"Gentle Reads" wanted!

[alexsam]

My dh is not a big reader (he's a doctor, so he CAN read, he just doesn't really do it for pleasure! ) but lately, he seems to be reading more and it's nice to see! I want to keep him going, but really, he only wants "gentle reads"- no major violence, no screwed up people with sad lives, no big death at the end, no troubling social issues, no words you have to look up in the dictonary, and preferably not too "girly"- you get my drift, huh? Basically, G rated books for adult audiences. He feels that there is enough stressful and depressing things out there he reads in the news and wants reading for pleasure to be relaxing and enjoyable. Right now he is reading "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson and laughing out loud. Any other recommendations for things that are "light" but not childish or drivel?

[Lazyhead]

A Trip to the Beach. It's non-fiction about a couple from Vermont who move to Anguilla and open a restaurant. Very light, entertaining and pleasurable.

[smudge]

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

It is a memoir about her life growing up with parents that were interesting, for lack of a better term. It really is a page turner and an amazing story at that. I am a nurse and work in a cancer hospital so I have alot of the same reading material requirements your husband has and that book was strangely uplifting. RIght now I am reading "Clean House, Clean Planet" so that I can detoxify my house!

[georgia]

I loved Mary Roach's book: Stiff She's a science/medical writer who has an awesome sense of humor. I've passed this book on to so many friends, and no one hasn't loved it There is one section in there about a investigative trip to China that actually had me laughing so hard I couldn't breathe!

[pamamidwife]

Georgia....I loved that book, too! Working at a mortuary after high school, I always wondered where those 'dedicated to science' bodies went!

[huggerwocky]

I'll suggest "Berlin blues" by Sven Regener ( yes, I always like to recommend books by non american authors )

"More like a lovely dirge that the blues, this novel, is set in 1989, just as Berlin's East-West divide is fading, features Frank Lehmann, nearly 30, examining his slowly dissipating track. He lives in a studio apartment on the West side, works at a bohemian Kreutzberg district bar, has moderate drinking habits and various romances: he judges himself content. However, a tension between Frank's self-assessment and what we see of his actual encounters drives this gentle book forward.."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/009...728743?ie=UTF8

It is funny and was very successful in Germany . I enjoyed it a lot.

[dlco]

Perhaps the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. There is a religious undercurrent to these books because the main character is a minister, but the stories are great. They made me laugh out loud in spots. Really, a great series in my opinion.

[lisalou]

Any of the Wooster and Jeeves books by PG Wodehouse. Wooster is a British nitwit and his butler, Jeeves saves him often hyterically from many scrapes.

The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde one part someone who reads too much, one part hard boiled detective and one part sci fi.

Nick Hornby is a great light read, especially Fever Pitch or High Fidelity. Would he be upset if there was a little sex?

One more Sara Vowell, esp Assasination Vacation.