Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, featuring a different top 10 theme each week.

This week’s theme is Top Ten Books When You Need Something Light and Fun. This was a harder list to put together than I’d anticipated! I now realize that most of my go-to books for re-reading, straight from my shelf of favorites, are not at all light and fun. Dark, sad, dramatic, intense — yes. Light and fun? Not so much.

With a bit of struggle, here’s what I’ve come up with for my top 10 this week:

1) Soulless by Gail Carriger: The first book in the Parasol Protectorate series is full of quippy dialogue, romance, supernatural hijinks, and is a Victorian comedy of manners to boot. Even when the characters are in peril, it’s light-hearted and humorous.

2) Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore: Or really, anything by Christopher Moore. Lust lizards? Stupidest angels? Sequined love nuns? Talking fruit bats? He cracks me up, every time.

3) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling: II’ve read the entire Harry Potter series about a gazillion times by now, and these books always make me smile. Of course, there are a lot of dark and terrible times ahead for Harry, but especially in book one (and really, throughout the series), the darkness is offset by the wonder of it all. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are adorable as younger children, and wonderful heroes as they grow up. I can’t imagine ever getting tired of this world.

4) The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.The adorableness of this series cannot be overrated. Besides, 42!

5) The Princess Bride by William Goldman: I love the movie and I love the book. Either one will cheer me up on a bad day. It’s all about the twu wuv, people.

6) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: The Regency-era snarkiness, the sass and spine of Elizabeth Bennet, and the idiocy of the various other Bennet women are worth revisiting, time after time.

7) The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher: Look, bad stuff happens in this series, to be sure. And yet, Harry Dresden — Chicago’s only professional wizard — is just a total smart-ass of a bad-ass, and is so much fun to hang out with. This is one series that has not overstayed its welcome (cough *Sookie* cough). No matter how the plot twists and turns, it’s always great to spend time with Harry.

8) The works of Dr. Seuss: This may be more for my 10-year-old than for me, although I confess to being a total fan. Whenever my son, who considers himself quite grown-up these days, has a tough day or feels a bit sick, out comes the Dr. Seuss. Our go-to favorites are The Sleep Book and Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?, but really, you just can’t go wrong with a good dose of Seuss on a bad day.

9) The Jane True series by Nicole Peeler.  As with #7, bad stuff does indeed happen in this urban fantasy series, but Jane is just such an amazing heroine that these book can totally cheer me up and make me laugh.

10) The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien: I love the Lord of the Rings books (oh, Aragorn…), but The Hobbit is a winner in terms of light, fun reading. Nothing like a thrilling quest, with good guys, questionable guys, wizards, dashing heroics, and piles of gold to brighten up a day!

Trying to put together this list has shown me that I need to read more happy books. Any suggestions? Let me know the books you can count on when you need a big serving of cheer!

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