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What Are Your Comfort Reads?

Things are… well, ROUGH out there, ain’t they? And sometimes when the world is in turmoil – whether it’s the world at large or our own inner worlds – we just need something comfy to escape to.

So this month I asked our members to share their comfort reads, those books and properties they turn to when they need a literary hug. They’re presented here in the hope they spark joy for you, too.

Give your own thoughts by leaving a comment at the end of this article, or jump back into Discord to get involved. Are you a member but not yet in the BFS Discord server? Contact us to request your invite.

Featuring contributions from:

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Comments are presented as they were in Discord. Where there was a back-and-forth, comments are presented as the conversation. Where an individual contributor came back with more, those comments have been summarised as one.

Ricky Smith: Haven’t read it in years, but I used to either pick up Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings, or if I didn’t fancy a fantasy I’d dive into a read through of Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.

Lucy A. McLaren: His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman is my comfort read and favourite series. It’s been a favourite since I was a child. The characters and world(s) building are simply amazing. Every time I read it I take something new from it, but most of all I love imagining what my daemon would be!

Cheryl Sonnier: My biggest one is Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment. I just love the characters, the bonds they form. What it has to say about gender and the patriarchy and needless wars. And because I miss his voice in the world.

Dab Camp: As a British-American, my mother, my sister and I have gone through a lot of the shock and pain and anger in the last week. I’ve been finding a lot of solace in Pratchett. The world is weird and stupid and nonsensical; there are beetles that crawl through frog intestines and seals that sound like farts when they sneeze and someone who, a long time ago, thought in all seriousness that a British newspaper should be called the Sun. And even though the world is frequently shitty and nonsensical, it’s ours and we’ve got people and things worth caring about, and Pratchett in general always portrayed that so beautifully. Guards! Guards! and Going Postal are two of my particular favorites – it doesn’t take a perfect person to do the right thing and make things better.

S Slottje: I just finished The Kaiju Preservation Society when I saw Scalzi’s reaction bleat (is that the right term for Bluesky “tweets”? – I’m too new to this) and I instantly wanted to reread that novel again for the feels.

Rosemarie Cawkwell: I have a few comfort reads or listens. I like to listen to the Bobiverse audiobooks, by Dennis E Taylor when I need comfort. I’ve listened to them so often I have them memorised. Discworld books are always a solace and a balm for the soul. I like the audiobooks Stephen Briggs narrated and my Corgi paperbacks because they’re the right size to stick in my pocket. Pratchett makes things make sense when my head is a mess. I also like to read Tamora Peirce’s Tortall books, especially Song of the Lioness quad and the Protector of the Small quad. I had to get new copies because my originals from the 90s fell apart. I think I love them because they are familiar, I can remember most of the plot points and I know that even when bad things happen the story turns out well in the end.

Donna Morgan: Hogfather by Terry Pratchett is a go to for me, because of Death’s thoughts on humanity as a whole in that one. Any Discworld book could easily be on this list as well though. Also any of the Broken Empire trilogy by Mark Lawrence because I sometimes feel I want to cheer on the antihero, and just want some badassery where people get what they deserve without morals getting in the way.

(Pictured: Sir Terry Pratchett is a go-to for many of our members)

Janet Forbes: I’ll second anything by Terry Pratchett – his writing is like a hug in a book to me. Also Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger.

Rosemarie Cawkwell: Ooh yes! I love the Parasol Protectorate! I particularly love the secondary characters, for some reason. It might be because I’m not fussed by the romantic relationship of the MC. I’m trying to work my way through some of the other books Gail Carriger has written in the same world, but it’s hard going.

Laurence J.R. Nix: I find reading a children’s book every now and then to be a lot of fun. The best ones are enjoyable for adults too! If you’ll excuse me going outside the SFF bubble, I’ve been finding a lot of joy in Alasdair Beckett-King’s Montgomery Bonbon series. that’s what springs to mind instantly, i’ll think of some SFF comfort reads and comment again after a work meeting!

Karin J. Robinson: My comfort read ever since I was a child has been Robin McKinley’s The Hero and the Crown. The main character Aerin is an awkward, overlooked member of the royal household who winds up discovering a way to slay dragons, but that’s considered low work, unworthy of a princess (even a princess everyone finds disappointing). I love the book for the way Aerin stumbles into heroism by sheer stubbornness and the desire to be useful. 

Jendia Gammon: That was one of my big influences as well.

WP Wiles: Pratchett is well covered already so I’d like to mention “The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon” whcih was written by a lady-in-waiting at the court of the Emperor of Japan in the tenth century. Some of it is like a diary, but mostly it’s lists, daily observations, odd thoughts, things that please and annoy her. It’s very lovely and a glimpse into a distant and ancient world which is very comforting.

Also lately my wife and I rediscovered the Brambly Hedge stories, reading them to our daughter, and those are so sweet.

HR Filmore:  I treated myself to a Brambly Hedge calendar this year and have no regrets!

Sian O’Hara: I was obsessed with the Brambly Hedge drawings showing the homes inside hedges and trees. So detailed and beautiful drawn. Perhaps my first introduction to maps/worldbuilding??

Sam Hodges: Current comfort reads for me are Lirael and Natural History of Dragons. Honestly what my comfort read is changes in the moment though. Check back in 20 years when it’s Fathomfolk.

Will McCloughlin: Feet of Clay for me. It was one of the first “grown up” books I ever read and its like a big nostalgic blanket.

Chelsea La Vecchia: His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. The world building and characters are my favourite.

Silas A. Bischoff: The German author Walter Moers wrote a bunch of novels set on a fictional continent called Zamonia. Most of them have been translated into English. There’s The City of Dreaming Books, Rumo and His Miraculous Adventures, The Alchemaster’s Apprentice and The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, to name a few.

Moers is sort of the German Pratchett and Zamonia is sort of his Discworld, but it’s not a knock-off or anything. It’s a unique style, a very unusual whimsical world. I don’t know how good the English translations are, and he does play around with language a lot, but I’ve heard good things about them. My favourite would be The City of Dreaming Books. It is told from the perspective of the dinosaur Optimus Yarnspinner (in this world, dinosaurs are renowned for their poetry and literature) who travels to the famous city of Bookholm in search of the author of a manuscript he inherited from his uncle, because it is the single-best piece of writing he has ever encountered and he wants to learn from them. It’s a wacky cozy fantasy story about writers and the publishing industry and the magic of books, and it’s full of heart and wit and profound thoughts. This is my recommendation.

Eóin Dooley: Also omg Captain Bluebear is phenomenal. One of the few books I managed to read in German, but it’s so good.

Lauren Broughton: The Belgariad and Mallorean (or just Seeress of Kell) by Eddings, and Dragonsinger (often leading to the rest of the Pern books) by Anne McCaffrey (probably because those were the series my dad put in from of me as a child. Also the entire Honor Harrington series that I have on ebooks thanks to the Baen Free Library CDs. I’m sure there’s others, but those series stand out

David Green: My comfort read(s) is anything Middle-earth related. It doesn’t even have to be a book, like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Just anything related to Middle-earth does the trick and it can be music, academic books, artwork, an atlas or listening to/watching a discussion. There’s so much depth to Middle-earth and so much creativity that it scratches so many itches for me at once whilst also being comforting. I might seek out cosy fantasy books, too. It’s funny; on Bluesky, I asked for cosy fantasy recommendations the other day and received plenty to fill my TBR. But I also got a lot of people mentioning comfort reads with things as varied as Wheel of Time, Robin Hobb and Joe Abercrombie which can definitely be comforting but aren’t cosy! It underlined to me that while cosy fantasy is definitely a genre with books comprising defined tropes and themes, there’s still a lot of confusion surrounding it.

Eóin Dooley: It definitely is a complicated genre, and you hit on an important point there – art that is designed to be cosy won’t be universally comforting. I don’t have a particular book I’m going to at the moment (my reading is currently all research for my WIP) but in terms of music, I’ll listen to industrial metal, noise music, or soundtracks from horror games to relax. I tend to find the “uncosy” more comforting, for whatever reason.If I was to suggest a cosy read off the top of my head though – I’d go with the Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. Calvino’s one of my all-time favourite writers, and the Cosmicomics are a series of playful short stories which each take some scientific idea and stretch it to absurd degrees. Every story features the same narrator, named Qfwfq. They’re all charming, all a little silly, and Calvino can write amazing prose.

Melanie Bell: For “terrible world – let’s burn it,” and sheer immersive inventiveness, I love N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy. For cosy, I love Sarah Beth Durst’s The Spell Shop and S. A. MacLean’s The Phoenix Keeper (the latter has the most relatable anxiety rep I’ve read). I also find comfort in books where there’s just a bit of magic, or borderline magic, providing solutions to various everyday-life problems, such as Before the Coffee Gets Cold, What You are Looking For Is in the Library, or the old Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books for children.

Andrew Knighton: Like a load of other people, I’d have to say Pratchett. It’s the combination of humour to lift the spirits, good-hearted characters who make me feel like the world’s OK, and the moral certainty throughout his work that we can make things better. Stepping outside of fantasy (maybe), my most comforting comfort read is a copy of Winnie the Pooh that I’ve had since I was tiny. Part of that is nostalgia, but it’s also the low stakes, sense of community, & lovingly written characters. It helps that it’s easy to read, even when my brain is totally burned out.

Matthew Palmer: Lots of good choices, whenever I feel like I need a laugh and seeing some Fantasy tropes get skewed I normally reach for Diana Wynne Jones ‘Tough guide to fantasy land’. If I want some comforting heroic fantasy, I’d probably go for ‘Legend’ by David Gemmell.

Robin CM Duncan: For me, anything by under-appreciated master of SFF, Jack Vance. His command of language, character and description, was so surprising, colourful and hugely satisfying; his world-building fits so naturally into his works, it’s like a encountering a piece of wholly self-contained flash fiction, or having David Attenborough whispering notes in your ear as you experience the story. I’d probably pick up something from one of my favourite of his series; the Demon Princes, or Lyonesse, The Cadwal Chronicles, or the Gaean Reach series. 

Orrrrrrrr, if I want something lighter, just to drift through on a lazy Sunday, anything from the absolutely stunning Blacksad series of comics/graphic novels(?). Imagine Richard Scarry’s Great Pie Robbery meets grimy Jack Nicholson starrer, the stone cold classic Chinatown. These books are dark, sexy, and grittier than an unwashed scallop in a cheap seafood joint.

Oli Arditi: I’ve only read the Dying Earth stuff, as it’s so influential on Gene Wolfe who I’m embarrassingly devoted to, but those stories are an absolute joy. [And] You are so channeling Raymond Chandler with ‘grittier than an unwashed scallop in a cheap seafood joint’!

Oli Arditi: Tolkien is my comfort read. I first read Lord of the Rings at about 8 years old, and innumerable times since, but the Silmarillion or any of the other ‘legendarium’ stories do it for me too. Other than that I don’t really have ‘comfort reads’ as opposed to just ‘books I really like’. What I really want to curl up with is something that’s really thought-provoking and challenging—I like books and stories full of fascinating ideas and complex thematic content. Anything by Neal Stephenson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Alan Moore, Margaret Atwood, China Miéville, Gene Wolfe, Kim Stanley Robinson or N.K. Jemisin will probably do it for me. Actually, that real ‘cozy, switch your brain off, I just want comfort’ vibe is something I only really get from video games, if I’m honest.

Derek Drake: I’ve a special place in my heart for Vernor Vinge “A fire upon the deep” and especially “A deepness in the sky”, but I can’t say they are comforting books.

Shona Kinsella: I’ve been pondering this all afternoon and I don’t think I have a comfort read so much as reading IS my comfort. It doesn’t really matter what the book is, it’s the act of reading itself that comforts me.

Veronika Groke: Don’t tell anyone, but since I was a child, I’ve found it terribly comforting to reread The Neverending Story when I’m ill.

Trudie Skies: For me it’s Tamora Pierce, especially The Song of the Lioness quartet, which was my introduction to fantasy when I was younger, and possibly my non-binary awakening while older!

Matt “Womble” Cavanagh: I don’t really have time to reread casually so for me comfort reads is pulling a book I’ve not read and have no deadlines to read by or even need to review it

Ben Moxon: I’ve been reading some light novels in translation – lately I’ve found Amaeko Kaeruda is really good for fun and light storytelling that zips by in a cheerful rush but they are gone pretty fast. Going back to old favourites Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain have a balance of heart, humour, and wisdom that I probably appreciate more now than when I first read them. I can imagine the Ursula Vernon/T Kingfisher White Rat books being something I revisit in future, too.

HR Filmore: I read the Murderbot Diaries so many times when massively stressed by a previous job. There’s something very soothing about Murderbot’s competence, even while they’re experiencing multiple involuntary shutdowns! If you’re interested in non SF then Georgette Heyer. The Talisman Ring is one of my favourites – light-hearted regency romp where the protagonists set out to prove one of them was framed for murder (smugglers, secret passageways, break-ins in the middle of the night & a battle of wits against the antagonist) EDIT: Ooh, also the Girl Genius webcomic.

Melody Bowles: Poison by Chris Wooding. Yes, this book with the creepy changeling, the bone witch and the giant spiders is comforting to me. But on this terrifying journey Poison finds people who are kind to her. It makes the dire circumstances feel so hopeful. Have loved and reread since I found it as a teen.

Stephen Frame: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. A near-prefect story with a happy ending and plenty of sly and not-so -sly digs at those who wrap themselves in flags. Or anything by Bill Waterson. If ever we get to elect a world leader, Hobbes the Tiger would be my pick.

Sam Hodges:  It’s so sly I know someone who doesn’t seem to realise it’s meant as a dig. He reads it like Battlestar Galactica…

Susan Maxwell: Aside from golden age detective, which is a strong comfort read for me, Tove Jansson, especially Moominland Midwinter, is an easy choice; all of them are great, but that one particularly hit such a perfect spot between comfort and uncanny. Or else Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus series: the cynicism, the smart-arsery of Bartimaeus, the defamiliarised-familiar world. Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities: any excuse, really, but it has a lovely blend of serenity, sadness, and precision. If it all feels very grim (but not grim enough for Beckett) then something uncanny or Gothic – Hill’s The Woman in Black, Blackwood’s novella The Willows, or similar. Or else something in the popular science line, just to give me some sense that I can at least understand the people who understand something solid about the world: In Search of Schrodinger’s Cat, maybe.

Helen Thwaite: Legends & Lattes was a cosy read, but honestly if I want comfort, I turn to my romances.

Corinne Pollard: Reading itself is a comfort. When I was a child, I would reread The Spiderwick Chronicles for comfort, fascinated with the fantastical creatures and beautiful artwork.

Chris Hawton: I don’t often re-read or re-watch stuff which made me think I don’t have comfort things (unless I rely on what my 20 year old self liked and his opinions have proven to be WRONG.) If I am wanting a hug, I might listen to the Doctor Who stories from Big Finish featuring Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller alongside Paul McGann’s 8th Doctor (and yes I have heard season 4). There’s a warmth and inventiveness as well as quite a focus on northern England. I can easily believe Blackpool might be crawling with Zygons, for example. You will laugh and cry and be amazed by the twists. No Big Finish knowledge is needed nor any familiarity with Paul McGann.

A written recommendation especially as we near Christmas is Dave Rudden’s books. Dave is nominally a YA SFFH author and amongst other tomes he has written two Christmas themed Doctor Who anthologies, with an amazing variety of styles. Some are out and out horror, some comedy, some both. He also takes the TARDIS to his native Ireland which helps keep things fresh. I would dearly love more Who material from him though I expect I will also enjoy his own work as well.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

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