The saddest book you've ever read . . .

[expatinscotland]

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

'White Oleander' by Janet Fitch

Great Expectations - lovely Joe
Beloved
Birdsong
Little Women
The Big Stone Gap one where the little boy dies of leukaemia
Private Peaceful
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors and its sequel,Paula Spencer.
The Road.

Half a Yellow Sun. It's brilliant, but so moving.

Pawn in frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett, sniff.

Curious Case Benjamin Button I have just read the short story and was in tears at the end

Happy Prince
Thousand Splendid Suns/ Kite Runner
She's Come Undone
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun

I am an easy target !

Someone earlier listed Precious Bane by Mary Webb - I agree. Cried buckets but the ending has some happy elements.

The Mill on the Floss by Eliot is pretty sad, as is Jude the Obscure and Tess by Hardy.

I always cry when I read Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton because I want Bella To have a happy future so much.

I also Love George Gissing's books and find some of them pretty sad (but true) especially the Nether World and Workers in the Dawn.

Zola's L'Assommoir and Germinal are also pretty heartbreaking.

The final MOG book when he dies and comes back as ghost cat to help with the new kitten (and I hate cats)my DS's face was so pitiful to look at that I had to put the book infront of my face.
The Little Wooden Horse and Gobbolino books also have the same effect.

The Grapes of Wrath
Birdsong

Persuasion - until it resolves itself happily at the end. Not depressing, just sad.

The God of Small Things

Never Let Me Go - and one of the vital things about this book is the way the realisation builds about what is truly going on, so it sort of dawns on the reader along with the children- I would reccomend anyone to read the book before seeing the film as the film seems to spell the situation out very early- and avoid the trailers if you plan to read the book.

Of Mice and Men

The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

Lucky

Atonement

And "Rilla of Ingleside" from the Ann of Green Gables series as it had never occured to me that a main character could be killed and I think the first time a character you love dies it hits you hard.

"Goodbye Mog" wouldve had me more prepared for that possibility if it had existed in my childhood!

Since I dont have you
My best friends girl
A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. It has a happy ending which made me WEEP and I was on the tube when I finished it...

Marianna by Susanna Kearsley. Sad and happy.. Read it half a doen times and STILL makes me cry, but I love it. NOT depressing.

I started reading this thread then realised it was from 2005 and I'm on it at the very begining!!

Oh dear, I have been here sooooo long..............

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Time Travellers Wife and The Bridges Of Madison County, oh my I cried at those!

I've just read The Love Verb by Jane Green, and that made me cry.

Yes, I remember her writing really funny newspaper columns about her pregnancy while I was expecting my first-it was such a shock to read the weekly column about her illness soon after. Like you I have been haunted by that line in particular ever since.

Wally lamb's "she's come undone"
Aimee Liu's "cloud mountain"

What both have in common with "the color purple" and "birdsong" is that the story is told over decades.

Of Mice and Men. I started crying on the subway reading it. And not a discreet tear or two running down my face, but the "ugly cry", loud and messy.

A year later. on the subway again, I saw another young woman reading it with tears running down her face and I wanted to give her the biggest hug. I don't even remember the details of the book now but still just thinking of it this huge ball of sadness swells in my lungs.

I've just read The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - horrible. Not sad, just horrible.

The Happy PRince and The Selfish Giant are fantastic short stories to have a nice weep over, as is The Silver Sword.

Boy with Striped Pyjamas

Non-fiction:
John Diamond and Justine Picardie books about cancer (although may have been the timing - read them when FIL was diagnosed with terminal cancer).

Michael Rosen's "Sad Book". I can't even think about it without getting a bit teary. It's about his son, Eddie, who died.

Agree with Lovely Bones, also Room by Emma Donoghue, and Tis by somebody Doyle must win the most depressing book award!!!

Birdsong had me sobbing uncontrollably on the tube many years ago, like a mad woman. Fortunately, with it being London, everyone ignored me

Goodbye Mog
lol ;))