Comfort Reads - Episode 21 - The Mookse and the Gripes

In this episode, Trevor and Paul chat about their criteria for a good comfort read: Nostalgia? Escapism? … Murder?

They each share a few of their go-to comfort books, along with plenty of wonderful listener suggestions (a few of which might just surprise you). So grab a cup of tea or glass of wine and get ready to bolster your cozy TBR pile!

Spoiler alert: You might want to have a pen and paper handy.

See our table for this episode at Bookshop.org.

We hope you enjoy this episode!

All of the books brought up in this episode!

The Magician – Colm Toibin
Devil House – John Darnielle
The Art of Flight – Sergio Pitol
The Books of Jacob – Olga Tokarczuk
Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim – David Sedaris
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
Naked – David Sedaris
Leave It to Psmith – P.G. Wodehouse
Journal of a Solitude – May Sarton
Plant Dreaming Deep – May Sarton
A Sick Day for Amos McGee – Philip C Stead and Erin E. Stead
Amos McGee Misses the Bus – Philip C Stead and Erin E. Stead
All Creatures Great and Small – James Herriot
And Then There Were None – Agathe Christie
Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments – Michael Dirda
The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating – Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Dream Work – Mary Oliver

Listener recommendations:

P.G. Wodehouse
A Month in the Country – J.L. Carr
Pietr the Latvian – George Simenon
Richard Brautigan
Julio Cortázar short stories
To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Old Filth – Jane Gardam
Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
The Power of One – Bryce Courtenay
The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
Things I Don’t Want to Know – Deborah Levy
Master and Commander – Patrick O’Brian
Underland – Robert Macfarlane
The Peninsula – Louise Dickinson Rich
Sestets – Charles Wright
The Book of Delights – Ross Gay
Watership Down – Richard Adams
O, The Brave Music – Dorothy Evelyn Smith
Provincial Lady series – E.M. Delafield
The Fortnight in September – R.C. Sherriff
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
Miss Buncle’s Book – D. E. Stevenson
Miss Plum and Miss Penny – Dorothy Evelyn Smith
Cat Among the Pigeons – Agatha Christie
The Canning Season – Polly Horvath
Anthony Trollope
Angela Thirkell
Rumpole of the Bailey – John Mortimer
Last Evenings on Earth – Roberto Bolano
The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow
Butcher’s Crossing – John Williams
Alice Munro
A Stranger In The Kingdom – Howard Frank Mosher
Joe Keenan
Mapp and Lucia books – E.F. Benson
David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
A Prayer Journal – Flannery O’Connor
James Thurber
A Farm Under a Lake – Martha Bergland
Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis
Georgette Heyer
The Summer Book – Tove Jansson
Kurt Vonnegut
A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
My Antonia – Willa Cather
Books of Blood – Clive Barker
Thai Food – David Thompson
Tasting Georgia – Carlo Capalbo

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every few weeks we are talking about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher. You can also listen to us on YouTube, if that’s your thing (though I’m still trying to figure that out, so be patient if there are some strange uploads and re-uploads).

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