The saddest book you've ever read . . .

[expatinscotland]

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

'White Oleander' by Janet Fitch

To Kill a Mockingbird - a book full of passion and warmth.

i love the author,Adriana Trigiani,I read "Queen of the big time", on holiday this year and cried through most of it.

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. Beautiful story, very sad ending.

Another vote for Birdsong here.

And has anyone ever read a children's book called "The Mouse and his Child" by (I think) Russell Hoban? Found it really poignant even as a ten-year old. Now, with children of my own, I think it would destroy me to re-read it!

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.

I'm in the Charlotte Gray camp, rather than Birdsong-- both sad, but Charlotte Gray kind of altered my perception of the world a little (for the worst).

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson was haunting too. The character of 2 year old Olivia was so well drawn that I totally projected all my feelings for my DD onto her. And cried buckets as events unfolded...

And Jude the Obscure. Shockingly, unexpectedly, brutally tragic. Read it in the library at University and was sure everyone was looking at me as I tried to cry very unobtrusively.

Angelas Ashes & To Kill a Mockingbird...both really sad and emotional

I agree with 'To kill a mocking bird'.

Also, 'A Time to kill' and 'Vinegar Hill' - very disturbing and sad themes.

Any Human Heart by William Boyd

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

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

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.

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

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

Between Two Eternities by Rosemary Kay

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

Birdsong.....again

Lovely bones

Time travellers wife

O and My sisters keeper

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

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

colour purple

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

i think "small island" just finished it and sobbed

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!

Oh brightstar, so sorry.

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