On comfort

I read an interview once with someone who said he read Bleak House every year, at Christmas. The sophistication! Kind-of-but-not like how I used to read Polo by Jilly Cooper every time I was dumped.

Now these days, I’m with a nice young man and we’re getting hitched, but I still read Polo about once a year. All the Jilly Cooper books are dear friends by now, and I have to be careful when I’m writing, because I’ve read them so often that entire sentences from them can appear in my fingers and on the page.

Not quite Bleak House, but then again, I sometimes find reading Dickens like talking to someone extremely quick and self-consciously clever. It’s brilliant, but I feel a bit tired afterwards, like I’ve been holding my breath till the end of each sentence. Jilly Cooper, on the other hand, is equally fast and smart and amusing, but also kind and observant and bitchy-in-the-good-way and a bit naughty. Someone with whom you could play hooky from work and drink a bottle of wine. Someone who, no matter how bad the thing is that's happened to you, will make you laugh by the end of the first drink.

And so, because there is no new book news on my front (other than, The Dating Detox is coming in January, and when it does, please buy it), I think I’ll list other books I read for comfort. Books that will be your best friend and sit with you for hours and make you laugh and sigh when you’ve just broken up with some asshat, had a shit day at work, fought with your sister, made a fool of yourself or anything else that results in a blue soul. These are books with wit and warmth and smarts and optimism that I find easy to get into - even when most of my brain won’t let go of my problems.




1 Heartburn by Nora Ephron
Like a heart-to-heart with a warm, confiding, wise, self-deprecating, sarcastic and absolutely stomach-achingly witty friend. After you read this, read I Feel Bad About My Neck, which has only one fault: it isn’t four times as long. I wish Nora Ephron would start a GOOP.



2 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis
When you’re feeling stuck and bored and worried about your future, this is the book to read. Oh, or if you have a hangover.
My sister did this cover, by the way, when she was working at Penguin Classics. No, she wasn't allowed to do my cover. I wish she had.



3 Mariana by Monica Dickens
Makes you wish you grew up posh in the 20s.



4 The Pursuit Of Love by Nancy Mitford
Makes you wish you grew up posh in the 20s in a family of sharp, bored eccentrics.
This cartoon cover is about as good as cartoon covers get.



5 Persuasion by Jane Austen
In the mood for spine-tingling confessions of love? Forget Mr Darcy. It’s all about Mr Wentworth.



6 The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy
She’s an American living in Paris in the 50s, she wears ball gowns all day and she gets drunk and has inappropriate affairs all night. What’s not to love?
Fab cover, too.


7 Nightingale Woods by Stella Gibbons
Yes, Cold Comfort Farm by the same author is sharper and funnier – but can the uber-sensible Flora ever really console when you’re feeling down? She never makes a mistake. The heroines of Nightingale Woods, however, start out lonely messes and end droolingly happy. The perfect book if you feel like a lonely mess.



8 The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
Rip-roaring adventure: sex and swashbuckling and intrigue and D’Artagnan. My crush on him is severe. Corset-ripper with balls.



9 Polo by Jilly Cooper
If you’ve never read them, start with Riders, then Rivals, Polo, The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. Then see if you can stop. And go back and read Prudence and Harriet and oh, just trust me. Makes you wish you were rich, bored and libidinous in Gloucestershire in the 70s.
Such brilliant covers, too. For the reprint, some fool photoshopped out half the original covers so they look all uneven and odd - just a bit of his knee remains.



10 Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
I heart Bridget.