If You Need Cheering Up, Read These Books

Reading Recs for Blue Monday

The third Monday of January has been known for some time as Blue Monday in the UK — the most depressing day of the year. It’s particularly rough here, with dark, sunless days and early sunsets and no impending time off work, but it can be a rough patch for everyone. The Independent puts it like this: “The theory goes that this is the time of year when we’re all cold, broke and riddled with guilt that our new year’s resolutions to get fit, drink less alcohol, and be a better human being have fallen by the wayside.”

But, as is so often the case, books can come to the rescue! Huddle on the sofa with one of these comfort books and you’ll feel better.

What You Are Looking For Is In the Library, by Michiko Aoyama, transl. Alison Watts

This lovely book tells the stories of five people who, for different reasons, are a little lost in life, and, in different ways, discover the library — and in particular a librarian there with an intuition for what book each of them needs to read so they can find their way. It’s encouraging and inspiring, with some great life lessons.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

Love, Nina, by Nina Stibbe

This delightful book is a collection of letters that Nina Stibbe wrote home when she nannied for a posh family in 1980s London. It’s a lovely, easy read, full of gentle British humour.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

Mornings With Rosemary, by Libby Page

A customer came into the bookshop where I work asking for “a book where people are lovely to each other”, and I took her straight to this one. In Mornings With Rosemary (known in the UK as The Lido), a young lonely journalist and an older bereaved widow team up alongside their entire community to save their local outdoor swimming pool. It’s a truly charming book.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, by Sue Townsend

This one is a modern British classic, and it’s laugh out loud funny in places. Adrian is growing up with divorcing parents in the Thatcherite Britain of the 1980s, coming to terms with his newfound hormones and raging crush on his schoolmate Pandora, and permanently devastated over the BBC’s constant rejection of his poetry. He’s not worrying about a pandemic or climate change — his anxiety if of a completely different order, and far more amusing to adults with the benefit of hindsight than to the teenagers it’s often marketed to.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

The Bookish Life of Nina Hill, by Abbi Waxman

I put this book into as many hands as possible at East City Bookshop. Warm, witty, and delightful, it’s the story of book nerd, introvert, and cat owner Nina Hill, whose delicately balanced and well-planned life gets upended when she discovers she has a whole family she never knew about, and meets a hot boy at her weekly trivia night. Reading this book feels like being hugged.

Bookshop US | Bookshop UK | Blackwell’s | Libro FM

Want more?

More great cheerful books, or “up lit”, can be found here (US) and here (UK).

Feedback is welcome on the format of this newsletter, and please feel free to comment with the thing you love, so I can recommend relevant books for you!

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