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Original poster

The saddest book you've ever read . . .

308 replies

expatinscotland · 27/05/2005 13:51

or didn't finish b/c it was just too depressing?

'White Oleander' by Janet Fitch

OP posts:
Pol25 · 20/10/2005 11:08

Tuesdays with Morrie- Mitch Albom
Five people you meet in heaven- Mitch Albom
Light on snow- Anna Shreve
One about a boy who was eventually taken into care- was based on a true story not too sure what it was called and too lazy to go downstairs to get title...

ediemay · 29/09/2005 00:37

oh no, MarsLady - so did I! Won't be able to sleep now!

MarsLady · 29/09/2005 00:30

Charlotte's Web about the bloody spider. I wept!

ediemay · 29/09/2005 00:11

"Anil's Ghost" by Michael Ondaatje

Ellbell · 29/09/2005 00:02

SleepyJess - just seen this. Too right I'd kill you! Anyway, I haven't actually written the book yet, so feel the publicity they are giving it is a bit premature. However, have just got proofs of the book before that one (which is seemingly not being publicised at all yet... and a jolly good thing too).

Anyway, just to reiterate that everyone should read If This Is A Man. I've probably read it about 30 times, but there are bits that get to me every time... like the bit where the Italians are waiting to be transferred to Auschwitz and he describes how different groups of people spend their last nights in Italy, and finally he comes to the mothers, who stay up all night washing their children's clothes and preparing for the journey and he concludes by addressing the reader directly and asking: 'Wouldn't you do the same thing? If they were going to kill you and your children tomorrow, wouldn't you still make sure that they had something to eat today?' [gulp]. And there's another bit where he just says something along the lines of 'Emilia Levi is three years old' ... and that always has me in tears. I have to find oblique ways of referring to these passages in class, because otherwise I'd embarrass myself by crying.

Jenum71 · 27/09/2005 18:57

Yet another vote for The Lovely Bones!

Also Cecilia Aherne - P.S. I love you - so sad! and Where Rainbows End!

Read Don't wake me at Doyle's too - quite depressing in a real life kind of way, but very interesting!

MrsSpoon · 26/09/2005 23:20

The only books that have made me cry recently have been My Sister's Keeper, Hannah's Gift and Unravelled (the follow-up to Hannah's Gift).

I have Birdsong on my shelf to read and after reading the comments here will wait until I'm feeling strong before reading.

brightstar1 · 26/09/2005 21:26

thanks jodee

jodee · 26/09/2005 21:13

Oh brightstar, so sorry.

I'm on the last third of Birdsong, hope I don't cry any more ...

SleepyJess · 26/09/2005 21:12

Just read The Gift by Mia Dolan. It's about a medium - her life story in brief - and she is very local to me. It's an excellent book - if harrowing in places - and so weird reading about all the shops etc that I know! She got married in the same reg. office as me!

albosmum · 26/09/2005 21:10

i think "small island" just finished it and sobbed

brightstar1 · 26/09/2005 21:04

Hannahs Gift. V.sad. read year after losing Ds1(5).cried and cried.related to it so much.Done me good.

Meko · 26/09/2005 20:28

colour purple

SleepyJess · 26/09/2005 19:43

LEVI not Level! oh Goddd... pml.. an illiterate literary heathen at that!

SleepyJess · 26/09/2005 19:41

MummyToSteven.. yes I have read If This Is A Man (think this was what it was called?) by Primo Level (very sad and gripping at the same time) because Ellbell (on here) referred to me to it as she makes her students study Primo Levi. She also sent me Dante's Inferno which I tried and failed to read... but am very happy to have on my book shelf because she wrote the introduction!

She is also about to have something else published.. a translation of something or other equally Italian and Equally Beyond Me! (God knows why she bothers to have me as a friend.. I am such a literary heathen!! ) I would link to it but she would probably kill me... so won't..

SJ x

spykid · 26/09/2005 18:33

O and My sisters keeper

spykid · 26/09/2005 18:33

Birdsong.....again

Lovely bones

Time travellers wife

mummytosteven · 26/09/2005 18:31

just about anything by Primo Levi.
In the Footsteps of Anne Frank (following her and her family after deportation to the camps)

SleepyJess · 26/09/2005 18:29

Between Two Eternities by Rosemary Kay

jamboure · 26/09/2005 18:27

A child called it so sad i cried and was addicted to the follow ups too

Finbar · 26/09/2005 17:54

The Kite Runner - I defy anyone notto read the fianl chapter and not weep! Great book

kama · 26/09/2005 17:27

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cupcakes · 26/09/2005 17:11

Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Senor Vvo and the Coca Lords (I think that's the title) by Louis de Bernieres. Both made me cry. the first because it's just sad, the second because it's tragic and horrible.

Dogger is the only book to do it every time.

teeavee · 26/09/2005 16:22

what's 'vinegar hill ' about? I had a friend who lived on a street called vinegar hill

Enid · 26/09/2005 16:14

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

Ok I am pg but I sobbed out loud at the end