The 18 Best Feel-Good Fiction Books of All Time

Novels built to leave a reader lighter than they started: grumpy neighbors who soften, second chances, and endings that land where they should.

1. 1
   The House in the Cerulean Sea

   TJ Klune's fantasy about a caseworker sent to inspect an orphanage of magical children.
   1000pts

   DI
2. 2
   The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared

   Jonas Jonasson's comic caper following a centenarian who flees his own birthday party.
   858pts
3. 3
   Britt-Marie Was Here

   Fredrik Backman's novel about a fastidious woman who reinvents herself coaching a small-town soccer team.
   678pts
4. 4
   Remarkably Bright Creatures

   Shelby Van Pelt's novel about a widow and a curmudgeonly octopus who help solve a decades-old disappearance.
   678pts
5. 5
   Legends & Lattes

   Travis Baldree's cozy fantasy following an orc mercenary who retires to open a coffee shop.
   555pts
6. 6
   Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

   Helen Simonson's novel of a retired English major and a widowed shopkeeper finding late-life romance.
   555pts
7. 7
   The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

   A postwar epistolary novel about a writer who befriends a book club formed during the German occupation.
   555pts
8. 8
   The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency

   Alexander McCall Smith's gentle mystery following Botswana's first female private detective.
   555pts
9. 9
   A Man Called Ove

   Fredrik Backman's story of a grieving widower whose gruff routine is upended by new neighbors.
   555pts
10. 10
    Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

    Gail Honeyman's novel about a rigidly isolated woman whose routine cracks open into unexpected friendship.
    0pts
11. 11
    The Rosie Project

    Graeme Simsion's comic novel about a socially rigid geneticist running a project to find a wife.
    0pts
12. 12
    Anxious People

    Fredrik Backman's novel about a botched bank robbery turned hostage situation full of unlikely bonds.
    0pts
13. 13
    Beach Read

    Emily Henry's romantic comedy about two rival novelists swapping genres for a summer.
    0pts
14. 14
    Convenience Store Woman

    Sayaka Murata's novel about a woman who finds contentment and identity in her convenience-store job.
    0pts
15. 15
    Evvie Drake Starts Over

    Linda Holmes's novel about a young widow and a burned-out pitcher finding their footing in small-town Maine.
    0pts
16. 16
    The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

    Gabrielle Zevin's novel about a grieving bookseller whose life is transformed by an abandoned toddler.
    0pts
17. 17
    Where'd You Go, Bernadette

    Maria Semple's satirical mystery about a mother's disappearance told through emails and documents.
    0pts
18. 18
    The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

    Rachel Joyce's novel about a retiree who walks the length of England to save an old friend.
    0pts

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