SBD - Comfort reads
Sep. 11th, 2006 05:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksToday was a quiet, overcast day off, a good day to curl up on the couch and dozy off while reading a comfortable old favorite. I may still do that. But first, I ran errands and went to the library and the dentist. No cavities -- yay! Got referrals to two orthodontists, too. It feels a little foolish to be contemplating braces at my age (32). I've thought about them off and on since I was a teenager, because I have a couple of crooked teeth on the bottom, but dismissed it as vain and unnecessary. My teeth are healthy, no gum disease or other dental/periodontal damage, no jaw problems, etc. Except I grind my teeth, in addition to the fact that I have a small jaw and too many teeth (really the proper number, just crammed into a smallish jaw), which apparently is making one of the front teeth a little unstable. A tooth on the bottom has shifted noticeably, if I look at college photos with a full smile. I definitely need either a guard of some kind (for the grinding) or braces. We'll see.
But now I'm comfortably ensconced on my sofa, feet up on the ottoman, laptop in lap, potential book selections at hand. I've got at least 100 books TBR; have bought 8 new books since September 1st, and only read 3 of them. Are any of these new books the books I grabbed? Uh uh. Why not? Because they didn't feel right. I wanted to curl up and waste what's left of the afternoon. The new books might be too much work. They might be fluff. They might be fascinating, new books to add to the keeper shelves. I don't know, and apparently I'm not going to discover if that is the case this afternoon. Instead, I'm going to open up either The Blue Castle, Welcome to Temptation, Cordelia's Honor, Persuasion or Bad for Each Other, and get reacquainted with Valancy Jane, or Sophie and Phin, or the Vorkosigans, or Anne and Wentworth, or Kick.
Bookseller Chick asked for a list of comfort reads awhile back, and I think she compiled a list. I'll come back and add a link later. I'm always interested in other people's favorites, but today I'm trying to figure out what makes a comfort read. Looking at my selections for the day, I'm not sure exactly what it is. The HEA? Well, the Vorkosigans didn't exactly get that, at least not in Cordelia's Honor. They get an EA, with varying amounts of H, along with what Cordelia would term both a great gift and a great challenge or sacrifice.
Is it the characters? Maybe. Except while I find WTT's Sophie and Phin to be a funny, fascinating couple, when I stop to think about them as individuals, they aren't quite so likeable. They've got a lot of admirable characteristics, but also some not so charming ones.
It's got to be the writing then, right? Except I've read "better" prose than either Bad for Each Other or The Blue Castle. As much as I love TBC, I don't think it is necessarily L.M. Montgomery's best written book.
What then makes a comfort read? It's that thing, the it. In people, I guess it is charm. It's that piece of magic that speaks to the reader. And books speak differently to people. Many (most, I think) would say that Austen's best work is Pride and Prejudice, which doesn't speak to me at all (in book format, that is -- I loved the BBC mini-series). On the other hand, Persuasion seems to have fewer enthusiasts, but is the Austen work that I read and read again. In Welcome to Temptation, the "it" is the humor and the dialogue. In Cordelia's Honor, "it" is the conflict. In Bad for Each Other, "it" is the reunited lovers getting their HEA. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for an HEA?) In The Blue Castle, "it" is Valancy Jane's transformation. In Persuasion, it is the everything of the story.
What are your comfort reads? And what makes them comfort reads for you?
Afterthought: Is your comfort read list static, or has it changed over the years? Mine has -- a book, a classic of literature that I loved as a teen, has recently been dumped. Another much beloved book that I read repeatedly has also been written off. What changed? Nothing in the book, obviously, just something in me.
But now I'm comfortably ensconced on my sofa, feet up on the ottoman, laptop in lap, potential book selections at hand. I've got at least 100 books TBR; have bought 8 new books since September 1st, and only read 3 of them. Are any of these new books the books I grabbed? Uh uh. Why not? Because they didn't feel right. I wanted to curl up and waste what's left of the afternoon. The new books might be too much work. They might be fluff. They might be fascinating, new books to add to the keeper shelves. I don't know, and apparently I'm not going to discover if that is the case this afternoon. Instead, I'm going to open up either The Blue Castle, Welcome to Temptation, Cordelia's Honor, Persuasion or Bad for Each Other, and get reacquainted with Valancy Jane, or Sophie and Phin, or the Vorkosigans, or Anne and Wentworth, or Kick.
Bookseller Chick asked for a list of comfort reads awhile back, and I think she compiled a list. I'll come back and add a link later. I'm always interested in other people's favorites, but today I'm trying to figure out what makes a comfort read. Looking at my selections for the day, I'm not sure exactly what it is. The HEA? Well, the Vorkosigans didn't exactly get that, at least not in Cordelia's Honor. They get an EA, with varying amounts of H, along with what Cordelia would term both a great gift and a great challenge or sacrifice.
Is it the characters? Maybe. Except while I find WTT's Sophie and Phin to be a funny, fascinating couple, when I stop to think about them as individuals, they aren't quite so likeable. They've got a lot of admirable characteristics, but also some not so charming ones.
It's got to be the writing then, right? Except I've read "better" prose than either Bad for Each Other or The Blue Castle. As much as I love TBC, I don't think it is necessarily L.M. Montgomery's best written book.
What then makes a comfort read? It's that thing, the it. In people, I guess it is charm. It's that piece of magic that speaks to the reader. And books speak differently to people. Many (most, I think) would say that Austen's best work is Pride and Prejudice, which doesn't speak to me at all (in book format, that is -- I loved the BBC mini-series). On the other hand, Persuasion seems to have fewer enthusiasts, but is the Austen work that I read and read again. In Welcome to Temptation, the "it" is the humor and the dialogue. In Cordelia's Honor, "it" is the conflict. In Bad for Each Other, "it" is the reunited lovers getting their HEA. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for an HEA?) In The Blue Castle, "it" is Valancy Jane's transformation. In Persuasion, it is the everything of the story.
What are your comfort reads? And what makes them comfort reads for you?
Afterthought: Is your comfort read list static, or has it changed over the years? Mine has -- a book, a classic of literature that I loved as a teen, has recently been dumped. Another much beloved book that I read repeatedly has also been written off. What changed? Nothing in the book, obviously, just something in me.
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Date: 2006-09-12 06:20 am (UTC)CindyS
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Date: 2006-09-12 01:05 pm (UTC)Something that I give a ten out of ten might not necessarily be a book I want to reread.
I think comfort reads, for me, are books that grow on me, rather than a one-hit wonder.
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Date: 2006-09-13 12:13 am (UTC)I've never heard of Bad for Each Other. I will have to look it up.
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Date: 2006-09-13 12:14 am (UTC)-jennie
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Date: 2006-09-13 11:54 am (UTC)