Most Uplifting Books and Authors

[Ray McCarthy]

I agree, uplifting is more than mere humour, which is like a single sweet, nice enough as an occasional treat, but you can't live on them.

 

[HareBrain]

I think I'd plump for the four Wessex books by John Cowper Powys. I find them uplifting because, although as many bad things as good things happen in them, the author's love of his characters, even the very flawed ones, shines through and becomes infectious. His books always recharge my feeling that the world, and people, are essentially fascinating.

 

[Toby Frost]

I'd nominate Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, which works as both an amusing distraction and a book about honesty overcoming pretension.

Perhaps strangely, I'd also add Titus Groan, which had much the same effect on me as The Lord of the Rings had on a lot of people, and even more oddly, the essays of George Orwell. They were the first writing I read that actually seemed to be about people like me: interested in life but not part of the intellectual elite, and vaguely aware that things were unjust. Whenever I see some exceptional piece of stupidity done in the name of greed, religion or even social justice I end up thinking of "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad", where his interest in nature becomes almost mystical.