Comfort Reads discussion

Hi! I'm looking for some great recommendations to get my 59-year-old mom back into reading for pleasure rather than just for work and information-gathering purposes. She was an English major in college and loved reading to us when we were kids, but then through running a business, caring for my ailing grandparents, etc. she just didn't have a chance to read for pleasure any more. So sad! She now has the chance and I think she is just not sure where to start.

I want her to read some really great books to start with that will keep her hooked ;-> I just don't know if I'll have the best recommendations. I tend to read classics or YA or books with 20-something protagonists and while I'm sure she wouldn't mind reading any of that if it's GOOD, I'm not sure it's the best to capture her interest right away. Maybe something with characters a bit more her own age--or at least not fresh-out-of-college chick-lit stuff. Something fairly light and good-natured and not 500+ intimidating pages. But I don't think she'd go for stuff like Danielle Steele. I'm thinking maybe something like The Enchanted April but I haven't read it myself yet... Or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I loved). And I know there is a category of literature called "hen lit" so maybe some of you have read some good selections there? I know Mom loved the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, so maybe even something like that although it's for "kids" would be good. THANKS!!!

I second (third?!) Guernsey. I would also recommend Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets and East of the Sun - lovely books!

Gone with the Windsors is on my nightstand. I've haven't read it yet, only taken a peek, but it looks like it would fit the bill.

You're a good daughter!!

Kathryn, The Enchanted April is an excellent and beautiful book. I think she would like it.

I'll plug 84, Charing Cross Road, which is an old friend. I've read it a number of times and love it. It's a series of letters between the author, Helene Hanff and a book seller in England around the time of the 2nd world war.

I second Enchanted April. Loved that! And Guernsey! And how about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

What a great question, it could be tricky as I'm sure you wish your Mom to be fully entertained and left wanting more. That's really nice of you to take the time to find something that she will enjoy. Obviously our patronage of Goodreads shows just how much we all love to read.
I'm just a little younger than your Mom but reading your post brought to mind some titles that might be appropriate.
1) The Shell Seekers
2) Coming Home both by
Rosamund Pilcher
Ms Pilcher is a British author with a lovely gift of writing that easily surrounds and draws you close with her characters and settings. Scenes are described beautifully in many of her books. We are transported to the beautiful Cornwall area of England. Wow, thinking about her writing I easily drift back to this corner of England and its beautiful landscape, so very different than what many people think England to be. I still can hear the sea! The Shell Seekers is a tad shorter and might work well read first. I think I've read this book 3 times, a rarity for me.
Don't be too put off by the length of Coming Home.
A long paperback might have intimidated me as I finally got back into reading, but I remember how the story grabbed me right from the start. Both books have a central character who is introduced as a young girl. We read of her youth and how she grew up pre WWII and how her life was forever changed because of it.
Anyway, those are the first 2 that came to mind. You have some really good suggestions here. I hope your Mom finds something to rekindle her love of reading.
Let us know how things work out.

This is very tricky!! I'll just list some books that I've loved and maybe one of them will appeal to you for her:

1) Losing Julia by Jonathan Hull - this book is amazingly beautiful and honest. One of the best reads I've read in a long, long time. On the surface, it's about life, love and loss, war and aging and duty and honor... but it's the stuff that fills in the space between these things that really makes it amazing. Patrick Delaney is the main character, and we get his story through three different times in his life, WWI, then a decade after WWI ended, then his 80s... these three times shift in and out of each other effortlessly and mesh together to form this gorgeous story that, I don't know... just feels so perfect. And this is a DEBUT novel. It does deal with war, so there is some violence and a little graphicness, but not too much, and not frequently. I highly recommend this one. Can't gush enough. It's suprisingly funny too. :)

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - this one is a gothic mystery, and it is beautifully written and deals with family and secrets and a sense of who we are and where we belong. I loved it. I won't gush as much about this one, because it is a mystery and I don't want to accidentally give anything away. This is definitely a book for book lovers.

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly - this is an amazing coming of age story for fans of the written word. Mattie Gokey is a wonderful main character, and brave and true to herself and her friends, and longs to be and do more than her duty will allow. Highly recommended.

The Book Thief or I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak.

Book Thief first - this is a BEAUTIFUL story about a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany and trying to survive and cope with everything around her. This one is narrated by Death, which is a little odd in itself, but pulls the story together in my opinion, and gives us a unique perspective of things. One of my favorites.

I Am The Messenger is another great growth story. The characters in this and Book Thief are young, but I don't think that this is a detriment at all. Zusak's stories kind of transcend age, I think. This one DOES have a younger feel, as the main character is kind of brash and.. young. But the way that he handles the things that are thrown his way is touching and beautiful... all the more so because it's unexpected.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett - This is just a gorgeous book with a very honest and heartbreaking story to tell about the struggle for Civil Rights in the South. I listened to it on audio, and loved the narrators voices. Beautiful and horrible and personal and honest. Definitely recommended.

OK... I think that's enough for now. These are all books that I've loved and have affected me in some way. Even if your mom wouldn't be interested in any of them, I hope that others will be intrigued and want to read some of these.

I have a lot more where they came from too! :P

So many great ones already here - let me add one I just finished that I just called my 86 year-old mom this morning and told her she MUST.READ.NOW!

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Kathryn, I'll second, third, fourth The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Help (which I haven't read yet), and The Book Thief. But, it really depends. What HAS she liked? And, when she starts reading, if she likes/dislikes particular books, let us know which ones, because that will make it easier for us to give further recommendations. There are so many excellent new or newish books she has missed.

All of these look so good, many of them I'd second, or third, fifth, whatever! Guernsey was WONDERFUL and so was Prodigal Summer and both Messenger and Thief by Zusak are tremendous. The Road Home by Tremain also outstanding. Becky, I definitely think I'm gonna have to get hold of Losing Julia really soon.

Laura: I read

Memoirs of a Geisha a while back and it's one of my all-time faves. The movie is very good too.

Hope your mom likes it.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the movie - haven't seen it, but I hear it's good! Her library has the large print book and the movie, so she's excited too! Thx Mona.

Laura, you're welcome:). Interesting tidbit, actually the actresses in the movie are Chinese. I read that there were just no Japanese actresses that were good enough or could speak English.

Also, my eyesight isn't all that great so I don't really mind the LP. It just takes some getting used to for me.

Chandra wrote: "I know this might seem like a silly question, but is your mom an LMM fan? Has she read The Blue Castle?"

I think that your mother could not go wrong with L.M. Montgomery. When I restarted reading for pleasure after getting my graduate degree (and I was quite read out at the time), I started with doing a reread of L.M. Montgomery's Emily of New Moon series (followed by the Anne of Green Gables series), lovely, engaging and just enough literature so as to not make me feel guilty. However, I also found that time-travel books and fantasy (like the Outlander series) and Mediaeval mysteries got me back into reading. And, Jasper FForde's Thursday Next series was lovely as well.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant is another book I would suggest. Simply wonderful!!

Laura wrote: "Yeah, I'm looking forward to the movie - haven't seen it, but I hear it's good! Her library has the large print book and the movie, so she's excited too! Thx Mona."

Laura, the movie is really good!

OOh! Can't wait to see it Beth, we have such similar taste. :)

Laura, it's worth the wait.

Thx Mona!

Oh my gosh, these are WONDERFUL suggestions! Thank you all SO much. I knew I could count on you ;-) Some of these even sounds like books I'm going to have to add to my own to-read shelf. I was actually thinking it could be really fun if my mom, sister and I get a little book club going so maybe if we can all agree on a title none of us has read yet, we will do so.

Chandra and Gundula, I'm glad you mentioned LM Montgomery--I have a feeling her books are just so much a part of who I am after all these years I could have overlooked it completely, silly me! Good to know that it helped you get back into reading, Gundula.. I do think she liked the Anne books way back when, so I will have to suggest "The Blue Castle" ;->

And I'm glad for the back-up on "Guernsey Literary" and "Enchanted April"--thanks again! I will let you know which of these strike her fancy and we can go from there :-)

Have any of you read Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia??? She heard about the movie and thought it sounded good so she's interested in the book. That's the only thing recently I know she's expressed interest in. I also thought she might My Life in France (which I absolutely loved) because she liked the "Julie and Julia" movie.

Kathryn wrote: "Oh my gosh, these are WONDERFUL suggestions! Thank you all SO much. I knew I could count on you ;-) Some of these even sounds like books I'm going to have to add to my own to-read shelf. I was ..."

That would be so nice if you guys did a book club together. Everyone came up with such great suggestions. I'm sure your mom will love them. I just saw Julie and Julia and I thought I should look into My Life in France, too. I never really thought much about Julia Child but that movie got me interested in learning more about her life.

Eat, Pray, Love was a good book! I would recommend it if she likes to think about life, you know, ponder things....she'd probably like it! Plus, if she enjoys travel she would enjoy it.

What about Bridget Jones's Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. They are fun and intelligent, and she probably will love the allusions to Jane Austen. I don't generally like chick-Lit, but I loved these two books (the first one was a bit better than the second).

I really enjoyed The Remains of the Day by Ishiguro. Maybe your mom would like it, and then could watch the movie, which was very good.

Kathryn, Do you know what some of her favorite books were when she was younger and had time for pleasure reading? Knowing those would also help me/us think of further suggestions.

Adding her to your little book club sounds like great fun!!!

If you can find some Elizabeth Cadell, and a copy of Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizaabeth Peters, I think she would love them and the Peters is a series, and there are many Cadell books.

Maude--I am reading Elizabeth Cadell now and think she might be a great fit.

Lisa-- Well, it's been so long that mostly what I remember her reading are books she read to us so I'm not sure what she'd choose for herself now. My mom really liked the Emilie Loring books when she was in her teens and twenties and the Elizabeth Caddel books remind me of them a bit so that might be a good choice. She also loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books (Little House on the Prairie etc) and other historical fiction books for kids like Caddie Woodlawn. I also remember she liked Cheaper by the Dozen when we read it years ago. She also likes the Patricia McLaughlan books such as Sarah, Plain and Tall. I know there are some more of McLaughlan's books out now that I might look into for her.

Another of her favorites is Mama's Bank Account. I think she likes books where individuals overcome hardships by working together as family/friends and keeping a positive attitude.

Thanks for that last message, Kathryn. I'll think more about it. I suspect I know and have read many books such as those. Will post as I think of them.

Has she read To Kill a Mockingbird?

Scout wrote: "Has she read To Kill a Mockingbird?"

Scout, You would be the one to think of that (amazing!) book. ;-)

My favorite:)

Does your mother like animals? One of my all-time comfort reads are the James Herriot books (I love all of them). She should probably start with All Creatures Great and Small and keep going if the novels appeal to her.

Another great novel, especially if she likes reading about France is A Year in Provence and its sequels by Peter Mayle.

And, for a simply amazing classic story about Wales and Welsh mining (and so, so much more), I can most strongly recommend How Green Was My Valley; just breathtakingly beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

I think someone already mentioned "The Red Tent"... my mom loved that one. She also really liked the last book I sent her The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom.

Another good Mitch Albom is his most recent - Have a Little Faith: The Story of a Last Request, a five-star read for me.

Kathryn, your mother may like Love Is a Wild Assault a great fact-based historical fiction about a family overcoming hardship in the early days of Texas statehood. I read this several years ago for a book group. When it was selected I had strong reservations but I ended up loving it. The title is a bit strange - makes the book seem like a cheesy romance - but it is a great, great book.

If your mom likes humor, I can suggest Janet Evanovich's series about hapless New Jersey bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. I reluctantly read the first one,and then gobbled up the rest. They are silly and ridiculous, quick reads, and occasionally "lol" funny. Not Literature, but good fun.

Ooo! More great suggestions, thanks! I am taking up a stack of books to her this week so we'll see what she expresses interest in. Thanks for such a great variety of suggestions!!!

Amy wrote: "If your mom likes humor, I can suggest Janet Evanovich's series about hapless New Jersey bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. I reluctantly read the first one,and then gobbled up the rest. They are sil..."

I second this suggestion!! But tell her to skip the first book, which isn't really the same flavor as the rest. She won't miss a bit by doing so because all of the backstory is explained. Book 6 is my favorite!

I have some books that I could not put down until I finished the very last page that I think would be perfect for someone trying to get into reading. 1) "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time"-an engaging heart felt book with great narration by an autistic teenager trying to solve the murder of a neighborhood dog and deal with his parents' marital issues. 2) "Salem Falls"-Jodi Picoult-brilliant writing and remarkable characters in the way of Picoult 3) "The Five People You Meet in Heaven"-Mitch Albom- It made me laugh and cry and cheer. This is a book that everyone should keep near their bedside to turn to like a good friend.

Though many have already been listed, these are the books that came to my mind:

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
A Northern Light
The Help
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Christy
Thistle and Twigg
The Spellman Files (and sequels)
My Ántonia

I add my vote to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I'll addFunny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and The Hindi-Bindi Club

Okay, no one has mentioned Jane Austen or the Brontes. She might like to revisit some of the classics! I also recommend:

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
The Moonstone
The Inheritance

I am not quite 54, but I enjoy YA, so you should suggest some of your favorites to her, Kathryn. I really enjoyed Chalice.

Right, as Jeannette says, age doesn't necessarily determine taste. I'm 56 and have very eclectic reading taste. All sorts of non-fiction, all sorts of fiction, ya and children's novels. It really depends on the person and their interests.

Kathryn, you have a good idea about books your mother has enjoyed including "I think she likes books where individuals overcome hardships by working together as family/friends and keeping a positive attitude." And, there are so many books that fit this, but she also might surprise herself by enjoying a wide range of books. Also, her tastes may have changed somewhat since she last had a chance to read.

Christine wrote: "I add my vote to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and I'll addFunny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and The Hindi-Bindi Club to my list too.

When I took up a bunch of books to her, the one she seemed most excited about was Ella Minnow Pea. If any of you have idea of books that are similar to this, do let me know!

I agree, though, that I shouldn't be too limiting in what I offer to her--as you say, her tastes may have changed. Thanks for that great suggestion and also to know that many of you enjoy YA books. I guess I just didn't want to go too far outside what I think are her tastes at first so she'd see something she could be excited about--but as long as books come with great reviews, there really is no reason not to expose her to them :-)

What about

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Sarah's Key

or anything by Maeve Binchy

Funny that you are asking this! My Mom, who is turning 59 in May, is also getting back into reading.

She's loved She's Come Undone and The Glass Castle.

My sister picked up Eat, Pray, Love for her, along with The Lovely Bones and Room. I got her Water for Elephants, which she liked, but it made her cry. So we've been told to lay off the "sad" books for a while.

These might have already been suggested, but they also might be good ideas!

Thank you for the suggestions, Kat and Lindsay! :-)

My mom is actually big into reading biographies right now! She loves the biographies of old film and TV stars, especially. Love, Lucy and Here We Go Again by Betty White are two of her favorites.

My mom just read Moloka'i and it is now one of her favorite books. She said once you start it, you can't put it down, so I thought I'd add this one to the list. She also enjoyed The House on Tradd Street and just about anything by Karen White.

Lauren wrote: "My mom just read Moloka'i and it is now one of her favorite books. She said once you start it, you can't put it down, so I thought I'd add this one to the list. She also enjoyed [book:T..."

Thanks! I will check those out :-)

Also if your mom likes historical fiction check out My Name is Mary Sutter