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Feel Good Fiction Display Teaser image

Feel Good Fiction Display

Sometimes you just need something that lifts your spirits and feels like a giant hug.  This can be especially important during difficult times or during busy seasons when you might feel a little more tense than usual.  Reading a "feel good" fiction book might be exactly what you need!  Check out these titles that are sure to bring you a little comfort and joy when you need it.

"A Man Called Ove" is Fredrik Backman's beloved first novel about the angry old man next door and the profound impact one life has on countless others.  "Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon--the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him "the bitter neighbor from hell." But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?  Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations."

"The Travelling Cat Chronicles" shows how the smallest things can bring the greatest joy.  Hiro Arikawa's instant international bestseller has charmed readers around the world.  "With simple yet descriptive prose, this novel gives voice to Nana the cat and his owner, Satoru, as they take to the road on a journey with no other purpose than to visit three of Satoru's longtime friends. Or so Nana is led to believe... With his crooked tail--a sign of good fortune--and adventurous spirit, Nana is the perfect companion for the man who took him in as a stray. And as they travel in a silver van across Japan, with its ever-changing scenery and seasons, they will learn the true meaning of courage and gratitude, of loyalty and love."

"'Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices... Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?'   While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself?  Would any of these other lives truly be better?  In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

In "This Time Tomorrow" by Emma Straub, we meet Alice on the eve of her 40th birthday.  "Alice's life isn't terrible.  She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, and her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But something is missing. Her father, the single parent who raised her, is ailing and out of reach.  How did they get here so fast?  Did she take too much for granted along the way?  When Alice wakes up the next morning somehow back in 1996, it isn't her sixteen-year-old body that is the biggest shock, or the possibility of romance with her adolescent crush.  It's her dad: the vital, charming, forty-nine-year-old version of her father with whom she is reunited.  Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, is there anything that she should do differently this time around?  What would she change, given the chance?"

You’ll find these titles and lots more in our “Feel Good Fiction” display.  For additional title suggestions, see the lists below:

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