Arthur C. Clarke's stuff is like that... So are a lot of the old anthologies from 50s-60s (e.g. the Groff Conklin ones ... Omnibus for one - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groff_Conklin).

The 'Riverworld' series by Farmer and 'Ring' series by Niven are also.

Extremely soft sci-fi, but I just finished Starter Villain by John Scalzi and it was a great time. Nothing life changing, but it made me smile a lot. I liked his style so I read The Kaiju Preservation Society next, also a cozy adventure. I moved on to his Locked In series, which is police procedural mystery sci-fi that deals with the aftermath of a pandemic that leaves 1% of the world with locked-in syndrome. It's not as feel-good, but I've burned through the first two pretty quickly.

Anime series called Aria, it’s peak slice of life, very light in the sci fi but it’s there. My ultimate comfort watch

Octavia E. Butler's Xenogenesis trilogy (also known as Lilith's Brood Trilogy). I've listened to the audiobook narrated by Barrett Aldrich four times now, and I always discover some new angle to the story.

Not the one I just read. It was excellent but quite apocalyptic. Even worse, there was all this buildup about whether humanity would learn anything and not so much