BOOKS
The 15 best comfort reads to get you through January
You can beat the blues in the bleakest month — with help from books by PG Wodehouse, Mary Wesley and more
Great escape: The Reading Woman, 1911, by Lovis Corinth
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The Times
It’s bitterly cold, the calendar is empty and the house feels bare with no Christmas tree. But here you are, under a blanket, tea by your side and a paperback propped on your knees.
If ever there were a month to hibernate with a stack of books it would be January. Perhaps it was even one of your new year’s resolutions, to spend more time reading novels and less time scrolling through the bleak infinities of your phone. Reading offers comfort and cheer, wisdom and companionship but also a vision of life’s pitfalls — and a sense that we are not alone in cold, bewildering times.
For many of us it’s also a way to process illness, bereavements and depression. This is the time of
