Maybe a book won’t cure all your ills but, as any book worm knows, during the hard times reading can provide a great escape, especially if it’s packed with laughs.
Whether it be a spotty angst-ridden teenage boy, a lonely thirty something ‘singleton’, or something nasty in the woodshed, the Vision Australia Library might just have the book to lift your spirits and show you the lighter side of life.
Not a member of the Vision Australia Library? Membership is free and available to anyone with a print disability. Find out more at the Vision Australia Library webpage or call 1300 654 656.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾
By Sue Townsend.
Justifiably one of the biggest-selling books of the 1980s. From the confines of his parents’ house, Adrian Mole records his melancholy musings, lonely obsessions, and the ‘funny feelings’ he gets when he thinks about his great love, Pandora Braithwaite.
Littered with sly social observations and killer one-liners like: “My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.”
The library has all eight Adrian Mole diaries plus two Townsend’s equally as funny ‘other’ works.
Available in DAISY.
Bridget Jones’ Diary
By Helen Fielding.
With a plot loosely based on Pride and Prejudice and written in the form of a personal diary, the novel chronicles a year in the life of all drinking and all smoking anti-hero Bridget Jones, a thirty-something ‘singleton’ working woman living in London.
Still laugh out loud, and the first book to address the pressure on 30 plus single women to get married and have babies.
Available in DAISY.
Cold Comfort Farm
By Stella Gibbons
There’s something nasty in the wood shed. Following the death of her parents, 19 year-old sophisticate Flora Poste, finds she is without a living. She settles on visiting her distant relatives at the isolated Cold Comfort Farm who all have some long-festering emotional problem and the farm is badly run.
Level headed Flora determines that she must apply modern common sense to their problems, bringing metropolitan values into the sticks
A true comedic classic.
Available in DAISY.
Bossy Pants
By Tina Fey.
Before Liz Lemon, Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.
She has seen both these dreams come true.
From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.
Available in DAISY.
Sorrow and Bliss
By Meg Mason.
Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want children. He said he didn't mind because making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.
By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it’s too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can find something else to want.
A novel about mental illness that is both incredibly funny and heartfelt.
Available in DAISY.
The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home
By Joanna Nell.
When misanthrope Hattie and out-going Walter meet at the nursing home neither want to be at, they seem at odds. But when their favourite nursing sister is dismissed over her unconventional approach to aged care, they must join forces and very slowly an unlikely, unexpected friendship begins to grow
Available in DAISY.
Don’t see a title you love here? The Vision Australia Library will be promoting new content over the coming months through newsletters, social media and through its radio program Hear This.