Papillon by Henri Charrier- made me blubber. Banco the follow up was awful imo.
I'm reading Stuart Maconie's - Adventures on the high teas at the moment, it's very funny and seems to have a few pages about cycling at the beginning.
Neville Shute - On The Beach (all his books are excellent)
Betty Blue: where the film is episodic, the book is one remorseless slide - you know exactly where it's going to end and every page takes you nearer.
Catch 22: the last (or last but one) chapter when he's wandering around Rome ...
Cancer Ward (Solzhenitsyn): well it was never going to be a barrel of laughs, I suppose.
[i]Anna Karenina is the only book I've ever read which changed my outlook on life.[/i]
Often cited as the greatest novel of 'em all! And for good reason...
The Farm by Richard Benson is worth a read
The ending of The Grapes Of Wrath. Possibly the most moving bit of writing I've ever read. That and the bit where Tom departs from his mother.
Foxy - I loved he time travellers wife!
Marley and me made me cry.
Step on a crack by James Patterson made me sob.
And Charlie Richardson's book made me howl, for all the wrong reasons!
This book
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really had me.. really couldn't put it down. Very moving
Also
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and i'm not even into climbing
Oh! John Crowley's Little, Big just resurfaced in my memory; Jack Kerouac's Dharma Bums also. Both moved me but not in an immediately obvious way - more of a broadening of conceptual perspective in the case of Little, Big and moved me off my fat ass when i was in my late teens in the case of Dharma Bums.
Marley and Me made me cry, guess thats cos I have a lab, can really recommend "The Feather Men" most amazing read well worth looking out,
PJ.
Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. First hand account of a US helicopter pilot in Vietnam.
I surprised myself by blubbing along with Ellen MacArthur when reading Taking on the World ( http://www.librarything.com/work/123453 ). Can't really explain it other than the emotional journey she took during the book to compete in the Vendee Globe was a journey I shared. I'll go MTFU now.
I'm not quite sure which bit(s) of Joe Simpsons The Beckoning Silence would move you?. If it's the brief accounts of the early attempts on the north face of the Eiger, then you should read The White Spider by Heinrich Harrer (writer of Seven years in Tibet and one of the first successful climbers of the NF of the Eiger), that gives a much more detailed account of all the horrors of those first attempts and subsequent ones. Also read Joe Simpsons This Game of Ghosts. Presumably you have read Touching the Void?.
Anyway, Touching the Void is a must read (there's also now a docu film). Both the film and the book can reduce you to tears at the shear helpless plight of Joe Simpson, especially when he dragged himself back to camp during the night, called out for help from his friend, there was no response, so he laid there waiting to die. He was obviously deeply moved in the docu film when he recounts the moment.
man and boy
Last Exit to Brooklyn
Junky
Primo Levi (all of them)
Wasp Factory
Strangers and Brothers
oh, the list is endless......
Second, Chicken Hawk.
The book theif.
even though it told you what would happen at the end halfway through (and kept reminding you) still moved me deeply when it got there.
The Good Women of China by Xinran. It's a collection of short stories when she worked as a radio presenter on a phone in show in China back some time ago.
Everyone who I know has read this was seriously moved, even some of my 'bigger, harder' friends.
Kite Runner was also a good one, better than the movie (which was also good)
Touching the Void is just an awesome read, and a lesson to others.
Looks like I'm going to have to get The Grapes of Wrath and Time Travellers Wife as they seem to pop up a fair bit.
"Round the Bend" by Neville Shute.
Lovely Bones
Try The Book Thief. Also have just read A Thousand Splendid Suns which is excellent.
However I have just given up on Post Birthday World, by the author of Kevin, becuase it was rubbish.
Another fan of Primo Levi here.
When I was about nine years old Greyfriars Bobby had me in tears.
some good stuff already named, i'd add 'Disgrace' by Coetzee
Well le petit prince was quite touching. Plus les paradis artificiels... The later made me contemplate suicide in a way too serious manner.
Since I only read SF at least I am sure I won't kill myself.
Timoleon Vieta come home, by Dan Rhodes was the last one that made me blink my eyes in a manly fashion.
Never owned a dog, either.
BTW noteeth and Flashy, my ol'dad was a Captain in the RA during WW2 and was attached to the Burma Rifles, amongst others.
I've still got his old Urdu phrasebook from OCTU along with some handwritten diaries. Now they are truly terrifying.
[i]Since I only read SF at least I am sure I won't kill myself. [/i]
Perry Rhodan's horrible mangling of the English language has given me pause for thought in the past.
Books that have moved me into dark corners of the soul would have to include Ellis' American Psycho and Thomas Ligotti's My Work is Not Yet Done
The Book Thief.
I haven't cried since I was a kid (I may be emotionally stunted) but this got me.
A Dangerous Vine by Barbara Ewing
Cry - no but after reading Blood River last summer I think I sat still for about 30 mins and thought about the current situation in the Congo and other places in Africa.
The unbearable lightness of being
The Sopranos (Alan Warner, not James Gandolfini)
Agree with Birdsong and Touching the Void, but the one that - most recently - moved me was The Shack. I'm not religious so don't be put off by the religious angle of this, it is a really uplifting read. Granted I have become much more of a wuss since having kids (if you read it you'll understand) but for all faiths - even those with "none" - I can recommend it.
Life Of Pi was another goodie
Yep, The time Travellers wife wet my eyes at the end, very good book with a sad ending. I really cared about them.
American psycho moved me in another way. Properly scary book, threw it away when I'd finished it.
Papillon had me engaged from start to finish. I read it straight through the night, even cancelled some appointments the next day so I could finish reading it.
Hmm, the more I think about it the more books occur. Two music biographies: Lost in the Woods (Syd Barrett) and Eye Mind (Roky Erickson).
First time I've had a chance to have a look at this thread since last night.
Bizarrely today, a colleague suggested I might read "Life of Pi" and has lent it to me...mentioned a couple of times on here.
Thanks for all replies to this thread...some inspiration for when I next visit my LBS!! (book, not bike!) 8)
Captain Flasheart - you sound like an idiot talking like that. SOme people just quite simply dont enjoy reading, maybe they spemnd their time drawing or making music... I have alot of friends who dont read at all, but it doesnt make them any less intelligent than you...
Anyway for me my favourite booke ever, and the only one that has brouught me even close to tears is 'Never let me go' by Kazuo Ishiguro. Its an amazing book, and very very sad, but still funny and happy. Just read it.
Other than that 'I am Legend' by Richard Matheson was to me a very sad, moving book, but in a totally different way. And its nothing like the film which shoudl be called ' I am Will Smith'.
oh, tey not to read reviews of never let me go, as a lot of them in my mind would spoil the story...
I read the chronicles of thomas covenant when i was about 12 and for some reason this poem from it made me blubber (must have been all the hormones)
nice tolkieny type fantasy series this, but not particularly high brow.
I second the mission (albeit a film) a lot to do with ennio morricone and a stunning performance by de niro me thinks
anyway the poem from the chronicles of thomas covenant.....
"My heart has rooms that sigh with dust
And ashes in the hearth.
They must be cleaned and blown away
By daylight's breath.
But I cannot essay the task,
For even dust to me is dear;
For dust and ashes still recall,
My love was here
"I know not how to say Farewell,
When Farewell is the word
That stays alone for me to say
Or will be heard.
But I cannot speak out that word
Or ever let my loved one go
How can I bear it that these rooms
Are empty so?
"I sit among the dust and hope
That dust will cover me.
I stir the ashes in the hearth,
Though cold they be.
I cannot bear to close the door,
To seal my loneliness away
While dust and ashes yet remain
Of my love's day."
Hi Foxy, good thread this. I usually mainly read SF, plus an increasing number of factual historical books, but there have been a couple of books that have left profound impressions on me, to the extent that it was over ten years before I could read it again. That was The Wizard Of The Pidgeons, by Megan Lindholm. Based in Seattle, it's about a man haunted by ghosts of Vietnam. DrJ mentioned The Lovely Bones, which did leave me very emotional indeed, and a third book that left me very disturbed was When Rabbit Howls, which I'm damned sure I'll probably never be able to get through again. It's about a girl who develops multiple personalities as a way to cope with the effects of the most appalling abuse by her father.
Some great reads on this thread, Time travellers wife, Papillon, Birdsong, and Touching the void have all moved me.
Recently I have read The Flamboya Tree by Clara Olink Kelly, perhaps not the most inspired use of language, but it is an amazing account of life in the Japanese camps for women, and the difference a Mothers love can make. I was moved to tears from the first few pages onwards.
Funnily enough both me and MrCM both said Lovely Bones (I sobbed for at least half an hour at the end), but also The Bridges of Madison County for me, every time I read it!!!
More votes for Catch 22 and Birdsong. The book that has upset me more than anything is also the Time Travellers Wife, but the book that has most disturbed/intrigued me is The Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks.
Pretty much every book mentioned on this thread I've read! get through about 2 a week, the joys of shift work!
I would 2nd (or 22nd!) The Time Travellers Wife, Life of Pi, Child 44.
some others are :
"the boy in the striped pyjamas" John Boyne. Only thing is they've changed the cover to promote the movie and it gives the topic away. I read it when I had no clue but absolutley heart moving ... you will sit still for hours whils you think about it!
"The Glass Palace" Amitav Ghosh.
"The Disappearing of Katarina Linden" helen grant.
I could go on but those are my favourites!
ANything by Christopher Brookmyre .. the best were:
"a tale etched in hard black pencil"
Lots of Steinbeck is incredibly moving. Personally I found his dedication to Ed Ricketts from Log from The Sea of Cortez the saddest. He was the inspiration behind the central character in Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday, which I read immediately prior to the dedication and absolutely adored. It was a bit disturbing actually, really liking the character, then experiencing simultaneously the joy of his basis in the real world and the tragedy of his early death.
Hemmingway can be harrowing, especially the endings of Farewell to Arms and Old Man and the Sea.
To be disturbed, I like to read Will Self 🙂
I don't read books any more. I used to read all the time, as a child (no TV). I just find reading owt longer than a few paragraphs a pain, now.
I read tons of books right up until my late teens. But I spose the one that's 'moved' me the most has to be 1984. Prophetic. The scene where Winston is remembering his childhood; the moment where his mother and sister are taken away. So utterly, utterly sad.
