Nina Stibbe is quite simply one of Britain’s funniest authors, and if you haven’t read her novels yet, I pretty much implore you to start with REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL. Lizzie Vogel is a teenage dental assistant trying desperately to enjoy the benefits of becoming a grown up (learning to drive, having sex, working for a man who should definitely be struck off) in this joyous novel. One warning: if you read it on public transport, it may well make you snort with laughter so that everyone stares at you as if you’ve gone mad.

D. E. Stevenson is my go-to author when I need cheering up. Born in Scotland in 1892, she wrote over forty novels including the much-loved Miss Buncle series. In MISS BUNCLE’S BOOK, first published in 1934, our heroine writes an anonymous novel about the people in her small village, all of whom get very worked up about it and become enormously concerned to reveal the author’s identity.

Britain has a wonderful catalogue of mid-twentieth-century female authors who wrote with huge wit, intelligence, and understanding of the human condition. D. E. Stevenson was one of the very best, and nearly ninety years after it was published, MISS BUNCLE’S BOOK still brings the cheeriest comfort in a baffling world.

Onto another prolific twentieth-century writer, in Angela Thirkell’s CHEERFULNESS BREAKS IN (first published in 1940) schoolmaster’s daughter Rose Birkett—a serial breaker of engagements—is about to get married, while her village is trying to cope with the fact that the country is going to war once again.

What I love about this middle-class social comedy is the way the characters entirely downplay everything frightening or serious about the impending conflict while happily overdramatizing the inconsequential. This truly British approach is handled with such a light touch. Very much of its time, CHEERFULNESS BREAKS IN is a gem well worth discovering.

Fredrik Backman’s international megahit follows grumpy old man Ove as he fights to remain both solitary and friendless in a community of people who completely ignore his aims. Funny, surprising, and enormously moving, if anyone ever claims that being cheerful means a story can’t have depth, you only have to point them in the direction of this beautifully written novel to help them see the error of their ways.

YOURS CHEERFULLY comes out on August 10!

London, November 1941. Following the departure of the formidable Henrietta Bird from Woman’s Friend magazine, things are looking up for Emmeline Lake as she takes on the challenge of becoming a young wartime advice columnist. Her relationship with boyfriend Charles (now stationed back in the UK) is blossoming, while Emmy’s best friend Bunty, still reeling from the very worst of the Blitz, is bravely looking to the future. Together, the friends are determined to Make a Go of It.

When the Ministry of Information calls on Britain’s women’s magazines to help recruit desperately needed female workers to the war effort, Emmy is thrilled to be asked to step up and help. But when she and Bunty meet a young woman who shows them the very real challenges that women war workers face, Emmy must tackle a life-changing dilemma between doing her duty and standing by her friends.