{"id":108286,"date":"2025-05-17T06:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T06:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108286\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T06:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T06:06:12","slug":"the-five-books-that-make-me-cry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/108286\/","title":{"rendered":"The five books that make me cry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything Kit de Waal writes is suffused with empathy, humanity, and emotional truth. Her bestselling debut novel<\/a>, My Name Is Leon, touched readers around the world with its poignant portrayal of love, loss, and belonging, while her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes and most recent novel The Best of Everything have been just as moving.<\/p>\n

But which are the books that have had the same effect on her? Here, de Waal shares the five stories that made her cry<\/a>, and stayed with her ever since\u2026<\/p>\n

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThis novel is about a butler that works in a grand country house just before the Second World War is about to start. He\u2019s buttoned up, denies his feelings, and is very good at his job. He keeps at arm\u2019s length the housekeeper<\/a> who is in love with him, denying them both a life of love and comfort. I got about 10 pages from the end and slammed it shut. It was literally unbearable and forced me to have a little cry because I knew what was coming. But I didn\u2019t know how beautifully it would be done (extremely) and how cleverly it would be done (utterly).<\/p>\n

\u201cAt its heart the novel explores the feeling of having run out of time. That this lonely man was trying as a last gasp to make the most of the remains of the day would stay with me forever, while those last few pages are the epitome of the writing lore that the ending of a book or a film should be surprising but inevitable. It\u2019s hard to do and this book pulls it off magnificently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Faber, \u00a38.99<\/p>\n

Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a masterpiece of storytelling from the point of view of the unreliable narrator. It\u2019s the story of a female teacher who has a sexual relationship<\/a> with one of the male pupils at her school. She is befriended by the main character, Barbara, an older woman who lives alone. It has two plots that intertwine and weave together so perfectly that it\u2019s hard to separate them \u2013 in fact, you shouldn\u2019t. They feed one another and depend on one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere is a woman throwing away her perfect life to groom a boy for sex in risky places. Here is Barbara who discovers it, uses it as leverage and without giving the end away, reveals who she really is. It\u2019s brilliant. It\u2019s sad. Heller\u2019s depiction of middle-aged loneliness is achingly perfect. It hits home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penguin, \u00a39.99<\/p>\n

The Thing About December by Donal Ryan<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThis book is about a young man who has a learning impairment who lives in Ireland with his loving parents. He has a simple and calm life until his parents die and he is left to the mercy of new friends and neighbours<\/a> who want to exploit him for the valuable farm he has inherited.<\/p>\n

I know no better writer than Donal Ryan who can capture the agony of the heart. This story is told plainly from the young man\u2019s point of view and we watch him struggle to make sense of his new place in the world. He believes everything but is baffled by unpleasantness, he wants to be like everyone else but knows he cannot be. As the novel progresses, we realise he needs help but can\u2019t imagine where it will come from. Neither can he. The end is utterly heartbreaking. Read it and weep is the phrase that comes to mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Swan, \u00a38.99<\/p>\n

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is Sedaris\u2019 autobiography told in essays, detailing his childhood with his brothers and sisters and jazz-loving father. Sedaris had a lisp and his account of going to school determined to never say the letter \u2019s\u2019 is hilarious. He describes the life of the immigrant, of the outsider, of the child that never fits in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, you will weep tears of laughter<\/a>, but there\u2019s also such empathy for him as a boy who was gay, with a speech impediment and a determination to hide his vulnerability. It\u2019s a witty, bittersweet book \u2013 like all of Sedaris\u2019 writing, waspish and funny but with an undertone of the pathos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Abacus, \u00a310.99<\/p>\n

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can get through this book without shedding tears, I\u2019d be surprised. Written in 1940, it\u2019s about the friendship between two deaf men, John and Spiros, who depend on one another for their social life and explanation of how life works. Spiros develops a mental illness<\/a> and is institutionalised and the rest of the book is about John attempting to navigate the world without his friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very beautiful and very simple story, ahead of its time in many ways and all throughout you are desperate for someone to come and rescue him and help him find a way to peace. It\u2019s the story about goodness and outsiders looking out for one another and about the importance of having someone to love. Read with tissues close to hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal is published by Tinder Press, \u00a320. Kit is the Chair of Judges for the Women\u2019s Prize for Fiction 2025. The winner will be announced on 12 June<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything Kit de Waal writes is suffused with empathy, humanity, and emotional truth. Her bestselling debut novel, My…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,17977,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-108286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-books-feature","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114521675301549415","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}