Kingdom of Knuffel

Welcome! This is a hangout to chat about fiction that nourishes your soul, is comforting, and has a positive effect on your mental health. We can share recommendations, chat about our reading adventures, react to stories we are currently delighting in, and also just hang out. Let's find solace in stories, together.

Wordly Love
A poem by Dearest
Note: Originally posted on my blog

To be drunk on books
To be wedded to words
And still turn pages with thirst
After the honeymoon
Is my good fortune.
To fall into bed and read under
The sheets for pleasure
Word-play and word-leisure
I have joy beyond measure.

The Background

I struggle with my mental health and try to engage with media that will support it instead of make it worse. Also, I couldn't read or write for a few years because I was in too much pain after having my literature-related dream shattered (it's a long story, too long to get into here, but i wrote a blog post about it if you're curious). The way I got back into reading was by reading independent romance novels that wouldn't be stocked in the place where I'd hoped to work. For a while I was reading only ebooks, now I'm also reading physical books, especially secondhand ones.

But reading in general still feels slightly fragile, so I'm careful about reading books that will help me find my love for reading again, and that will be gentle on me emotionally. I'm also still suffering the effects of losing that dream, mental health wise, so I try to choose stories that will support better mental health for me.

I'm sure many of us would like to curate uplifting fiction recommendations for each other, and find comforting fiction, for various reasons. There's a lot going on in our lives and in the world that we are having to cope with. And books make it a bit easier, bring a bit more beauty into our world. So I hope this hangout is a supportive place for us all.

The History

In a chat & discussion thread, I asked Akili Li for hopeful and generally cheering books to read. The conversation we had after that got me thinking that it would be fun to have a place to regularly chat and share new recommendations as we came across more books, new to us, or remembered, that comforted us in some way. Here is the beginning of that conversation.

Reserved

Reserved

Open! Come chat!

Woo hoo! Dedicated space feels new and hopeful.

Actually, the first thing I wanted to ask wasn't even about book recommendations yet, it was a definition!

What is Hopepunk?

It sounds so appealing...

I've had a busy weekend but have been waiting to drop in here and chat, because I've started reading one of your recommendations! I'm reading The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax and loving it! I'm at the part where and I am LOVING IT!

Punk as a subculture is anti-establishment/status-quo, so hopepunk is basically hoping when doing so is against the establishment or the mainstream. So, hoping in a society that seems to be designed to make everyone hopeless. That's hopepunk, as nearly as I can describe it!

You're really far along, then!
What did you think of the "interview"? Ha ha ha, when I first read the book I was a child and had never experienced an interview, but when I came back to the book as an adult I ended up laughing a lot at that point.