Stories guaranteed to bring a tear to your eye
A good story is one that will move you in some way - to laughter, to tears, to rage and, sometimes, to action.
The books below have, either recently or in the past, moved me to tears. I remember as a student sitting on the train reading Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee and sobbing like my heart was breaking. The elderly gentlemen sitting beside me said, 'Love...you've got to stop reading those romances.' I sat there laughing and crying at the same time because one thing Dee Brown's book is not, is a romance. Even now, some fourteen years later, it still moves me. Not always in the same way, which is a mark of my growth as a person, but certainly for the same reasons.
If you've ever encountered a tearjerker tale of your own email and tell us about it - our lists are only as good as the suggestions we receive!
Marley and me: life and love with the world's worst dog
by John Grogan
636.7527 GRO
The story of a family in the making and the wondrously neurotic dog who taught them what really matters in life. Is it possible for humans to discover the key to happiness through a bigger-than-life, bad-boy dog? Just ask the Grogans.
My best friend's girl
Dorothy Koomson
LP F KOO
What would you do for the friend who broke your heart? Best friends Kamryn Matika and Adele Brannon thought nothing could come between them - until Adele did the unthinkable and slept with Kamryn's fiance, Nate. Worse still, she got pregnant and had his child. When Kamryn discovered the truth about their betrayal she vowed never to see any of them again. Two years later, Kamryn receives a letter from Adele asking her to visit her in hospital. Adele is dying and begs Kamryn to adopt her daughter, Tegan. With a great job and a hectic social life, the last thing Kamryn needs is a five year old to disrupt things. Especially not one who reminds her of Nate. But with no one else to take care of Tegan and Adele fading fast, does she have any other choice? So begins a difficult journey that leads Kamryn towards forgiveness, love, responsibility and, ultimately, a better understanding of herself.
My sister's keeper
by Jodi Picoult
F PIC
Ann was conceived as a bone marrow match for her leukemia suffering sister. Now a teenager, she begins to question the person she really is and the role that has been defined as hers.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian history of the American West
by Dee Brown
970.5 BRO
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee is Dee Brown's eloquent, fully documented account of the systematic destruction of the American Indian during the second half of the nineteenth century. A national bestseller in hardcover for more than a year after its initial publication, it has sold almost four million copies and has been translated into seventeen languages. For this elegant thirtieth anniversary hardcover edition, Brown has contributed an incisive new preface. Using council records, autobiographies, and firsthand descriptions, Brown allows the great chiefs and warriors of the Dakota, Ute, Sioux, Cheyenne, and other tribes to tell us in their own words of the battles, massacres, and broken treaties that finally left them demoralized and defeated. A unique and disturbing narrative told with force and clarity, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee changed forever our vision of how the West was really won.
The time traveler's wife
by Audrey Niffenegger
F NIF
This is the story of Henry and Claire, who have known each other since Claire was six and Henry was 36, and were married when Claire was 20 and Henry 28. This is possible only because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with chrono-displacement-disorder - allowing him to travel in time.
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