Saddest book you've ever read?

[HokieStone]

C'mon, no mention of The Giving Tree here?

[Lady Blackfish]

C'mon, no mention of The Giving Tree here?

Oh yes! Man I hated that kid, how, how could you do that to the tree!! Take take take, that's all they ever do! *sniffle*

[The Marquis de Leech]

All Quiet on the Western Front.

[Lies And Perfidy]

God of Small Things was the first book I thought of when I read this title. Christ, was that a heartbreaker. Great book, too.

[Daedalus V2.0]

Night depressed me to no end, but I don't know that I would call it sad. Depressing and disturbing is more like it. All Quiet on the Western Front was overall not very sad at all, but the ending almost made me cry. A couple of K.A. Applegate's books had me just about ready to scream out loud at the futility of existence, but I was younger then, so I'm not really sure if that counts...

Hmm, I actually have to say that Sea of Silver Light by Tad Williams probably fits the bill of the saddest book, however. The whole book just felt sad to me, like there was this great tragedy taking place amongst all of the little tragedies. It was a funny feeling, one that I'd never felt before and haven't felt since.

[Maid Sansa]

All's quiet on the western front, definitely. It was so hopeless. Also The bluest eye by Toni Morrison. I wanted to scream about life being so unfair when I finished it.

[Arbor Gold]

C'mon, no mention of The Giving Tree here?

Alright, then I'm going to go with The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, which I read many times as a kid and was shocked to find it shelved in the death and dying section of Borders.

[Lord Mord]

All Quiet on the Western Front

Catcher in the Rye

The Brothers Bishop

House of Leaves

But then, I'm sometimes a pushover. I mean, parts of The Road to Wellville struck me as tragic, and of course every time I read the Tower of Joy scene from A Game of Thrones, it all hurts inside. In that light, I'd have to add Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Shining.

[nobodymN]

Recently they have come from one author for me. When We Orphans and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. :cry:

[Bastard of Godsgrace]

On the Beach by Nevil Shute, The New Brave World, and from recent novels Blindsight.

I think I should also mention short stories by Italian literary fantasist Dino Buzzati. Some of them seemed extremely sad to me.

[BrainFireBob]

Treblinka. I was sixteen.

Elie Wiesel also comes to mind.

And I didn't think The Forever War was all that bad.

[Luzifer's right hand]

The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum.

[Calibandar]

Silmarillion

Farseer Trilogy, book 3 especially.

ASOIAF has a really sad feel to me as well, at least in the first three books, because for me a lot of it is about the Fall of House Stark.

Girl next door indeed very sad.

Lions of Al-Rassan

Remains of the Day by Ishiguro

[gyrehead]

The Book Thief

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns

The Lions of Al-Rassan

[Larry.]

Depends on my age and mood, I suppose...

First book that introduced me to death was E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, which I read when I was 5 or 6 (saw the movie around the same time, only time I remember crying from something fictional). Or maybe I'm remembering it so because my great-grandmother (who used to give me King Leo peppermint sticks when we'd visit her) and an uncle died within weeks of each other. I kinda knew what Wilbur felt then, what Death was for those that continued to live.

Others over the years have included all sorts of Holocaust-related memoirs I had to read. Was reminded of this most recently when I read Art Spiegelman's Maus for the first time earlier this month.

Charles de Lint's The Onion Girl was like a punch to the junk, considering that one of my two closest friends in the world is a survivor of incest and reading that reminded me of all the pain she dared to share with me when she told me all this six years ago.

And of course, the closing lines to Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad, which affected me even more reading them in my second language than when I first read it in English.

Funny how such a simple question brought out such revealing answers about me...

[Myshkin]

And of course, the closing lines to Gabriel García Márquez's Cien años de soledad, which affected me even more reading them in my second language than when I first read it in English.

That one is probably number 2 on my list.

[Gwywen]

I don't like to read sad books (although I like sad endings), but the first book to come to mind is The Lionhart Brothers by Astrid Lindgren, a children's book.

Way too sad for children, I'd say. Even still.

[Blue Roses]

All Quiet on the Western Front has one of the saddest endings in modern literature.

Primo Levi's 'if this is a man' is a terribly sad read but very uplifting at the same time. An incredible book.

But the prize for utterly depressing goes to Jude the Obscure. When you get to the 'Done because we are too meny' you just what to shoot yourself. No wonder Hardy never wrote another novel.

[Alarich]

Erich-Maria Remarque wrote many sad books, All Quiet on the Western Front isn't his saddes by far, IMO that is.

Arch of Triumph, The Black Obelisk and The Night in Lisbon come to mind as being incredibly tragic and sad.

Stefan Zweigs Chess Story

Kafkas The Metamorphosis and The Trial

Hesses Beneath the Wheel

Of Mice and Men was pretty sad, too.

Of all those (and other sad books), I'd probably say that The Metamorphosis and Beneath the Wheel are probably the saddest, followed by i]Arch of Triumph and The Night in Lisbon (probably two of the greatest pieces of German exile literature).

[Hereward]

I thought Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks was even sadder than All Quiet on the Western Front. I'll second Jude the Obscure and the Silmarillion.