Robin Agnew
I think probably all of us have a secret stash of books we've already read that we keep around for emergencies - the flu, a snowstorm, etc. They're comfort reads you can come back to again and again. While I have loved books like Child 44 and The Mermaids Singing, they are not comfort reads. Challenging, yes, beautifully written and unforgettable, certainly, but when I'm laid up with a cold they're not the books I reach for.
I was just talking to my daughter and we agreed on two things. One of our favorite comfort reads is Sarah Stewart Taylor's O Artful Death, but any of the delightful Sweeney St. George books will do in a pinch. I got an email from Sarah recently saying she's writing a new book which was great news since four books for a stack of comfort reads aren't enough. We need more Sweeney!
The other thing we agreed on was Patricia Wentworth and it doesn't really matter which one, as long as Miss Silver is in the book, though in general the books written in the 30's and 40's are the best. Don't we all wish we had a little Miss Silver in us, able to make dinner table conversation in a house where someone has recently been murdered? Wentworth is also a surprisingly lovely prose stylist on occasion.
Another favorite for me is Rex Stout's Some Buried Caesar. While I like almost this entire series as well (and there are so many!) I love this one because not only does Wolfe leave the house, but he is trapped in the middle of a field by a bull. It really doesn't get any better than that. There's also an ode to Chicken Pot Pie that is really wonderful (and it makes you hungry).
Another series I often turn to (it's so handy to have a store full of used books at my disposal) is Lillian O'Donnell's fine Norah Mulcahaney series. I recently reread No Business Being a Cop but I don't think there was one I haven't liked. They are slightly dated but not too badly, and like Miss Silver, Norah is an admirable character.
I've read almost every Ngaio Marsh book four times. Nuff said, except that I can't re-read Death of a Peer for awhile because I practically know it by heart.
Recently I went on a P.D. James jag, and reread all the early ones. Shroud for a Nightingale is especially good, and slightly less disturbing (though it certainly has it's awful moments) than some of it's later cousins.
And Josephine Tey - if there is a better mystery to re-read than The Franchise Affair I'm not sure what it might be.
When we packed my daughter up for college last year she took, not surprisingly, many books. When I looked through her belongings I breathed a sign of relief, as I realized motherhood had been a success: tucked in with her swivel lamp and new comforter were copies of books by Elizabeth Peters, Patricia Wentorth, Ngiao Marsh and Sarah Stewart Taylor. With those friends along, she'll never be lonely. Looking above my teenage son's bed, I see his copies of Michael Connelly, Marcus Sakey and Harlan Coben books and I feel the same,
What books do you turn to over and over?
