Gentle books ...

... I appear to have developed a taste for them.
I adore Alexander McCall Smith's books. They are a delight, slow moving, not much action, but beautifully observed. You get the feeling the man really loves places and people, Botswana and Scotland the most obvious examples.
Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, cool, calm reading, restful but entertaining, quietly entertaining. Most recently I found Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim and I've loved it and will be hunting out more.
I don't know if it's because the world outside my front door is loud, busy, crowed, but these wonderful gentle books are more than just reading, they are the literary equivalent of meditation, of a wee sleep under a tree, of a warm kitten in your lap, of morning sunshine through an open window, of the smell of baking bread or lemon blossom on the breeze. Things that make life more than just living.