I was going to mention Comic Sans but decided it wasn't necessary in context.
For many things, I'm a Palatino Person, but I am aware that it is aging poorly. I also love the european public display use of Helvetica, and for novels and other continuous text flow, I'm a cheap date, anything will do.
The only thing wrong with Palatino is that it was never intended for typesetting body copy (substantial blocks of text) as opposed to display (headings, splash text on posters, etc.) and its proportions aren't quite right for that purpose.
Try the closely related Aldus, or in extremis just condense Palatino by a few percent. (The latter suggestion may get me yelled at, somewhat understandably, but I really do think it's an improvement if you're setting substantial quantities of text.)
Makes me wonder what you think of Comic Sans ...