Comfort Read

[poliphilo]

I've done with mystery stories for the time being- with a single exception- which we'll come to shortly. Barbara Vine finally killed my appetite. Her books are brilliant but dismal and I really shouldn't have tried reading one when I had the flu. Now I'm looking round for something else to fill the idle hour.

So to the exception, because finding myself with nothing new to read- while feeling ill and intellectually inert- I surveyed the bookshelves and found the only thing I could bear to lift down was my omnibus edition of the Father Brown stories- which I purchased when I was eleven. I know I was eleven because- in a departure from my usual practice I wrote my name on the fly leaf- and dated it.

It's one of the few books I retain from childhood.

I have all sorts of issues with Chesterton and often find myself arguing with him in my head but he's witty and wise (well sometimes) and funny and inventive and writes gorgeously and when it came to the test (measured against many books I tell myself I value more) Father Brown declared himself to be my comfort read- and I can't see- this late in the day- him ever being shoved aside.

Comments

[halfmoon_mollie1]

You made me suddenly think of one of my favorite books - The Middle Window by Elizabeth Goudge. It isn't anything you'd be interested in, a time travel romantic type thing but when I read it (the timing, no doubt) I fell so irrevocably in love with it...I read my copy to death. It was held together with a rubber band. It has disappeared, and I think it's time to get another copy.

[poliphilo]

There are certain books you should always keep to hand.

[heleninwales]

Ooh! I haven't read that one. It was The Little White Horse that I adored as a child. I re-read it a few years ago and it held up surprisingly well.

[cmcmck]

I had (still have) a copy of the Ingoldsby Legends that I just read and read.

[poliphilo]

I have an Ingoldsby I bought in my teens. I won't say I'm always reading it but I do pick it up sometimes.