Okay . . . picture this (really) worst-case scenario: It’s cold and raining, your boyfriend/girlfriend has just dumped you, you’ve just been fired, the pile of unpaid bills is sky-high, your beloved pet has recently died, and you think you’re coming down with a cold. All you want to do (other than hiding under the covers) is to curl up with a good book, something warm and comforting that will make you feel better.
What do you read?
This one is an easy one. Anything by Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, or G.K. Chesterton.
There is something extremely comforting about tea, crumpets, and a dead body in the library. I love the time period is which their stories are set. Murders aside, now it seems like such a simpler, more “innocent” time. I also love the depictions of English village life. For some reason, their stories always invoke vivid sensations of textures for me–chintz fabric, bone china, warm wood paneling, worn leather.
I’m also a very active reader, so I do approach these stories as puzzles, and I try to figure out whodunit. I’ve been know to put the book down and actually draw diagrams before, so they’re very good at getting my mind off of anything that’s bothering me.
Write Wrote Written 
The classic mysteries are great, aren’t they? And I also love the stories about life in the English villages – mysteries or not!
Wow! You are an intense reader. I like to puzzle them out while I’m reading, but it never occurred to me to draw diagrams!
Excellent choices, all! I’m reading and enjoying Chesterton at the moment – but for the Outmoded Authors challenge, not mid-crisis.