Obviously, they don't have to slide into the cozy genre. But what books do you cuddle up with during a thunderstorm, or your variable weather of choice? Personally, Becky Chambers has become one of my favorites. I also read LOTR when I need a "good guys doing the right thing just because it's the right thing to do".
My personal favorite trilogy is His Dark Materials from Philip Pullman. It is somewhat forgotten these days but they are excellent in every meaning of the word.
It depends on what “Cozy” means. If I want to reread a familiar story I’ve read a million times before, it’s Raymond Feist’s Riftwar books or Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files.
If however we are going for low(er) stakes come out feeling good, it’s all about feeling relaxed and enjoying friendships, Legends & Lates or the Fred the Vampire Accountant series are fun. I enjoyed the This Quest is Bananas series too.
I only occasionally reread books. There's so much out there to read I'm always in search of the next thing. Lately if I'm not currently reading something I'll listen to a few chapters of different web novels on royal road until I find something I'm interested in. I use an app call voice aloud reader that converts text to speech. Frees me up to make food or do other things at the same time.
Another vote for Terry Pratchett. I also find myself coming back to The Autumn of the Patriarch and A Hundred Years of Solitude over and over. They are not my favorite books, but they are sort of a habit, they're definitely the ones I've re-read the most.
I'm currently in a cozy mystery phase for reading, so anything by Jenn McKinlay and her aliases (Cupcake Bakery, Library Lovers, Hat Shop, Good Buy Girls, Decoupage) or Krista Davis (Diva series, Paws & Claws, Pen & Ink) are my go-tos.
Fanfiction is my go-to when I'm sick, or depressed, or really tired. Nothing beats its combo of easy-to-read and wildly absorbing.
Otherwise, I'm partial to cozy fantasy, like The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.
Also the Murderbot books by Martha Wells never fail me.
Also... older books, with their wordiness and long sentences and lack of fear of semicolons, can be great for this. Virginia Woolf's books for example are so dense, and the atmosphere that creates is sublime, but the way she writes somehow makes her wordy prose also really easy to read. The sentences just kind of tumble you along. I love it.
Caveat being that older books, including Woolf's, contain shit like casual racism and sexism and etc, and sometimes I have more capacity to overlook that than other times. Which is one reason I love when modern authors write in a more old-fashioned style, like in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel by Susanna Clarke - it lets me have my cake and eat it too.
Poetry is also great a rainy day, including old poetry. It's underrated these days. I think it's partly from the pervasive modern idea that poetry is automatically "cringey", and partly from the elitism and other -isms among the Poetry Establishment^tm, and partly from English teachers taking the fun out of it. But you can rediscover poetry, just like you can rediscover a love of novels after highschool steals it from you for a while.
Usually any kind of fantasy book! There are already good recommendations in this thread for those so I'll also mention books aimed more towards a younger audience, they tend to feel nostalgic and warm. Books like the classic editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Winnie-the-Pooh :)
That's a good one! I use children's animated movies as comfort watches a lot.
Middle-grade fantasy specifically can be really cozy, too. Or fantasy that feels aimed at that kind of age. Like Howl's Moving Castle (different from the Miyazaki movie), The Hero and the Sword / The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley (can't remember which book was first), the Young Wizards series by Diane Duane. Granted, some of these I haven't re-read in a looooong time, so they may not hold up quite so well as I remember, I dunno.
I also really feel this way about R.A. Salvator's Drizzt books. They're kinda racially problematic in retrospect, but in a way I can look past, and apparently Salvator has been making active efforts to mitigate that in his most recent books, and I really, really appreciate when an author is willing to listen and make changes based on that kind of feedback instead of just taking offense and kneejerk rejecting it, especially when he's been writing for so ridiculously long now. Anyway, the Drizzt books are very much light popcorn type reads, but they're a very specific flavor of popcorn read that I just haven't found replicated quite the same anywhere else. Something about Salvator's writing style, and Drizzt's melancholy journal entries, or something. Probably partly because of the hurt/comfort element, in that Drizzt has a shit time but always makes it through and also finds Found Family^tm, which is definitely a popular kind of theme today too.
Usually either Terry Pratchett if I'm in a more upbeat mood (Discworld only, as I haven't read any of his other books... yet. One day I'll broaden my horizons), or China Mieville otherwise (especially The City & the City).
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