August 2024 List of the Month: Books That Made Us Cry

Hello Everyone! Our List of the month this August is devoted to the Books That Made Us Cry.

Thank you to Lucy (knerd.knitter) again, for this month's suggestion!

Each participant may vote on ten titles (and add other, non-weighted titles). Please feel free to add notes, explaining what you found particularly moving about the books you are adding. Given the subjective and personal nature of the list, there is no downvoting.

For a complete list of topics covered so far in our project, please see the new section for Lists of the Month on the Zeitgeist page

We would welcome suggestions for future lists. Please add them here, and we will keep them in mind, going forward.

Excellent topic.

Edited to add: I only came up with five. Guess I'm not as much of a softie as I think I am.

This is a fun idea for a list. I don't cry very much at books, so I could only come up with four. Two of mine could be reasonably common choices, but I am skeptical anyone else will add a Transformers comic to the list.

>3 Stevil2001: if i was forced to read a Transformers comic, i would cry my eyes out.

>1 AbigailAdams26: The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley
Summary: An invitation to a friend's house changes an adolescent boy's life. Discovering an old diary, Leo, now in his sixties, is drawn back to the hot summer of 1900.
* * Books That Made Us Cry * *

>4 MrAndrew: Ha! Fair enough.

My wife was pretty baffled; I tend to read my comics on my tablet in the morning over coffee, and she'd look over and be like, "OMG what's wrong" (assuming that I'd seen something sad on facebook or the like) and I'd have to be like, "Um, I'm reading a Transformers comic."

I'm brand new here, exhausted and hair falling down, clothing rumpled from going under and over fences to actually join.
My list: Bambi, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, All the Light We Cannot See, and The Power of One.
I am a real softy for animals and for what could have been or should have been.
Also that Henry James short story "The Beast in the Jungle."

Oh gosh -- How did "The Art Of Racing In the Rain" miss the list? Maybe I overlooked it.

I vaguely remember some high school text books bored me to tears ;)

>9 Nicole_VanK: In my case those titles were Tristan and Isolde and The Emperor of Portugallia. Tristan and Isolde holds the dubious honour (despite me being an Arthuriana fan) of being the first book I read that I wanted to throw at the wall. The first book (and only) I actually did throw at the wall was The Secret History.

>9 Nicole_VanK: The Mill and the Floss had a similar effect on me. I would fall asleep while reading just a paragraph.

>11 Taphophile13:

Silas Marner. 'Nuff said. :-)

That said, sometimes it's just the school context that does it. Or the fact that the teachers are too old to understand their students. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" makes a lot more sense at 62 than it did at 14. :-)

And the comment in >10 PawsforThought: about the Tristan story reminds us how much a translation matters in dealing with old things. The Richmond Lattimore translations of Homer manage the astounding feat of making Homer boring, e.g. :-)

I personally also cry at most modern tales of Robin Hood, because they're so dang wrong. I mean, it's obvious that Robin Hood's king wasn't Richard Yes-and-No, because the longbow hadn't been invented when Richard Yes-and-No got himself killed! (The king in the Gest of Robyn Hode, which was in print by no later than 1535 and probably at least thirty years earlier, was named Edward, and the context best fits Edward II.)

But I cry with frustration very easily. :-)

>1 AbigailAdams26: Just discovered this list and would have liked to add to it?
"Becoming Mrs. Lewis" by Patti Callahan is a fictional telling of the life of Joy Davidson who became C. S. Lewis wife. I read this about 6 months ago as it became clear to me that my 27 year career as an associate pastor and music director was coming to a close, not by choice. While working through the pain of that, I discoverd this book. I have read extensively of Lewis, Tolkein, Williams, Barfield and the other Inklings, and frequently quote Lewis and Tolkein in sermons. The beauty of the descripition of the budding romance between Lewis and Davidson is surrounded with expressions of Lewis theology and life focus...and rekindled in me a hope for myself in re-inventing myself as an author and poet and blogger. That overwhelming feeling of affirmation left me in tears on more than one morning as I read this wonderful book.

>13 musicmanfh: You can still add to it, see the "Add Work To this List" at the top left, or possibly below(?) the list on mobile? Click that.
https://www.librarything.com/list/45728/all/Books-That-Made-Us-Cry

Zama