Comfort Reading

In weather-appropriate links, forget comfort eating: try comfort reading.

Why do some books seem comforting? It may be because they take you back to a particular time or place, or perhaps they have that magic carpet capacity, found in the best children’s books, to fly you out of yourself. Sometimes it’s even consoling to read about people more scared, cold and miserable than oneself – think of all those orphans and consumptives in Victorian literature.

Here on the books desk, Dumbledore’s wretchedness in Harry Potter comes to mind: “One can never have enough socks … Another Christmas has come and gone and I didn’t get a single pair. People will insist on giving me books.” Well, books are what we’re stuck with too, Dumbledore. So we’ll be cheering ourselves through the sockless season with a series of “comfort read” blogs from a range of Guardian writers and readers.

Read the whole thing here.