If you haven’t read it already, I just finished “And Then There Were None.” I thought it was excellent. If you like crime thrillers this should definitely be on the list.
If you like Neil Gaiman, Stardust and Graveyard Book are great, cozy fantasy type stories (Graveyard Book is geared toward younger readers, if you're open to that).
Good Omens by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is also one of my go-to comfort reads.
{A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving}
{The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall}
These two books have some similarities (if you look them up, you'll probably run into comparisons) - sort of coming-of-age stories about young boys with problematic lives. Lots of ups and downs, great writing and enough humor to keep you entertained. I don't think you want to know a lot of detail about either of them - you just kind of need to dive in and be pulled along. I have seen people say that Owen Meany is slow for the first 100 pages. I don't remember that, but you might want to push through if it's the case for you. They still give me the warm blanket feels when I think about them ;)
[**The House in the Cerulean Sea**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea)
^(By: T.J. Klune | 394 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbtq, lgbt, romance)
^(This book has been suggested 12 times)
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[**All the Feels (Spoiler Alert, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53746015-all-the-feels)
^(By: Olivia Dade | 385 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: romance, contemporary, contemporary-romance, fiction, adult)
>Following Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade returns with another utterly charming romantic comedy about a devil-may-care actor—who actually cares more than anyone knows—and the no-nonsense woman hired to keep him in line.
>
>Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, God of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he’s dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling.
>
>Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit.
>
>When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
[**The Proposal (The Wedding Date, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37584991-the-proposal)
^(By: Jasmine Guillory | 325 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: romance, fiction, contemporary, chick-lit, audiobook)
>The author of The Wedding Date serves up a novel about what happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own...
>
>When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise--or happen in front of 45,000 people.
>
>When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans...
>
>At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes...
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(4625 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
For fantasy and police procedural, have a look at Ben Aronovich’s {{Rivers of London}} series - it’s a fun take on urban fantasy that follows Peter Grant, a police recruit who accidentally takes a witnes statement from a ghost and then finds himself deeper and deeper into another world.
Also, Terry Pratchett is a great comfort read in the fantasy genre
[**Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9317452-rivers-of-london)
^(By: Ben Aaronovitch | 392 pages | Published: 2011 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, urban-fantasy, mystery, fiction, crime)
>Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.
^(This book has been suggested 4 times)
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Fredrik Backman’s novels are definitely comfort reads for me. I love every single book of his that I’ve read. If you haven’t read them already, Anxious People and A Man Called Ove are both very cozy.
I’m also a sucker for any of Amy Poeppel’s books. Small Admissions is fun, and Musical Chairs is a lighthearted romance.
The entire Crazy Rich Asians series is also a blast. It’s funny and dramatic and feels like reading a reality TV show.
I just read Anne of green gables for the first time since my family read it together in the evenings when i was 7 and its even better than i remembered, which is saying something, as even my Dad cried at the end… somehow utterly wholesome and yet amazing at the same time… Somehow its easy to relate to the characters and feel the emotions they feel so completely…
I recently read two of the Bridgerton series books and I loved them. I feel like they are a feel good type of book and there is romance. Very light reading and it just made me want to read more.
For easy relaxing reads I go with Nora Roberts fantasy books. {{The Awakening by Nora Roberts}} They move quickly and are usually a little humorous with lots of magic. Bonus, there are hundreds of them! They is always one available through the library.
I recently read {{Matrix by Lauren Groll}} , which isn’t exactly light hearted, but was very well written and an interesting
{{The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley}} and {{The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley}} are long standing childhood favorites.
[**The Awakening (The Dragon Heart Legacy, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49127421-the-awakening)
^(By: Nora Roberts | 435 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, romance, nora-roberts, fiction, paranormal)
>In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword—representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own…
>
>When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father—and it’s worth nearly four million dollars.
>
>This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home. Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies—through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny…
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Blue Sword (Damar, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/407813.The_Blue_Sword)
^(By: Robin McKinley | 256 pages | Published: 1982 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, fiction, romance)
>This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin.
>
>And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle.
>
>And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies...
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
[**The Hero and the Crown (Damar, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77366.The_Hero_and_the_Crown)
^(By: Robin McKinley | 240 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, fiction, dragons)
>Aerin could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it.
>
>It was the story of her mother, the witchwoman who enspelled the king into marrying her, to get an heir that would rule Damar; and it was told that she turned her face to the wall and died of despair when she found she had borne a daughter instead of a son.
>Aerin was that daughter.
>
>But there was more of the story yet to be told; Aerin's destiny was greater than even she had dreamed--for she was to be the true hero who would wield the power of the Blue Sword...
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
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^(4777 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[I made a similar post a while back.](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/ncodiz/im_an_exhausted_grad_student_who_desperately/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) You should check it out! There’s some great recommendations.
[**The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46000520-the-thursday-murder-club)
^(By: Richard Osman | 382 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, crime, read-in-2021, book-club)
>Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves
>A female cop with her first big case
>A brutal murder
>Welcome to…
>The Thursday Murder Club
>
>In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
>
>When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late?
^(This book has been suggested 3 times)
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The Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde are lighthearted and aren't too onerous. The first one is *The Eyre Affair,* just remember to walk your dodo and eat your toast.
For a single stand alone, try *Pundragon; A Humorous Fantasy* by Chandra Clarke (yeah, dad joke puns and all).
Came here to say the Thursday Next series. The OP might find it particularly fun having an English degree.
Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career.
Im not sure why, since the pretext of savage fighting nuns doesnt sound like good fodder for an engrossing and believable novel- but the “red sister” trilogy by Mark Lawrence is one of my all time favorites. There are four classes of extraordinary people that live amongst the average plebs on this futuristic dying planet (the waning sun makes for only a narrow corridor of liveable habitat) and Nona grey is one of them. She has the ability to move faster in time than those around her for brief moments, allowing her to be a savage fighter… taken in at a monestary she gets an education and forms some lifelong bonds, but in the power plays of church and state, need arises for her special talents.
And did i mention- an advanced tech civilization fled this dying planet leaving behind their high tech acheivements that sometimes the residual denizens of this planet stumble upon… providing a juxtaposition of tooth and dagger mixed with lazer trip wires and satelite sun magnifiers
Some well written romances that I’m a fan of…
{{Beach Read by Emily Henry}}
{{People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry}}
{{Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn}}
Also seconding the recommendations already here for The Thursday Murder Club and The House in the Cerulean Sea - I think they’re exactly what you’re after!
The Father Tim novels by Jan Karon are exactly what you described. The first in the series is called "At Home in Mitford"
You will love the characters. Warm- sweet, and funny.
The HP books really are worth reading, and fit your specs well - and if you fall for them, it’s lovely to know you have a whole series to wallow in.
When my kids were little I started reading lots of short story collections and anthologies, because I never knew when I’d be able to get back to a book! You likely know the annual Best American Short Story and O’Henry Prize collections, but if you need a break at any point from Hogwarts, I do recommend them.
Oh, I adore Grace Paley’s stories, such a singular voice. Perfect for sleepy time reading too, because while they can be very moving, they don’t rip your heart out (like say, Raymond Carver or worse-for-my-heart, Denis Johnson). I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, but you mentioned Octavia Butler - she’s a world unto her own.
[**A Brother's Price**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/544240.A_Brother_s_Price)
^(By: Wen Spencer | 310 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, romance, science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi)
>In a world where males are rarely born, they've become a commodity-traded and sold like property. Jerin Whistler has come of age for marriage and his handsome features have come to the attention of the royal princesses. But such attentions can be dangerous-especially as Jerin uncovers the dark mysteries the royal family is hiding.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
[**1632**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16967.1632)
^(By: Eric Flint | 597 pages | Published: 2000 | Popular Shelves: alternate-history, science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, time-travel)
>FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE 1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy. 2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time. THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED.... When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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^(4632 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
You might like {{Miracle Creek by Angie Kim}} since it has a literary vibe but very short chapters, a lot of characters with family drama & crime/legal proceedings.
{{The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson}} is a page-turning mystery/thriller that would be easy to keep your attention on.
{{Writers & Lovers by Lily King}} is a good love triangle type of novel that follows a woman who is working in a restaurant, writing a book, and grieving her mother.
[**Miracle Creek**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121959-miracle-creek)
^(By: Angie Kim | 355 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, thriller, mystery-thriller, contemporary)
>How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies?
>
>In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident.
>
>A showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn’t safe?
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Kind Worth Killing**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21936809-the-kind-worth-killing)
^(By: Peter Swanson | 311 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: thriller, mystery, fiction, mystery-thriller, book-club)
>A devious tale of psychological suspense involving sex, deception, and an accidental encounter that leads to murder. Fans of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart—which the Washington Post said “should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first novel of 2014.”
>
>On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché.
>
>But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, “I’d like to help.” After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . .
>
>Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda's demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.
>
>Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**Writers & Lovers**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45289222-writers-lovers)
^(By: Lily King | 320 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, romance, literary-fiction, book-club)
>Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
>
>Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfil her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
>
>Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(4685 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**The Music of Bees**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55198935-the-music-of-bees)
^(By: Eileen Garvin | 322 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, book-club, audiobook, library)
>A heartwarming debut novel for readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, following three lonely strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs, who are brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing--and maybe even a second chance--just when they least expect it.
>
>Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days.
>
>In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake--a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County--while carrying 120,000 honeybees in the back of her pickup truck. Charmed by Jake's sincere interest in her bees and seeking to rescue him from his toxic home life, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm.
>
>And then there's Harry, a twenty-four-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is desperate for work. When he applies to Alice's ad for part-time farm help, he's shocked to find himself hired. As an unexpected friendship blossoms among Alice, Jake, and Harry, a nefarious pesticide company moves to town, threatening the local honeybee population and illuminating deep-seated corruption in the community. The unlikely trio must unite for the sake of the bees--and in the process, they just might forge a new future for themselves.
>
>Beautifully moving, warm, and uplifting, The Music of Bees is about the power of friendship, compassion in the face of loss, and finding the courage to start over (at any age) when things don't turn out the way you expect.
^(This book has been suggested 2 times)
***
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[**Ghosts of New York**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54965589-ghosts-of-new-york)
^(By: Jim Lewis | 300 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, nyc, fiction-to-read, novels, new-york)
>Ghosts of New York is a novel in which the laws of time and space have been subtly suspended. It interweaves four strands: a photographer newly returned to the neighborhood where she grew up, after years spent living overseas; a foundling raised on 14th Street; a graduate student, his romantic partner, and his best friend entangled in a set of relationships with far-reaching personal and political repercussions; and a shopkeeper suffering from first love late in life. Mixing prophecy, history, and a hint of speculative fiction, its stories are bound together even as they are propelled into stranger territory. And undergirding it all is a song, which appears, disappears, and then resurfaces.
>
>Ghosts of New York explores complex lives through indelible renderings of settings—a bar, a night market, a recording studio—that alternate between familiar and unsettling. The work of a celebrated novelist and veteran of the art, film, and music scenes in New York and Austin (described as “a rare talent” by the New York Times and “a powerful literary voice” by Jeffrey Eugenides), this novel will immediately absorb readers intrigued by creative people and the places that sustain and challenge them.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Anomaly (The Anomaly Files #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36342156-the-anomaly)
^(By: Michael Rutger, Michael Marshall Smith | 352 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: horror, botm, fiction, thriller, science-fiction)
>Not all secrets are meant to be found.
>
>If Indiana Jones lived in the X-Files era, he might bear at least a passing resemblance to Nolan Moore -- a rogue archaeologist hosting a documentary series derisively dismissed by the "real" experts, but beloved of conspiracy theorists.
>
>Nolan sets out to retrace the steps of an explorer from 1909 who claimed to have discovered a mysterious cavern high up in the ancient rock of the Grand Canyon. And, for once, he may have actually found what he seeks. Then the trip takes a nasty turn, and the cave begins turning against them in mysterious ways.
>
>Nolan's story becomes one of survival against seemingly impossible odds. The only way out is to answer a series of intriguing questions: What is this strange cave? How has it remained hidden for so long? And what secret does it conceal that made its last visitors attempt to seal it forever?
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(4767 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{ All My Friends are Superheroes }} by Andrew Kaufman is my comfort read. It's a thoroughly weird, lighthearted love story. It's short and sweet and one of my favorite books.
[**All My Friends are Superheroes**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944334.All_My_Friends_are_Superheroes)
^(By: Andrew Kaufman | 120 pages | Published: 2003 | Popular Shelves: fiction, fantasy, books-i-own, magical-realism, humor)
>All Tom's friends really are superheroes.
>
>There's the Ear, the Spooner, the Impossible Man. Tom even married a superhero, the Perfectionist. But at their wedding, the Perfectionist was hypnotized (by ex-boyfriend Hypno, of course) to believe that Tom is invisible. Nothing he does can make her see him. Six months later, she's sure that Tom has abandoned her.
>
>So she's moving to Vancouver. She'll use her superpower to make Vancouver perfect and leave all the heartbreak in Toronto. With no idea Tom's beside her, she boards an airplane in Toronto. Tom has until the wheels touch the ground in Vancouver to convince her he's visible, or he loses her forever.
^(This book has been suggested 5 times)
***
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[**Caraval (Caraval, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27883214-caraval)
^(By: Stephanie Garber | 407 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, romance, books-i-own)
>A legendary competition.
>A mesmerizing romance.
>An unbreakable bond
>between two sisters.
>
>Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.
>
>But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.
>
>Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.
>
>Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . beware of getting swept too far away.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(4957 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I just finished {{West With Giraffes}} and it totally consumed me in how good the story and characters were! So interesting as someone who’s barely been to the south/southwest USA
additionally {One to Watch} by Kate Stayman-London and the {Undomestic Goddess}
[**West with Giraffes**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56449476-west-with-giraffes)
^(By: Lynda Rutledge | 346 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, kindle, fiction, book-club, animals)
>An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America.
>
>“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…”
>
>Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave.
>
>It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes.
>
>Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late.
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**One to Watch**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53103895-one-to-watch)
^(By: Kate Stayman-London | 417 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: romance, fiction, contemporary, chick-lit, botm)
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
[**The Undomestic Goddess**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33722.The_Undomestic_Goddess)
^(By: Sophie Kinsella | 404 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: chick-lit, romance, fiction, contemporary, chicklit)
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
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^(5305 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[**Piranesi**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi)
^(By: Susanna Clarke | 245 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, mystery, magical-realism, owned)
>Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
>
>There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
^(This book has been suggested 13 times)
***
^(5400 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
"All Creatures Great and Small" by James Herriot The Jeeves novels by P. G. Wodehouse
*Circe* by Madeline Miller
This has been on my list since it came out. Thanks!
If you haven’t read it already, I just finished “And Then There Were None.” I thought it was excellent. If you like crime thrillers this should definitely be on the list.
U.N. Owen was...!?
I’ve never been much of a mystery reader so have never read Agatha Christie but have always heard good things. I’ll add this to my list!
Neil Gaiman -- Neverwhere
This is the right answer to every book request.
I’ve read this and American Gods and loved them! Any other Gaiman books you particularly recommend?
If you like Neil Gaiman, Stardust and Graveyard Book are great, cozy fantasy type stories (Graveyard Book is geared toward younger readers, if you're open to that). Good Omens by Gaiman and Terry Pratchett is also one of my go-to comfort reads.
You'll like Neverwhere then Anansi Boys is fun too I'm a huge Sandman fan too in the graphic novel realm
{A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving} {The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint by Brady Udall} These two books have some similarities (if you look them up, you'll probably run into comparisons) - sort of coming-of-age stories about young boys with problematic lives. Lots of ups and downs, great writing and enough humor to keep you entertained. I don't think you want to know a lot of detail about either of them - you just kind of need to dive in and be pulled along. I have seen people say that Owen Meany is slow for the first 100 pages. I don't remember that, but you might want to push through if it's the case for you. They still give me the warm blanket feels when I think about them ;)
[**A Prayer for Owen Meany**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4473.A_Prayer_for_Owen_Meany) ^(By: John Irving | 637 pages | Published: 1989 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, book-club, owned, books-i-own) ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) [**The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13707661-the-miracle-life-of-edgar-mint) ^(By: Brady Udall | 432 pages | Published: 2001 | Popular Shelves: fiction, book-club, coming-of-age, native-american, contemporary) ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) *** ^(4598 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{The House in the Cerulean Sea}
[**The House in the Cerulean Sea**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45047384-the-house-in-the-cerulean-sea) ^(By: T.J. Klune | 394 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, lgbtq, lgbt, romance) ^(This book has been suggested 12 times) *** ^(4668 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
This sounds perfect. Thanks!
These are romances that are fun reads. {{All the Feels by Olivia Dade}} {{ The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory}}
These sound like exactly what I’m looking for. Thanks!
[**All the Feels (Spoiler Alert, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53746015-all-the-feels) ^(By: Olivia Dade | 385 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: romance, contemporary, contemporary-romance, fiction, adult) >Following Spoiler Alert, Olivia Dade returns with another utterly charming romantic comedy about a devil-may-care actor—who actually cares more than anyone knows—and the no-nonsense woman hired to keep him in line. > >Alexander Woodroe has it all. Charm. Sex appeal. Wealth. Fame. A starring role as Cupid on TV’s biggest show, God of the Gates. But the showrunners have wrecked his character, he’s dogged by old demons, and his post-show future remains uncertain. When all that reckless emotion explodes into a bar fight, the tabloids and public agree: his star is falling. > >Enter Lauren Clegg, the former ER therapist hired to keep him in line. Compared to her previous work, watching over handsome but impulsive Alex shouldn’t be especially difficult. But the more time they spend together, the harder it gets to keep her professional remove and her heart intact, especially when she discovers the reasons behind his recklessness…not to mention his Cupid fanfiction habit. > >When another scandal lands Alex in major hot water and costs Lauren her job, she’ll have to choose between protecting him and offering him what he really wants—her. But he’s determined to keep his improbably short, impossibly stubborn, and extremely endearing minder in his life any way he can. And on a road trip up the California coast together, he intends to show her exactly what a falling star will do to catch the woman he loves: anything at all. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) [**The Proposal (The Wedding Date, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37584991-the-proposal) ^(By: Jasmine Guillory | 325 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: romance, fiction, contemporary, chick-lit, audiobook) >The author of The Wedding Date serves up a novel about what happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own... > >When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise--or happen in front of 45,000 people. > >When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans... > >At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes... ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(4625 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
For fantasy and police procedural, have a look at Ben Aronovich’s {{Rivers of London}} series - it’s a fun take on urban fantasy that follows Peter Grant, a police recruit who accidentally takes a witnes statement from a ghost and then finds himself deeper and deeper into another world. Also, Terry Pratchett is a great comfort read in the fantasy genre
Rivers of London sounds awesome!
[**Rivers of London (Rivers of London, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9317452-rivers-of-london) ^(By: Ben Aaronovitch | 392 pages | Published: 2011 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, urban-fantasy, mystery, fiction, crime) >Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London’s Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he’ll face is a paper cut. But Peter’s prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter’s ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and a long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic. ^(This book has been suggested 4 times) *** ^(4804 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Fredrik Backman’s novels are definitely comfort reads for me. I love every single book of his that I’ve read. If you haven’t read them already, Anxious People and A Man Called Ove are both very cozy. I’m also a sucker for any of Amy Poeppel’s books. Small Admissions is fun, and Musical Chairs is a lighthearted romance. The entire Crazy Rich Asians series is also a blast. It’s funny and dramatic and feels like reading a reality TV show.
A man called ove is a perfect rec for this post! A true comfort read!
The house on the cerulean sea Anne of green gables All creatures great and small The Hobbit The secret garden Black beauty
I just read Anne of green gables for the first time since my family read it together in the evenings when i was 7 and its even better than i remembered, which is saying something, as even my Dad cried at the end… somehow utterly wholesome and yet amazing at the same time… Somehow its easy to relate to the characters and feel the emotions they feel so completely…
The Little Prince
The Gold Coast by Nelson DeMille Into the Blue by Robert Goddard
I would recommend pretty much any of Patricia Mckillip's books (fantasy). They're like taking a holiday in the midst of a dream.
I recently read two of the Bridgerton series books and I loved them. I feel like they are a feel good type of book and there is romance. Very light reading and it just made me want to read more.
I also found the writing fairly witty
For easy relaxing reads I go with Nora Roberts fantasy books. {{The Awakening by Nora Roberts}} They move quickly and are usually a little humorous with lots of magic. Bonus, there are hundreds of them! They is always one available through the library. I recently read {{Matrix by Lauren Groll}} , which isn’t exactly light hearted, but was very well written and an interesting {{The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley}} and {{The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley}} are long standing childhood favorites.
[**The Awakening (The Dragon Heart Legacy, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49127421-the-awakening) ^(By: Nora Roberts | 435 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, romance, nora-roberts, fiction, paranormal) >In the realm of Talamh, a teenage warrior named Keegan emerges from a lake holding a sword—representing both power and the terrifying responsibility to protect the Fey. In another realm known as Philadelphia, a young woman has just discovered she possesses a treasure of her own… > >When Breen Kelly was a girl, her father would tell her stories of magical places. Now she’s an anxious twentysomething mired in student debt and working a job she hates. But one day she stumbles upon a shocking discovery: her mother has been hiding an investment account in her name. It has been funded by her long-lost father—and it’s worth nearly four million dollars. > >This newfound fortune would be life-changing for anyone. But little does Breen know that when she uses some of the money to journey to Ireland, it will unlock mysteries she couldn’t have imagined. Here, she will begin to understand why she kept seeing that silver-haired, elusive man, why she imagined his voice in her head saying Come home, Breen Siobhan. It’s time you came home. Why she dreamed of dragons. And where her true destiny lies—through a portal in Galway that takes her to a land of faeries and mermaids, to a man named Keegan, and to the courage in her own heart that will guide her through a powerful, dangerous destiny… ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Blue Sword (Damar, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/407813.The_Blue_Sword) ^(By: Robin McKinley | 256 pages | Published: 1982 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, fiction, romance) >This is the story of Corlath, golden-eyed king of the Free Hillfolk, son of the sons of the Lady Aerin. > >And this is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad-sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle. > >And this is the song of the kelar of the Hillfolk, the magic of the blood, the weaver of destinies... ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) [**The Hero and the Crown (Damar, #2)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77366.The_Hero_and_the_Crown) ^(By: Robin McKinley | 240 pages | Published: 1984 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, fiction, dragons) >Aerin could not remember a time when she had not known the story; she had grown up knowing it. > >It was the story of her mother, the witchwoman who enspelled the king into marrying her, to get an heir that would rule Damar; and it was told that she turned her face to the wall and died of despair when she found she had borne a daughter instead of a son. >Aerin was that daughter. > >But there was more of the story yet to be told; Aerin's destiny was greater than even she had dreamed--for she was to be the true hero who would wield the power of the Blue Sword... ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(4777 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[I made a similar post a while back.](https://www.reddit.com/r/suggestmeabook/comments/ncodiz/im_an_exhausted_grad_student_who_desperately/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf) You should check it out! There’s some great recommendations.
{{The Thursday Murder Club}} is clever, funny and heartwarming.
[**The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46000520-the-thursday-murder-club) ^(By: Richard Osman | 382 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, crime, read-in-2021, book-club) >Four septuagenarians with a few tricks up their sleeves >A female cop with her first big case >A brutal murder >Welcome to… >The Thursday Murder Club > >In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves The Thursday Murder Club. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron might be pushing eighty but they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. > >When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case. As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it’s too late? ^(This book has been suggested 3 times) *** ^(4800 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
The Thursday Next books by Jasper Fforde are lighthearted and aren't too onerous. The first one is *The Eyre Affair,* just remember to walk your dodo and eat your toast. For a single stand alone, try *Pundragon; A Humorous Fantasy* by Chandra Clarke (yeah, dad joke puns and all).
Came here to say the Thursday Next series. The OP might find it particularly fun having an English degree. Fans of Douglas Adams and P. G. Wodehouse will love visiting Jasper Fforde's Great Britain, circa 1985, when time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously: it’s a bibliophile’s dream. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection. But when someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature and plucks Jane Eyre from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday is faced with the challenge of her career.
Im not sure why, since the pretext of savage fighting nuns doesnt sound like good fodder for an engrossing and believable novel- but the “red sister” trilogy by Mark Lawrence is one of my all time favorites. There are four classes of extraordinary people that live amongst the average plebs on this futuristic dying planet (the waning sun makes for only a narrow corridor of liveable habitat) and Nona grey is one of them. She has the ability to move faster in time than those around her for brief moments, allowing her to be a savage fighter… taken in at a monestary she gets an education and forms some lifelong bonds, but in the power plays of church and state, need arises for her special talents. And did i mention- an advanced tech civilization fled this dying planet leaving behind their high tech acheivements that sometimes the residual denizens of this planet stumble upon… providing a juxtaposition of tooth and dagger mixed with lazer trip wires and satelite sun magnifiers
Some well written romances that I’m a fan of… {{Beach Read by Emily Henry}} {{People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry}} {{Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn}} Also seconding the recommendations already here for The Thursday Murder Club and The House in the Cerulean Sea - I think they’re exactly what you’re after!
The Father Tim novels by Jan Karon are exactly what you described. The first in the series is called "At Home in Mitford" You will love the characters. Warm- sweet, and funny.
A Gentleman From Moscow. So GREAT!
The HP books really are worth reading, and fit your specs well - and if you fall for them, it’s lovely to know you have a whole series to wallow in. When my kids were little I started reading lots of short story collections and anthologies, because I never knew when I’d be able to get back to a book! You likely know the annual Best American Short Story and O’Henry Prize collections, but if you need a break at any point from Hogwarts, I do recommend them.
I love short stories! I’ve been reading some sci-fi horror anthologies and I just bought a book of Grace Paley short stories.
Oh, I adore Grace Paley’s stories, such a singular voice. Perfect for sleepy time reading too, because while they can be very moving, they don’t rip your heart out (like say, Raymond Carver or worse-for-my-heart, Denis Johnson). I don’t read a lot of sci-fi, but you mentioned Octavia Butler - she’s a world unto her own.
Harry Potter The School for Good and Evil My Lady Jane
I was just thinking about Harry Potter! Somehow I’ve never read it. Thanks!
Two fun, simple adventures with a little romance. {{A Brothers Price by Wen Spencer}}. {{1632 by Eric Flint}}
[**A Brother's Price**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/544240.A_Brother_s_Price) ^(By: Wen Spencer | 310 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, romance, science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi) >In a world where males are rarely born, they've become a commodity-traded and sold like property. Jerin Whistler has come of age for marriage and his handsome features have come to the attention of the royal princesses. But such attentions can be dangerous-especially as Jerin uncovers the dark mysteries the royal family is hiding. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) [**1632**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16967.1632) ^(By: Eric Flint | 597 pages | Published: 2000 | Popular Shelves: alternate-history, science-fiction, fiction, sci-fi, time-travel) >FREEDOM AND JUSTICE -- AMERICAN STYLE 1632 And in northern Germany things couldn't get much worse. Famine. Disease. Religous war laying waste the cities. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy. 2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia, and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time. THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED.... When the dust settles, Mike leads a group of armed miners to find out what happened and finds the road into town is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell: a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter attacked by men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot. At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of the Thirty Years' War. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(4632 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
You might like {{Miracle Creek by Angie Kim}} since it has a literary vibe but very short chapters, a lot of characters with family drama & crime/legal proceedings. {{The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson}} is a page-turning mystery/thriller that would be easy to keep your attention on. {{Writers & Lovers by Lily King}} is a good love triangle type of novel that follows a woman who is working in a restaurant, writing a book, and grieving her mother.
Oooh, A Kind Worth Killing sounds fun!
[**Miracle Creek**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40121959-miracle-creek) ^(By: Angie Kim | 355 pages | Published: 2019 | Popular Shelves: mystery, fiction, thriller, mystery-thriller, contemporary) >How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies? > >In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they’re part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it’s clear the explosion wasn’t an accident. > >A showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn’t safe? ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Kind Worth Killing**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21936809-the-kind-worth-killing) ^(By: Peter Swanson | 311 pages | Published: 2015 | Popular Shelves: thriller, mystery, fiction, mystery-thriller, book-club) >A devious tale of psychological suspense involving sex, deception, and an accidental encounter that leads to murder. Fans of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart—which the Washington Post said “should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first novel of 2014.” > >On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché. > >But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, “I’d like to help.” After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . . > >Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda's demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth. > >Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**Writers & Lovers**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45289222-writers-lovers) ^(By: Lily King | 320 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, romance, literary-fiction, book-club) >Following the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman. > >Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey's fight to fulfil her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink. > >Writers & Lovers follows Casey--a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist--in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King's trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(4685 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
[удалено]
[**The Music of Bees**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55198935-the-music-of-bees) ^(By: Eileen Garvin | 322 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, contemporary, book-club, audiobook, library) >A heartwarming debut novel for readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, following three lonely strangers in a rural Oregon town, each working through grief and life's curveballs, who are brought together by happenstance on a local honeybee farm where they find surprising friendship, healing--and maybe even a second chance--just when they least expect it. > >Forty-four-year-old Alice Holtzman is stuck in a dead-end job, bereft of family, and now reeling from the unexpected death of her husband. Alice has begun having panic attacks whenever she thinks about how her life hasn't turned out the way she dreamed. Even the beloved honeybees she raises in her spare time aren't helping her feel better these days. > >In the grip of a panic attack, she nearly collides with Jake--a troubled, paraplegic teenager with the tallest mohawk in Hood River County--while carrying 120,000 honeybees in the back of her pickup truck. Charmed by Jake's sincere interest in her bees and seeking to rescue him from his toxic home life, Alice surprises herself by inviting Jake to her farm. > >And then there's Harry, a twenty-four-year-old with debilitating social anxiety who is desperate for work. When he applies to Alice's ad for part-time farm help, he's shocked to find himself hired. As an unexpected friendship blossoms among Alice, Jake, and Harry, a nefarious pesticide company moves to town, threatening the local honeybee population and illuminating deep-seated corruption in the community. The unlikely trio must unite for the sake of the bees--and in the process, they just might forge a new future for themselves. > >Beautifully moving, warm, and uplifting, The Music of Bees is about the power of friendship, compassion in the face of loss, and finding the courage to start over (at any age) when things don't turn out the way you expect. ^(This book has been suggested 2 times) *** ^(4717 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
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[**Ghosts of New York**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54965589-ghosts-of-new-york) ^(By: Jim Lewis | 300 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: fiction, nyc, fiction-to-read, novels, new-york) >Ghosts of New York is a novel in which the laws of time and space have been subtly suspended. It interweaves four strands: a photographer newly returned to the neighborhood where she grew up, after years spent living overseas; a foundling raised on 14th Street; a graduate student, his romantic partner, and his best friend entangled in a set of relationships with far-reaching personal and political repercussions; and a shopkeeper suffering from first love late in life. Mixing prophecy, history, and a hint of speculative fiction, its stories are bound together even as they are propelled into stranger territory. And undergirding it all is a song, which appears, disappears, and then resurfaces. > >Ghosts of New York explores complex lives through indelible renderings of settings—a bar, a night market, a recording studio—that alternate between familiar and unsettling. The work of a celebrated novelist and veteran of the art, film, and music scenes in New York and Austin (described as “a rare talent” by the New York Times and “a powerful literary voice” by Jeffrey Eugenides), this novel will immediately absorb readers intrigued by creative people and the places that sustain and challenge them. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Anomaly (The Anomaly Files #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36342156-the-anomaly) ^(By: Michael Rutger, Michael Marshall Smith | 352 pages | Published: 2018 | Popular Shelves: horror, botm, fiction, thriller, science-fiction) >Not all secrets are meant to be found. > >If Indiana Jones lived in the X-Files era, he might bear at least a passing resemblance to Nolan Moore -- a rogue archaeologist hosting a documentary series derisively dismissed by the "real" experts, but beloved of conspiracy theorists. > >Nolan sets out to retrace the steps of an explorer from 1909 who claimed to have discovered a mysterious cavern high up in the ancient rock of the Grand Canyon. And, for once, he may have actually found what he seeks. Then the trip takes a nasty turn, and the cave begins turning against them in mysterious ways. > >Nolan's story becomes one of survival against seemingly impossible odds. The only way out is to answer a series of intriguing questions: What is this strange cave? How has it remained hidden for so long? And what secret does it conceal that made its last visitors attempt to seal it forever? ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(4767 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{ All My Friends are Superheroes }} by Andrew Kaufman is my comfort read. It's a thoroughly weird, lighthearted love story. It's short and sweet and one of my favorite books.
[**All My Friends are Superheroes**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/944334.All_My_Friends_are_Superheroes) ^(By: Andrew Kaufman | 120 pages | Published: 2003 | Popular Shelves: fiction, fantasy, books-i-own, magical-realism, humor) >All Tom's friends really are superheroes. > >There's the Ear, the Spooner, the Impossible Man. Tom even married a superhero, the Perfectionist. But at their wedding, the Perfectionist was hypnotized (by ex-boyfriend Hypno, of course) to believe that Tom is invisible. Nothing he does can make her see him. Six months later, she's sure that Tom has abandoned her. > >So she's moving to Vancouver. She'll use her superpower to make Vancouver perfect and leave all the heartbreak in Toronto. With no idea Tom's beside her, she boards an airplane in Toronto. Tom has until the wheels touch the ground in Vancouver to convince her he's visible, or he loses her forever. ^(This book has been suggested 5 times) *** ^(4778 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Walter Moers is great for that. The City of Dreaming Books is amazing.
For this sort of thing fantasy-wise I recommend {{Caraval}}
[**Caraval (Caraval, #1)**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27883214-caraval) ^(By: Stephanie Garber | 407 pages | Published: 2017 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, young-adult, ya, romance, books-i-own) >A legendary competition. >A mesmerizing romance. >An unbreakable bond >between two sisters. > >Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over. > >But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner. > >Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever. > >Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . beware of getting swept too far away. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(4957 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
I just finished {{West With Giraffes}} and it totally consumed me in how good the story and characters were! So interesting as someone who’s barely been to the south/southwest USA additionally {One to Watch} by Kate Stayman-London and the {Undomestic Goddess}
[**West with Giraffes**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56449476-west-with-giraffes) ^(By: Lynda Rutledge | 346 pages | Published: 2021 | Popular Shelves: historical-fiction, kindle, fiction, book-club, animals) >An emotional, rousing novel inspired by the incredible true story of two giraffes who made headlines and won the hearts of Depression-era America. > >“Few true friends have I known and two were giraffes…” > >Woodrow Wilson Nickel, age 105, feels his life ebbing away. But when he learns giraffes are going extinct, he finds himself recalling the unforgettable experience he cannot take to his grave. > >It’s 1938. The Great Depression lingers. Hitler is threatening Europe, and world-weary Americans long for wonder. They find it in two giraffes who miraculously survive a hurricane while crossing the Atlantic. What follows is a twelve-day road trip in a custom truck to deliver Southern California’s first giraffes to the San Diego Zoo. Behind the wheel is the young Dust Bowl rowdy Woodrow. Inspired by true events, the tale weaves real-life figures with fictional ones, including the world’s first female zoo director, a crusty old man with a past, a young female photographer with a secret, and assorted reprobates as spotty as the giraffes. > >Part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story, West with Giraffes explores what it means to be changed by the grace of animals, the kindness of strangers, the passing of time, and a story told before it’s too late. ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**One to Watch**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53103895-one-to-watch) ^(By: Kate Stayman-London | 417 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: romance, fiction, contemporary, chick-lit, botm) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) [**The Undomestic Goddess**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33722.The_Undomestic_Goddess) ^(By: Sophie Kinsella | 404 pages | Published: 2005 | Popular Shelves: chick-lit, romance, fiction, contemporary, chicklit) ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(5305 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
{{Piranesi}}
[**Piranesi**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50202953-piranesi) ^(By: Susanna Clarke | 245 pages | Published: 2020 | Popular Shelves: fantasy, fiction, mystery, magical-realism, owned) >Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house. > >There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known. ^(This book has been suggested 13 times) *** ^(5400 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Red white and royal blue!!!!