This week, our doctor responds to a reader request:

I read every day but not for leisure. I'd really like to get into the habit. I'd like something light to read with descriptive language. Maybe set in Europe somewhere. I'd like to feel like I'm part of the scenes there. I'd enjoy anything but romance.

If you could help me make a good start to a new hobby, I'd appreciate it.

Thank you,

Michelle

These are all books that have given me enormous pleasure, Michelle, and which I lend to friends over and over again. I hope they give you pleasure, too.

· Set in a rural Italy less glamorous than is usually depicted in literature is Niccoló Ammaniti’s novel, I’m Not Scared, about a boy in a small town who discovers that his father and fellow townspeople have kidnapped a boy from a wealthy Northern family.

· Renée is the unlikely heroine of The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, an apparently dull concierge living in modern-day Paris with a very rich inner life.

· While investigating crimes both petty and serious, Inspector Brunetti walks the twisting streets of Venice, pausing for coffee and panini, popping home for lovingly described three-course lunches, in Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon, the first in a deliciously lengthy series.

· Moving from the streets of 18^th-century Paris to the lavender fields of Grasse, Perfume by Patrick Suskind sensually evokes a world both earthy and sublime, and a protagonist with a killer sense of smell.

· Set in the vineyards of Burgundy, Elizabeth Knox’s fantasy novel The Vintner’s Luck charts the complicated relationship over decades between a French winemaker and an angel.

· Both funny and smart is Sushi for Beginners by Irish writer Marian Keyes, whose heroines are smart modern women dealing with all the glorious difficulties of modern life.

· Semi-autobiographical and in the funny-because-it’s-true category, Caitlin Moran’s How to Build a Girl is a coming-of-age story which begins on a council estate in Wolverhampton before heading to the bright lights of London.

· Travelling closer to home, Liane Moriarty is an Australian writer, most famous for Big Little Lies, whose latest novel, Apples Never Fall, describes a Sydney suburban family in all its ordinary complexities.