Oct 28 2008
Comfort Reads
I just finished listening to an audio recording of Maeve Binchy’s Nights of Rain and Stars. It was a tricky read, the story of a group of travelers who meet in a taverna in a small Greek village on the day of a tragedy there and become fast friends; tricky, because they are German, Irish, English and American, which, in addition to the Greek accent, is dialect gymnastics for a voice talent. It wasn’t Binchy’s best, but it was a safe choice from the library, when I went looking for something to fill the time on a long distance drive. It did get me thinking, however, that Maeve Binchy is one of a few writers that I look to for comfort reading, much like comfort food, to escape to a non-threatening, picturesque environment, and into the lives of others for awhile–no mystery, minor drama, and a reasonably happy conclusion. Much like the children’s books, the ones with houses and gardens I coveted in my youth, that I blogged about earlier–Miss Suzy’s squirrel’s nest and Miss Mary’s garden–these books are of a different genre in my mental library, though they would certainly overlap in general consumption and classification. The Secret Garden. Gone with the Wind. Those were certainly the two that I resonate from my youth, the only books I have read again and again, and not for the complicated literary development! As the fall has finally begun to take hold, and winter begins to seem possible, if only for the constant K-mart layaway commercials, I imagine myself in imaginary window seats with plump cushions, looking out on stormy skies (I always read Gone with the Wind during Winter Break)….but now I would be reading Binchy (the older stuff: Glass Lake, Evening Class, Circle of Friends), or Rosamund Pilcher. Better for me than comfort food…Who are your comfort writers..?
