Comfort Books

One of the hardest things about moving house after such a long time is deciding what to keep and what to discard. In our case both M.O.T.H. and I come from families where books are rarely-if ever- discarded.
Last week I got all fired up and culled about a thousand books from our collection and boxed them up in readiness for the garage sale this weekend. (NO FOLKS NONE OF MY TEXTILE BOOKS ARE GOING *blush*) Consequent to that I have come down with a bug that has laid me low for a few days. Which reminded me of my special comfort - my books. Always when I have been sick in the past I have recovered by being able to read and transport myself from the misery into my books- mostly familiar tales when I am sick. ie books I have read before.
Probably the the longest lived comfort book is "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. It was set as a text for my class in the 70's and I have revisited the book at least yearly since then. In many ways I identified with Scout, being precocious as a child and a Daddy's Girl and the gentle humour of the observations of Miss Lee's family always touched a chord. At around the same age as Scout was in the book I caused something of a minor tremor in the Convent school I was educated in when I suggested innocently to an elderly Irish nun the maybe Jesus was a Communist. When called on to explain this by the principal of my school she saw my point and then suggested that perhaps it was kinder not to antagonise Sr Mary Michaeli with this point of view. To me at that age it smacked of hypocrisy in the same way the townsfolk do to Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Coincidentally To Kill a Mockingbird also came into my life at around the same time I became politically aware. South Africa was hitting the headlines for firing on children who had decided they were not going to be taught in the language of their oppressors Afrikaans. To me as a student in Australia it resonated with an awfulness that made it personal and my interest in South Africa was born which leads me ultimately to my second Comfort Book
The Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela. What a man! After so long in jail he could have come out consumed with a desire for revenge and hatred but instead this most compassionate of men gave the world a long overdue lesson.
Then there is Rosalie Ham's "The Dressmaker" An Australian Gothic tale of revenge and small towns of which I understand quite well having been brought up in a smallish country town in Victoria. If any textilers are reading this I can wholly recommend this tale for laughs and interest.
I use my comfort books in different ways. When I am tired or stressed out I run a bath and select one and slide into the warm water and just let myself go.
'Mockingbird' is for days like that, that easy familiarity of family stories are enough to sustain me through the bath before it moves into the darker moments of the book and the trial of Tom Robinson. I usually dont completely read it but I refresh my memory of Scout and Atticus and Jem.
When I am appalled at the state of humanity it is Mandela I turn to, a voice of reason when the whole world seems insane- much read during the madness following September 11, 2001 and the disaster that has become the US adventure in Iraq.
And when I am mightily pissed off at someone or something and would ache to do revenge- something I dont do because basically I am a big chicken (grin) I turn to Tilly in the The Dressmaker and vicariously despatch summary justice.
so what Comfort books to you guys read?