ghost in the wires!) and the words hold the same sway now as they do then
The Expanse by James A Corey. For some reason, the crew feeling like a family, despite the things they have to go through, comforts me. I've gone through the first few books multiple times. They had so much trust in each other.
This is more of an audiobook thing rather than a book book thing, but the other comforting read I have is They Met in a Tavern by Elijah Menchaca. I'm not sure whether to say the book is good, but I first listened to it when I was unwell and couldn't do anything but listen to something. So it was audiobooks all day long. This book was entertaining and easy enough to listen to, and again, it also had the found family thing going on. It was also very D&D based, so that was easy to listen to too.
I'm better now, but I find myself listening to this book when I'm either unwell or can't sleep and need something to doze off to.
The Host by Stephenie Meyer. It's got its share of... interesting decisions, but it just feels so warm somehow.
Basic premise: body-snatching alien parasite falls in love with her host's family through their memories and decides to seek out the human resistance to check up on them. This goes about as well as you would expect.
(While there are sci-fi elements, don't go in expecting that to be the focus, they're mainly there to add texture to the protagonist's backstory. It's much more a character and relationship book than a worldbuilding one.)
My go to re-read (for about 35 years now, with 7-8 re-reads) is the Well World series by Jack L. Chalker. Chalker's writing style is just my jam for some reason. The character development is wonderful and Chalker is of the best when it comes to exploring crazy ideas.
Bernard Cornwell's
For me it would be the entire Philip Marlowe series from Raymond Chandler. I first read the series when I was in high school, and it was the translated Chinese version. I fell in love with the Philip Marlowe character, and has since then re-read the series in English probably 3 times.
Deerskin by Robin McKinley is one of my go-tos. It's not a cozy book, but it reminds me that we can get up again after our lowest times. Even if we need help to do so.
Trigger warning/spoiler for Deerskin
familial rapeAlso Sunshine by the same author, but that one's just indulgent. Dessert and vampires (properly frightening ones) and a hot mess of a protagonist with a runaway stream of consciousness.
Any Discworld book qualifies as a comfort read, and Good Omens too.
By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey is another. Pure competence porn, though the protagonist is still flawed and human.
Heartstopper by Alice Oseman, a comic (in graphic novels if you like) filled with queer joy.
The James Herriot books, tales of a country veterinarian in 1940s Yorkshire, filled with humor and empathy and joy for life. Based on true life but highly fictionalized.
Hard agree with The Hobbit, Watership Down, and The Horse and His Boy (always my favorite of the Narnia books, though nowadays it's tricky to navigate the stereotyping).
I love the James Herriot books!
I re-read a lot. And re-watch a lot. I guess it's a comfort thing? So many of my favorites are already listed and I love it. Any Discworld/Pratchett book, but Small Gods and Good Omens are the ones I reach for most frequently. The Hobbit is another, although I somehow avoided it for 2024. Feels due soon. Dracula is one I could basically read on repeat. I think the letter format makes it easy to pick up here and there as long as I have a vague idea of where I left off. Even though it's pretty different from my usual fare, The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy is one of my favorite books and a long time comfort read. For some reason, Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion has become my go-to any time I need to fly. It's grim and cozy and just short enough to finish on almost any flight (or flight + return flight). The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune is one of the "newest" books in my re-read usuals and I enjoy it because the story just wraps itself around you like a warm hug. Under the Whispering Door by the same author has a similar vibe but makes me cry a lot, so I save for when I need to let the feels out.
And this may not count because she wrote so many freaking books that it takes a while for me to loop back around to repeats with any real frequency, but I am always reading something by Agatha Christie. Just a constant stream of Poirot and Marple and murder