10 comforting books for a hard week

Some weeks call for books that move at a gentler pace and leave you in good company. These share a warmth toward ordinary people and small acts of care — a bookseller walking parcels to doorsteps in Ο ταχυδρόμος των βιβλίων, or a girl sent to stay with another family for a summer in Τα τρία φώτα — and they tend to suit a tired reader who wants to be steadied rather than shaken.

1.Το μαγικό φωτογραφείο του κύριου Χιρασάκα

Χιιραγκι Σανακα, 2020

A quiet, fantastical story about photographs, memory and the moments we wish we could visit once more.

Αλήθεια, όμως, ποιος ήταν αυτός ο άνθρωπος; Μέχρι τώρα, ακόμα κι όταν τη χαιρετούσε αναπάντεχα κάποιος στον δρόμο, αμέσως τον αναγνώριζε λέγοντας: «Είσαι ο τάδε, σωστά;» – γεγονός που πάντα χαροποιούσε τον άλλον. Πίστευε πως ήταν πραγματικά άσχημο να γερνάς και να σκουριάζει το μυαλό σου. «Καλώς ήρθατε. Σας περίμενα» της είπε ο άντρας.

Excerpt from Το μαγικό φωτογραφείο του κύριου Χιρασάκα, Χιιραγκι Σανακα, Ικαρος 2020. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals
2.A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens, 1843

Three ghosts, one night, and the cheapest man in London forced to look at what his life has actually cost.
3.Anne of Green Gables

L. M. Montgomery, 1908

A vibrant, deeply imaginative coming-of-age story woven through the lush landscape of rural Canada.
4.Ο ταχυδρόμος των βιβλίων

Carsten Henn, 2020

A bookseller who carries books to readers' doors, and a widowed reader who judges novels by their cover colour.
5.All the Light We Cannot See

Anthony Doerr, 2014

A blind Parisian girl and a German boy with a radio gift are pulled toward each other through the Nazi occupation, in a war story built from small, luminous things.
6.A Little Princess

Frances Hodgson Burnett, 1905

A rich girl in a London boarding school loses everything and learns that being a princess is a discipline, not a birthright.
7.Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom, 1997

A sportswriter reconnects with his dying sociology professor and records their Tuesday conversations about love, work, and fear.
8.Me Before You

Jojo Moyes, 2012

A wry, underemployed Englishwoman takes a care job in a grand house and finds her ordinary life opened up by the most difficult person in it.
9.Τα τρία φώτα

Claire Keegan, 2010

A young girl spends a summer away from home and discovers how much care can change the shape of a life.
10.The Maze Runner

James Dashner, 2009

A boy wakes with no memory in a moving lift, among boys who have built a life beside a shifting maze. The rules are simple; the questions aren't.

And then, as if the lens of a camera had sharpened its focus, the faces cleared. They were boys, all of them—some young, some older. Thomas didn’t know what he’d expected, but seeing those faces puzzled him. They were just teenagers. Kids. Some of his fear melted away, but not enough to calm his racing heart.

Excerpt from The Maze Runner, James Dashner, Delacorte Press 2009. Quoted for discovery. Source Rights & removals