The enchanted armchair

    I've stolen my post title today from Bloomsbury Books. In their latest 'Editor's Picks' newsletter they draw attention to several recent publications which they've listed under headings such as 'humour pick', 'history pick' and my favourite, the 'enchanting armchair pick'. The novel they've selected for that is Lawrence Norfolk's John Saturnall's Feast, and that's an apt choice indeed (I certainly was enchanted by it), but I thought I'd just tweak the category name slightly and ask you all to suggest a book to suit 'the enchanted armchair' - that is, something which utterly engrosses, delights and transports you, and lifts the spirits too, perhaps.

    There's a passage in Touch Not the Cat which is getting at something similar, I think. Bryony is in the old schoolroom at Ashley Court and she sees the familiar things of her childhood:

"A white-painted shelf still held the beloved story books, the Andrew Langs and the Arthur Ransomes and the C.S. Lewises, their battered covers containing each its bright autonomous world, those magical kingdoms one is made free of as a child, and thereafter owns all one's life."

    So yes, I'd expect some children's books to be nominated for our enchanted armchair, but which adults' ones would you put there? I'm looking for spell-binding reads here, not necessarily set in other worlds but which so take you out of yourself that you feel as if you are in a very special place. Curl up in a comfy chair and away you go! Any suggestions?

Comments

[adele geras]

One of my enchanted armchair books is indeed TOM'S MIDNIGHT GARDEN by Philippa Pearce. My adult enchanted armchair book is, I think, AS Byatt's THE CHILDREN'S HOUR....but there are too many contenders. GILLESPIE and I would be another one. ANNA KARENINA another. Have to be LONG, DETAILED AND ABSORBING.

[Cornflower]

Some very good ones there, Adele, and yes to 'long, detailed and absorbing'.

[B R Wombat]

This is an interesting question. I'd say, first of all, my favourite book ever - I Capture the Castle. From that wonderful opening sentence on I am carried off into Cassandra's captivating coming of age. Also, how about Kidnapped? Another book that whisks you away into its world. And for something long and involved, I'd suggest Wilkie Collins's Armadale. It's even better than his more well known works and I think I should re-read it soon.

[Dark Puss]

I read few books that I think would suit your challenge. However I'll put forward a few that perhaps come close:

Kafka on the Shore that most astounding of magical novels by the master himself, Murakami.

The Master and Margarita my sincere thanks to "Lindsay" for pointing me to this enchanting, disturbing, frightful, and captivating book by Bulgakov.

Possession by Byatt I would also nominate.

[Mr Cornflower]

At the absolute top of the pile sits "Brendon Chase" by BB, a book I find so powerfully evocative that I have to ration my reading. Then any of the Blandings Castle books by PG Wodehouse, followed by the Jack Aubrey books of Patrick O'Brian. It looks as though my enchanted armchair is deep, leathery, and hidden in some somnolent gentleman's club in St James! Which reminds me, "Where the Bright Waters Meet" by Harry Plunket Greene, the best fishing memoir ever (and a lot more beside). Oh, I nearly forgot some nineteenth century classics: Trollope (The Warden), Dickens (Bleak House), Flaubert (L'Education Sentimentale), Austen (Emma). This risks getting out of hand so I'd better stop with two more, Steven Runciman's Traveller's Alphabet and The Tempest...

[Dark Puss]

Your armchair sounds as if it is located a long way away from mine. I haven't read a single one of your choices.

[Susan in TX]

I have to agree with Mr. Cornflower that the Jack Aubrey books and Jane Austen would be on the list - and I would add the Hornblower books. Recently discovered at our house would also be Laurie R. King's Mary Russell books. Penelope Wilcock's Hawk and the Dove series is a favorite "winter" read, and Susan Hill's Howard's End is on the Landing (because it reads like a cozy book chat) is one I like to revisit occasionally. Will stop there for now. A fun exercise!

[Barbara]

That's a shame. Emma and Bleak House would be on my list, too, and Blandings Castle.

Fictional diaries make good hideaways, I find, books like The Diary of a Nobody.

[LizF]

That armchair looks wonderfully comfortable! Childhood reading in it would have to be Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse or Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.
The first grown up choice is actually a cross over for me as it is Jane Eyre which I first read at 11 or 12 but otherwise it would have to be Susan Hill's The Magic Appletree while I daydream that one day I will have my own Moon Cottage!

[LauraC]

Goudge's Pilgrim's Inn and Terry Brooks' The Sword of Shannara. (And of course The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Series.) In "children's" books: The Wind in the Willows."