The saddest book you've ever read . . .

Paula, lovely lovely book but just so sad

Hmm...I shed a few tears at the end of a biography of Natalie Clifford Barney :) recently

Never Let Me Go -Kazuo Ishiguro. Thought the film was a bit of a let down though (although DD wailed at the end!)

'Room' by Emma Donoghue

Just finished reading Coram Boy which is a 'children's book'. About a man in the 18th century who was paid by women to take their babies to the orphanage and he just buried them instead.

I agree with 'Goodbye Mog', and I nearly cried in Waterstones the other day when I read 'Sad Book' by Michael Rosen.
When I was about 10 I read 'Red Sky in the Morning' by Elizabeth Laird for the first time. I have read it loads of times since and I cry every time.
Moving on to adult books 'On The Beach' by Nevil Shute is unrelentingly depressing, even more so than most books about nuclear holocausts, and The Road has only faint glimmers of hope.
Oh, and also, another children's book 'Ways to Live Forever' by Sally Nicholls. I loved this book but cried and cried. I probably should have read it in the privacy of my own home rather than on a train travelling through France!

Definately with you on the Lovely Bones. Made the mistake of trying to read it round the pool on holiday, it got a bit embarrasing when a sob snook out. Trouble is I didn't think the film lived up to it but isn't that always the way?. And this from the woman who cried at the childrens film UP sitting next to a stranger on a plane!!!

My sister's keeper- by far the saddest for me as its the voice of a little girl who has to sacrifice and the ending rips your heart out unlike other books which are usually uplifting. This is too but in the 'I lost my life to save my family' way.
Lovely bones great too.
I also have suddenly developed an interest in child abuse books and have been reading The Kid, Ugly and It. Just can't get my head round it.

Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain

Year of Wonders

not even a great book, but the children died near the end and I was sobbing

I'm sure someone has already said it, but The Mill on the Floss was so sad I didn't speak to George Eliot for years.

Oh and Time Travellers wife!

Ruth Picardie's "Before I Say Goodbye" had me in tears in the bookshop just by reading the blurb on the back! - bought it and cried buckets. Not dared read it now I have DD.

'Lovely Bones' was another that was so sad.

'I know why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou was a book that I read as a teenager and has stayed with me.

I cry at quite a few books, read too many and get too invested in the characters I think. But the two book that stick out for me are both from my early teens. Z for Zachariah by Robert C O'Brien which freaked me out and oddly can't quite bring myself to read again even now, and Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume which does make me sob good and proper but it's about losing a parent when you're young which happened to me too......although it is an excellent book.

All quiet on the western front. I remember weeping buckets on a busy commuter train

The Running Foxes by Joyce Stranger. I read it aloud to my DD then 7 and the tears were streaming down her face at the bit where the terrier is dragging itself out of the badger hole to its master - and dies in his arms. DD didn't know why she was crying as it was the first time a book had had this effect on her! It is a pity that all these old books are out of print and publishers push the 'modern' and 'fashionable ones....

Michael Rosen's Sad Book - makes me cry anyhow...

Definitely Goodnight Mr Tom - I have read it loads of times (as a kid and as an adult too) and cry every time. I also cry in Heidi though - when she goes back to see Grannie - but that's one of those too-happy-to-bear moments!

I read a book by James Patterson that wasn't a thriller, I think it was called Letters to Timothy, or something like that. Its the only book I've ever cried at! Although I did shed a tear at the end of The Time Travellers Wife, and I didn't even think it was that good!

Bridges of Madison Country too. I was bawling at Falling from Dimension Z.

As someone who cries very easily at books ( I even managed a sob during Wolf Hall!) I tend to avoid anything too obviously sad! However......
If this is a Man--Primo Levy, absolutely brilliant
The diving bell and the butterfly
Half a yellow sun (the calabash image will stay with me forever, such a good book)
Also loved Small Island

Another vote for Time Travellers Wife...every time I picked it I howled!

Goodbye Mog...oh I'm not sure I can even attempt to read that...

The Road...argh very depressing, there is a film about the book...like how depressing is that going to be!

The end of "His Dark Materials" really gets to DH too!
I really hated "Lord of the flies" felt upset for Ralph and piggie and just that not only had some one bothered to write something so unpleasant, but that we'd been made to read it.

Anna Karenina-I've read it 3 times and it always moves me to tears.