We all need a little bit of comforting as the days get shorter and winter sets in.  With this in mind, we have put together a selection of comfort food for the mind, in the shape of some great fiction.    Escape from the real world has always been one of the functions of fiction and we hope that the books we present here help you do just that.

We will travel to Istanbul with Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk in “The Museum of Lost Innocence”,  be transported back to Gaul at the time of the Roman Empire in “Ruso and the Root of All Evil” by R S Downie and find ourselves in Venice in “About Face” by Donna Leon.     And for those who find comfort in fiction that not only takes them to another time and place, but also gives them the shivers, look no further than “Little Stranger” by Sarah Waters, a ghost story set in England in the 1940s.

We hope these reading suggestions will bring you comfort over the coming Winter months as well as reading inspiration for 2011.

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