Depressing Books We ENJOY Reading

September 10, 2010

Sad books make us happy?

I was walking through the stacks yesterday, and a book caught my eye. That book brought back memories. I was a young child rushing home from school with my new Weekly Reader order form in my hand. In it was a book called The Red Pony by some guy named Steinbeck. Like a lot of little girls, I loved horses and thought it would be a perfect addition to my collection of horse stories. Not to give anything away, but the story did not go how I was hoping and after finishing the story, I was scarred for life. I got older and discovered that John Steinbeck was popular. His books were kind of downers, but people enjoyed reading them! This made me think of other books, even ones that I have read that were depressing and enjoyable. So as usual, I went around asking the staff what books they had read that they liked, but left them feeling like taking a long walk off a short pier. In no particular order, here are the titles we came up with:

1. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
2. Anything by John Steinbeck
3. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
4. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
5. Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (this was an unusual pick because while the book is depressing, it is also quite funny in a twistedly-depressing way)
6. Anything from Oprah’s Book Club
7. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (like Steinbeck, Papa Hemingway has a number of titles that will never make it on the Top 10 Most Uplifting Titles list)
8. Handle with Care by Jodi Picoult
9. The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
10. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee (yes, this is a play, but I am including it)