Looking for happy, uplifting book suggestions!
April 22, 2013 1:31 AM   Subscribe

Help me find books that are as happy, joyful and well-written as Silas Marner! Last time I visited my grandmother I gave her my copy of Silas Marner. She loved the book so much she read it three times in a row within two days… She told me it brought her "an unexpected deep and quiet sense of joy"… Because she's pretty sad and depressed right now I'd love to find other books that might lighten her long and lonely days! Can you help me? :)

Some details that might be relevant :

- She's always been an avid reader, and she mostly reads classics. Her favorite author is Herman Hesse and her favorite book is Narcisse & Goldmund. "Difficult" books don't scare her!
- If there is depressing or violent parts they must be short and without too much details… For example, every time I read a new Harry Potter book my grandma would read it afterwards. She loved the three first books, and then found the last four ones too gloomy. So : an unhappy orphan who discovers a whole new existence : OK. A kid fighting with all kinds of enemies / evil forces : she won't like it. Here's why a lot of the recommendations of this thread sadly don't fit…
- I know she read some Jane Austen books and she didn't really liked them… From what I understood it was to "predictable" and naïve to her.
- The author can be from any nationality and century, she's pretty open and curious about that.
- … and, very important, no SMS nor Internet nor GPS in the story. She has a very hard time understanding those novelties ! :)

Thank you in advance!
posted by mugitusqueboom to Media & Arts (29 answers total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
Has she read the Anne of Green Gables series? Pollyanna?
posted by humph at 1:41 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott: about four sisters growing up in 19th century America (there are a few sequels about their lives as wives and mothers, too).

A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster: set at the turn of the 20th century, about English folks travelling in Italy and falling in love.

The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim: set in the 1920s, about a small group of dissatisfied Englishwomen who rent a villa together in Italy and find happiness.

And this one is completely different from the other three I just recommended, but: The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's about a family of immigrants who move from India to the United States, and it is absolutely wonderful.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 2:04 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I'd recommend Daniel Deronda by Eliot, too. Marvellous book. Also Jane Eyre if she hasn't already read it, not predictable like Austen can be.

Iris Murdoch can be very satisfying, if she likes a big book creating its own world then The Philosopher's Pupil or The Book and the Brotherhood.
posted by LyzzyBee at 2:52 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson is pretty well entirely delightful.
posted by Otto the Magnificent at 3:11 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals is sweet and funny. Well written, too.
posted by Specklet at 3:36 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


I think I might have similar tastes to your grandmother, when it comes to classics, anyway. It seems counter-intuitive what with the title, but I found Death Comes For The Archbishop quite uplifting.

I don't know if I would call it uplifting, exactly, but Pere Goriot was clever, affectionate, fun.
posted by smoke at 3:52 AM on April 22, 2013


Books by Maeve Binchy, and the "Number One Ladies' Detective Agency" series by Alexander McCall Smith are heartwarming and charming.
posted by Anna Jean at 4:01 AM on April 22, 2013 [3 favorites]


My Antonia by Willa Cather, and Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. I recently read (and loved, and gave to both my dad and my grandma, who loved) Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences, 1815-1897, which is Elizabeth Cady Stanton's autobiography. She may also like The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O'Shea, and if you're willing to go a little further afield, the Tiffany Aching books are wonderful (The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith).
posted by ChuraChura at 4:39 AM on April 22, 2013 [2 favorites]


Goodnight Mr Tom has the right kind of uplift, but there are some dark passages that might be a bit too much.
posted by Segundus at 4:39 AM on April 22, 2013


Shipping News is a funny and enjoyable book packed with quirky info about a remote world. Drama and sadness but ultimately happiness. Ignore the movie.
posted by emjaybee at 5:03 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


It's interesting that she found Silas Marner happy and uplifting because I found it pretty dark. Another book that felt similar to me was Portrait of a Lady by James. She might also enjoy other Realist novels as well.
posted by mosessis at 5:20 AM on April 22, 2013


There's also this recent thread:http://ask.metafilter.com/237478/Taking-Suggestions-for-Library-of-Low-Stakes-Fiction

And I'll second Gerald Durell, but just make sure you get him and not his much darker brother Lawrence.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 5:32 AM on April 22, 2013


2nding the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books. Also by McCall Smith: Portugese Irregular Verbs and the follow-on books about Prof. Dr. von Igelfeld.

If she's not afraid of dense language, she might thoroughly enjoy the Aubrey-Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian, all of which fill me with the same quiet joy.
posted by jquinby at 5:51 AM on April 22, 2013


I've been reading James Herriot's books (All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, etc etc.) as my happiness reading. There are definitely some sad stories mixed in but they're far from gloomy.
posted by brilliantine at 5:53 AM on April 22, 2013 [4 favorites]


Seconding Jane Eyre, even if she has read it in the past, as different themes become foregrounded when re-read at different stages of life.

And how about Eliot's Middlemarch? It's a big, complicated fictive world to wander in, but imho the takeaway is life-affirming and joy-affirming.
posted by third rail at 6:17 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


The Miss Read series.
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
posted by apartment dweller at 6:36 AM on April 22, 2013


Also, I'm about to read Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy and it's just occurred to me that it might be a good addition to this list.
posted by humph at 7:00 AM on April 22, 2013


The Little House on the Prairie series fits, and the later books especially are adult enough to be enjoyable. Madeline L'engle's biography is lovely, it's called The Two-part something something.
posted by windykites at 7:07 AM on April 22, 2013


I found Baking Cakes in Kigali to be uplifting. People make do with grief and loss, and help each other to thrive, and not just survive.

I only saw the movie (hangs head in shame), but maybe Cold Comfort Farm?
posted by Heart_on_Sleeve at 7:09 AM on April 22, 2013


Growth of the soil by Knut Hamsun.
I think it's a lot like Silas Marner in that it is a character-driven story about realistic flawed people trying to find/create a place for themselves in a realistic and sometimes dark world. Each character is valued and respected. There are no worthless black-hearted evil villains to rid the world of, just people who make mistakes that we can understand. Even when a character goes to prison for several years after committing a serious crime, life goes on and things get a lot better for that character. Everything sort of works out for the best without being remotely sentimental or predictable. It is a very positive and comforting and life-affirming book.
posted by steinwald at 7:41 AM on April 22, 2013


Cranford.
Lark Rise to Candleford.
posted by antiquated at 7:46 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


Seconding Middlemarch, especially since she's already read and loved another Eliot work. I read it in a college course, and spent a large part of my final exam discussing the sense of joy and wonder I felt as one of the main characters developend through the course of the novel. I'm smiling now just remembering it.

Another series I LOVE and that absolutely fits what you're looking for is Madeleine L'Engle's Crosswicks Journals. The first book is A Circle of Quiet, and there are three more in the series if she likes that one. These are nonfiction, and basically consist of L'Engle's meditations on her life, thoughts on religion, and celebrations of her relationships with family and friends. I read A Circle of Quiet at a tough, pretty depressed point in my life and it was a beautiful reminder that there was more out there in the world besides my own pain.

I'd also like to recommend Connie Willis' Doomsday Book, with a caveat. This book had me bawling - it is very sad, but also very life-affirming, in that it emphasizes the goodness of its characters against terrible odds. So it fits your "uplifting" criterion, but not necessarily the "happy" part. I'm mentioning it because for me, it was such an uplifting work that I still felt joy in reading it despite the sadness.
posted by augustimagination at 7:59 AM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I recommend Paradise News by David Lodge. Or anything by Lodge, really.
posted by Philemon at 8:08 AM on April 22, 2013


Seconding the James Herriot books.
posted by JHarris at 8:49 AM on April 22, 2013


Been recommending these all over the place lately: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows, and The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise by Julia Stuart (I also just read The Pigeon Pie Mystery by Stuart and while it's not as deep, or as charming, it's still a very enjoyable lighter read).

Also seconding The Shipping News.
posted by dlugoczaj at 10:03 AM on April 22, 2013


Cold Comfort Farm, definitely!
posted by orrnyereg at 1:36 PM on April 22, 2013 [1 favorite]


I remember really loving A Confederacy of Dunces. It made me laugh and had a happy ending.
posted by hollyanderbody at 3:53 PM on April 22, 2013


I've read 'Narcissus & Goldmund', it's a very philosophical / spiritual book, not really a novel so much as a discourse of ideas about human growth and potential. "Happy and uplifting" isn't how I'd describe it, but it is an exciting, fascinating read.

Given that, here's a few books maybe in a somewhat similar vein:

The Chosen, Chaim Potok
East of Eden, Steinbeck
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
Love's Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy, Irvin D. Yalom
(That last suggestion, which I've read and loved, came courtesy of What Should I Read Next, after plugging in the Hesse book.)
posted by Bron at 7:18 PM on April 22, 2013


Response by poster: Thanks everyone! You gave my grandma 6 months' worth of reading :)
posted by mugitusqueboom at 1:38 PM on May 31, 2013


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