Inspired by Laurel’s post about old favourites (June 24), I started thinking about some of my comfort books: the ones I slip into like a well-worn pair of flannel pajamas.

I know she’s divisive (people seem to either love her or hate her), but I love Margaret Atwood. I’ve loved her since I was 16 and fell in love with the passion and desperation of her poem “Variations on the Word Sleep”. Shortly afterwards, I became fascinated by the story and characters of “Cat’s Eye”, the melancholy feeling of which has always lingered with me. She has a new book “Year of the Flood” coming out in September, and I find the regularity and consistency of her voice and her publishing very comforting.

I had been wishing Tom Robbins would write another book and then I checked the catalogue and lo! there’s another book, “B is for Beer”, out since April! I love the crazy, inane humour of his books, almost as much as I love the words that he throws together into ridiculously long sentences! His female characters are so interesting and memorable that various characteristics of each have fused together into a strange composite character in my memory: an immortal one with very large thumbs and a propensity to collect insects.