this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2023
64 points (100.0% liked)

Literature

726 readers
1 users here now

Pretty straightforward: books and literature of all stripes can be discussed here.

If you're interested in posting your own writing, formal or informal, check out the Writing community!


This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Obviously, they don't have to slide into the cozy genre. But what books do you cuddle up with during a thunderstorm, or your variable weather of choice? Personally, Becky Chambers has become one of my favorites. I also read LOTR when I need a "good guys doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do".

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fanfiction is my go-to when I'm sick, or depressed, or really tired. Nothing beats its combo of easy-to-read and wildly absorbing.

Otherwise, I'm partial to cozy fantasy, like The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

Also the Murderbot books by Martha Wells never fail me.

Also... older books, with their wordiness and long sentences and lack of fear of semicolons, can be great for this. Virginia Woolf's books for example are so dense, and the atmosphere that creates is sublime, but the way she writes somehow makes her wordy prose also really easy to read. The sentences just kind of tumble you along. I love it.

Caveat being that older books, including Woolf's, contain shit like casual racism and sexism and etc, and sometimes I have more capacity to overlook that than other times. Which is one reason I love when modern authors write in a more old-fashioned style, like in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel by Susanna Clarke - it lets me have my cake and eat it too.

Poetry is also great a rainy day, including old poetry. It's underrated these days. I think it's partly from the pervasive modern idea that poetry is automatically "cringey", and partly from the elitism and other -isms among the Poetry Establishment^tm, and partly from English teachers taking the fun out of it. But you can rediscover poetry, just like you can rediscover a love of novels after highschool steals it from you for a while.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel by Susanna Clarke

I want to reread that one but I have it in trade paperback size and the thought of lugging it to and from work (I only get to read on my lunchbreak) is enough to keep it anchored firmly on the shelf.