Happy book please

Just about anything by P G Wodehouse. He is not popular at the moment but they are still very funny and very silly.

Other blast from the past are the Miss Read books and the Cornwall books by Derek Tangye.

These are ultimately happy novels:

Miss Benson's Beetle
by Rachel Joyce
about a spinster schoolteacher, Margery Benson, who abandons her life in 1950s London to search for a mythical golden beetle in New Caledonia^

Rachel Joyce also wrote
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
...which is also quirky and funny.
about Harold who goes on a long journey

...neither of these is relentlessly humorous but both are ultimately "smiling' sort of books - but also with very funny parts.

Cold comfort farm

Or what about Tony Hawks' Round Ireland with a fridge
That's an older one - the result of a drunken bet... another journey.

Or
This Green and Pleasant Land
by Ayisha Malik
Totally different, set in a little English village, Bilal Hasham is instructed by his dying mum to build a mosque. He doesn't want to do it... Ultimately this is a kind story about a village - more uniting than dividing.

Miss Buncle's Book, Mapp and Lucia, yes to Jeeves and Wooster, The Country Child, can't read sad or gloomy books just now!

Cold Comfort Farm made me laugh out loud, as did Lessons in Chemistry.

Another vote for Miss Read I've just finished rereading a few of them so comforting

Audun nor me, I’m off to find some Jeeves and Wooster.

Murder Mindfully
Karsten Dusse

This is a great read if you like dark humour. I found it totally ridiculous and ridiculously funny.
Have encouraged my daughter to read it.
It's about a fairly dull lawer in a struggling marriage who in a last ditch attempt to save it starts a "mindfulness" course.
It is a hilarious and pretty bloody crime novel.

You know your bookclub...

Fanny Flagg writes good books. The best 'happy' one is 'A Red Bird Christmas'.

The story of Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton. It tells the story about the author’s unexpected bond with a wild hare she rescued and raised during the pandemic.

Must it be a book? There are so many happy, romantic Christmas films being shown at the moment, anyone needing a smile should be more than satisfied.
I never watch them myself because I prefer reality.

Rivers of London - kind of Harry Potter / police, but funny too.

Rachel Joyce also wrote
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

We enjoyed the film of this, it was a couple of years ago.

Source: Wikipedia share.google/RYoBiwECArjb2J24C

Another vote for "Round Ireland with a Fridge," "Cold Comfort Farm." And "Raising Hare."

‘Hungry’ by Grace Dent, the food critic. A very humorous - laugh out loud in places - account of growing up in Liverpool.

Also anything by Jay Rayner.

mum2three

Must it be a book? There are so many happy, romantic Christmas films being shown at the moment, anyone needing a smile should be more than satisfied.
I never watch them myself because I prefer reality.

I think the OP is looking for ideas for her Book Club……

Alexander McCall Smith writes quite quirky humorous books.

Yes I think you would like the series starting with the No 1 Ladies Dectective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith. They are set in Botswana and are not really greatly about detective happenings so much as the common sense and practicalities of Mma Ramotswe who is the owner and her rather spiky secretary . Lots to enjoy, and good charactors coming in and of course Mma Ramotswe is a "traditionally built lady" so is partial to a few cakes and lots of tea, amongst other things.

Have you read any of Lilian Beckwiths books, so The Loud Halo, and A Rope in Case and others. She is a teacher who instead of retiring to somewhere gentle takes herself off to the Hebrides and learns about crofting and much more, with a real mix of islanders who both help her and are amused by her efforts to settle in. You will also appreciate your electric lights and warm fires etc reading about the efforts needed to get lights and stoves going there.

Hope you will enjoy them

Oh by the way Alexander McCall Smith writes other books and a set about a scottish community , which are quite different, in case you get them mixed up.

I’ve never read any of the Lilian Beckwith novels as my MIL (born and bred on a croft in the north west highlands) wouldn’t let me! She said they were very patronising in their attitude and she disliked them intensely. Like me, she was a great reader, so I took her advice and have never looked in one since! This was over 40 years ago!

Three Men In A Boat
Cold Comfort Farm

Another vote from me for the Miss Read books. I always have one on the go for reading last thing at night in bed. Gentle humour, but astringent enough not to be cloying.

I dont know. I used to like Miss Read but on reading one recently I just found it irritating. Try DH Stevenson? The Mrs Tim series is fun. Very much of its time of course.
EM Delafield is terrific too especially her 'Diary of a Provincial Lady' series.

My group enjoyed cookery writer Nigel Slater's autobiographical book "Toast". It recalls different foods we ate in our youth. There are some sad parts but on the whole it is very entertaining.

Although some found it rather dated I laughed out loud at David Niven's autobiographical "The Moon's a Balloon".