Did you ever read a book that broke your heart?

[Paper Roses]

I just finished reading a book that took me far longer than usual for the number of pages. Since I am part of a book swap group, many times I get books that are years old. Most are worthy of reading, regardless of condition.

I just read something that has made me upset. I had to put it down for a while and then go back to reading. Not a complicated book, no big words, only a little over 400 pages.
Can't get it out of my mind. It makes me wonder about so many things that have been done to citizens of this country for the past400 years.

Please, take some time to read:

Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown.

It is a classic and I'm sure available at your library.
My heart breaks for the American Indian and the horrible way they were treated as the white man started to move west and take over the lands of the native people.
Will we ever learn?

[closeupready]

1. Fiction or nonfiction? Of nonfiction, I read an account of

a German woman who survived the bombing of Dresden (barely), and ended up wandering the countryside in the fog of war which occurred then, searching for shelter, food, and her family. There was very little of that story uplifting. But I kind of knew that going in, so it didn't really break my heart.

In fiction, Palace Walk depicts the life of a typical Egyptian family in the early 20th Century, and Mahfouz' evokes most emotions throughout the book, but the ending contains a tragic turn that did shock and sadden me. It didn't happen, but it COULD have happened, and it really made me think, and reflect on life and societies in change.

I will look for your Dee Brown book on Kindle, thanks.

[Fred Sanders]

2. And the colonization and its effects has not near ended. "Black Like Me", the book, is of the same

genre and calibre.

[Fred Sanders]

3. The horrible way the Native Indian was treated is non-fiction. War criminals and crimes against

humanity did not just happen in the last few decades.

[closeupready]

4. I meant, with regard to the question in the thread title.

Cheers.

[Rex]

5. Plenty - Where the Red Fern Grows.

First book I read as a kid that made my cry my eyes out.

[JI7]

6. i have read many like that

[topological]

7. Probably one of the greatest books ever written.

It breaks me up every time I read it.

[PufPuf23]

8. Grapes of Wrath nt

[11 Bravo]

9. Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo.

John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and every other chest-thumping, war-mongering shitstain in Congress should be locked in a room and forced to listen to a reading of that searing bit of literature.

[GusBob]

10. plenty

Gulag
The Third Reich at War
This Hallowed Ground
Poilu
No Mercy

[shenmue]

11. "The Married Man," Edmund White

It's about a man who falls in love with and takes care of another man who becomes gravely ill. I cried through the second half of the book.

[G_j]

12. what a book!

it broke my heart, and changed my life

[Little Star]

13. Thanks! I've not read it yet &...

I'm going south on vacation later this winter so looking for a few of good reads. It's on my list now.

[lame54]

14. Island of the blue dolphins...

when her dog dies

[TheNutcracker]

15. Lee Ioccca - Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

[panader0]

16. 'Night' --Elie Wiesel

[Aristus]

17. "On The Beach".

When I finished the book, it really felt like the world had ended. It was that emotionally intense...

[FrodosPet]

18. The Bible

Now there's a book with some great ideas about not being an antisocial asshole surrounded by stories celebrating assholes and assholishness.

[riverwalker]

19. Long Time Passing

"Long Time Passing: Vietnam and The Haunted Generation" by Myra MacPherson

I read it at a time I was very ignorant and trusting of powers that be (long time ago) I was astounded at what I learned, and changed me forever.

[thucythucy]

20. Survival at Auschwitz

by Primo Levi.

Makes me heartsick to think how depraved our species can be.

[Snarkoleptic]

21. Marley and Me. :o((

Because I'd lost my beloved yellow lab.

[uppityperson]

22. As a child, Charlottes Web. My mom thought I was badly hurt, was crying so hard, finally I managedt

to gasp out "charlotte died" and she figured out what had happened, told me to finish the book and it'd be better.

As an adult? None recently but Bury My Heart is indeed a good one, My Name is Rigoberta Menchu about Guatamalan war bs.

[summerschild]

23. I agree with your assessment, Paper Roses.

It's the saddest thing I've ever read in my life, and I'm 71 and a voracious life-time reader.

[Boomerproud]

24. JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass

and Animal Farm by George Orwell. There are many others but those to mind at the moment.

[Tikki]

25. 'NO NO Boy' by John Okada

Tikki

[moonbeam23]

26. OMG

i just read the question in your heading and i answered to myself,,,"yes, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee"...

i cried and cried through most of it and i am not one to break down very often, especially at movies etc,,,

Btw, if you'd like a good cry to a song, check out "Goodbye To A River" by Don Henley...it took me a long time to get all the way through it without tearing up..

[Manifestor_of_Light]

27. The Cider House Rules, by John Irving.

Fiction, but his grandfather was a doctor in New England, and he knew what he was writing about.
A doctor did illegal abortions. Women came to him either to get an abortion or give up their children for adoption, and it was incredibly sad. The doctor was addicted to ether.

Heavy stuff but absolutely one of the best novels I've ever read, and one of the few modern ones I've read.

"The Cider House Rules" were posted on the wall of the dorm where the apple orchard workers lived. But often the workers broke the rules. The rules were a metaphor for the laws against abortion until the early 1970s when California became one of the first states to legalize therapeutic abortion, and shortly afterwards Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. Abortion was illegal but they were performed often and very quietly by sympathetic doctors.

[NashuaDW]

28. The Secret Gift -- Ted Gup

A true story of one man's incredible generosity during the depression and how it changed generations.
The descriptions of how people struggled during the depression in their own words is tear jerking beyond belief.


"In hard economic times like these, readers will find bestselling author Ted Gup's unique book uplifting as well as captivating. Inside a suitcase kept in his mother's attic, Gup discovered letters written to his grandfather in response to an ad placed in a Canton, Ohio, newspaper in 1933 that offered cash to seventy-five families facing a devastating Christmas. The author travels coast to coast to unveil the lives behind the letters, describing a range of hardships and recreating in his research the hopes and suffering of Depression-era Americans, even as he uncovers the secret life led by the grandfather he thought he knew."

[mythology]

29. Her by Christa Parravani

It's a brutal book, but at the same time, really great. It's not for everybody as it does go into the attack on the author's sister and how it caused a hell of a lot of destruction across their family.

[riverbendviewgal]

30. That movie of the novel changed my way of thinking for the rest of my life

I was 12 and I still think of that movie It made anti nuclear and then anti war and a believer of climate change.

[Mojorabbit]

31. Great book! The Road by Cormac McCarthy is another good one. nt

[Aristus]

32. I read both 'OTB" and 'The Road' at one sitting each.

When I finished 'The Road', I started looking for a window to jump out of. Good thing I was on the ground floor...

[riverbendviewgal]

33. Many of the books my fellow commenters are listing I have read too

they all so profoundly affected me.

I saw the Movie/doc Bury my heart at wounded Knee. What happened to those people was horrible. Their land stolen and their people broken. I have always had an affinity to the Aboriginal people. Some of my good friends absolutely despise them.

[loyalsister]

34. In Jr. High

"Flowers For Algernon" was required reading. It was the same teacher who had us read "The Lottery." In retrospect, I feel slightly violated because of the distress those stories brought me.

[Mojorabbit]

35. I was left literally stunned after reading it. I read a lot and

i can count on one hand the number of books that have been able to affect me so deeply in that way.

[Shankapotomus]

36. I saw your thread title

And before I opened it I already knew the book it was for me: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Before that I read "Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas"by Mari Sandoz in high school. Same effect.

[chowder66]

37. Before I clicked into your OP

I answered "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee". Very heartbreaking.

You might also like "In the Spirit of Crazy Horse" by Peter Matthiessen.

[Blue_In_AK]

38. That book killed me.

Another couple - Andersonville and Sophie's Choice.

[tclambert]

39. I don't remember if I cried for "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," but it made me very angry.

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure I cried about the massacre at Sand Creek. I think one scene in "Little Big Man" was based on it. Women, children, infants in their mothers arms--all slaughtered because "the only good Indian is a dead Indian." (Now I'm hearing the song "Garry Owen" in my head.)

As to other books, lots and lots made me cry. Hell, I've cried at cat videos. I'm a big softie.

"A Christmas Carol" does it every time. When Bob Cratchit talks about visiting Tiny Tim's grave and claims he is a happy man . . . well, I think he was lying.

[Arugula Latte]

40. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Red Pony

(short story) by John Steinbeck and Black Beauty are the ones that popped into my mind... was a horse freak when I was a kid.

[AngryAmish]

41. Tale of Two Cities

[Aldo Leopold]

42. Yep, it's an unrelenting account of US history

and rightly so.

I referenced it in a post titled "Bury my heart on Florissant Ave", but too indirectly to get the message across, I guess. Sadly, I don't think we will ever learn.

[Barack_America]

43. Still traumatized.

First book that immediately came to mind. Not going to let my kids read it until high school.

Brutal, horrible book.

I also simply cannot make it through the Grapes of Wrath, even after multiple tries. Maybe if Steinbeck hadn't gutted me with The Red Pony first.

[Rex]

44. Of Mice and Men did it for me. I was rooting for them so hard.

Blubbered a lot over that book. 1984 actually scared me and depressed me more that made me cry. I tried reading the Grapes of Wrath...too depressing.

[Tom Ripley]

45. +1

[FSogol]

46. "The Great Shame" by Thomas Keneally and "Black Cargoes" by Daniel P. Mannix n/t

[KingCharlemagne]

47. McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men" (upon which the Coen Brothers film by the

same title is based) won't break your heart, but you will feel like you've been punched in the solar plexus. That's the kind of book that sticks with you.

[Mojorabbit]

48. Thanks! I will pick that one up. nt

[KingCharlemagne]

49. I vote for the Book of Job. God and Satan wagering on the loyalty of poor old Job. He finally

works up the courage to ask God why he (Job) has had to endure so much suffering. "Don't ask!" is all he gets in return. 1st and 2nd Samuel (about how David comes to power and turns into your garden-variety Republican, come in a close second).

[TNNurse]

50. I read it in college years ago

Maybe it is time for a second read. Thanks for the reminder.

[albino65]

51. I read that book between high school and college

It broke my heart as well.

[vanlassie]

52. Brokeback Mountain. So sad.

[KinMd]

53. Of course three is this part..which you never hear the right wing quote..

"The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'
Matthew 25:40

[KingCharlemagne]

54. I read "Bury" in high school many, many years ago. I think I'm going to be re-reading it shortly,

based on this thread.

For pure, heart-breaking pathos, I remember at a young age Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird forcing my tear ducts into overdrive.

At a later age, Salinger's Catcher in the Rye can still do it to me, as can Heller's Catch 22.

In non-fiction, I would have to say that the saddest fucking book I've read is Arthur Schlesinger's Robert Kennedy and his Times for an evocation of what we lost in 1968. How different the country and world would be had RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. lived into old age.

[KingCharlemagne]

55. The right wing seems focused almost exclusively on Leviticus, with a sprinkle of

the quasi-aprocryphal Revelations thrown in for seasoning.

When I bump into one of these Yahoos and mention Uriah the Hittite or Bathsheba, I mostly get blank stares. So I don't do it too often.

Saw a great hand-written sign at an anti-war protest around 2005-06: "Jesus, please protect us from your followers!" I still get a kick out of that 10 years later!

[KinMd]

56. Love that myself:)

[KingCharlemagne]

57. Don't want to derail this thread, but when you talk with them at any length, you can tell

they'd really prefer to bring back stoning as a means of execution and they really are dying to tell you they want to bring it back and are chomping at the bit b/c they can't tell you. It is the creepiest shit you could possibly imagine. So I usually confine my interactions to pleasantries about the weather and other non-denominational matters. (Except that here in California it's starting to feel like our drought is of Biblical proportions

[kaiden]

58. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

[pertilotte]

59. Broke my heart

One of the books that has broken my heart was A FINE BALANCE by Rohinton Mistry, a Canadian author. I read it a few years ago, and when I think about it, it breaks my heart all over again. Yet, when someone asks me for a 'good' book to read, I always recommend it because I believe that whatever it is that breaks your heart can make you into a kinder gentler human being if you allow it.

[Brother Buzz]

60. Gilda Radner's It's Always Something

[missingthebigdog]

61. Rise The Euphrates

By Carol Edgarian

It deals with the Armenian genocide, from the perspective of three generations of women. Absolutely gut wrenching.

[KingCharlemagne]

62. "The Remains of the Day" by Kazuo Ishiguro. Just so sad. Can't describe it easily. - nt

[KingCharlemagne]

63. My wife endorses your mention of 'Charlotte's Web.' She says it was her favorite book as a child

and she choked up a bit just now, when I mentioned your citation of it. That E.B. White could really write.

[RebelOne]

64. As a child, I read Black Beauty and cried and hid the book. n/t

[freeplessinseattle]

65. Where the Red Fern Grows. eom

[freeplessinseattle]

66. I remember thinking, why did my teachers suggest that traumatic book?

I couldn't stop thinking about it, made the rest of school hard to focus on, brilliant move teachers!

[a la izquierda]

67. "The Wolf," which I read in 5th grade...

Island of the Blue Dolphins, and I, Rigoberta Menchu. I study indigenous peoples, so I could go on and on.

[hfojvt]

68. no doubt

here's an example from American history

"... word reached Boston of the fate of the river trader Joseph Tilly. The Pequots had captured him and had 'tied him to a stake, flayed his skin off, put hot embers between the flesh and the skin, cut off his fingers and toes, and made hatbands of them.' Somehow, in agony, he had survived for three days, yet, Winthrop proudly noted, 'he cried not in his torture.'" (The Barbarous Years p. 444)

"Inheriting six chiefdoms on the upper James and York rivers, Powhatan had expanded the area of his control by sheer conquest, defeating or intimidating one neighboring group after another, absorbing their warriors into his band, and turning his enlarged army on other neighbors who resisted his demands for tribute and subjection." (TBY p 27-28)

"...he (Powhatan) turned on the Chesapeakes with fury and obliterated the entire community. Still there was no peace." (TBY p 28)

Terrible what was done to the Chesapeakes, no?

[Iwillnevergiveup]

69. One of the greatest classes

I ever took was Tragic Lit at the U. of Pittsburgh. All of the books we read were tear-jerkers! Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina stand out in my memory.

And then there's Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier.

[Staph]

70. The Appeal by John Grisham

It's the story of a family suing a large chemical corporation for the carcinogens the company that caused the cancers that killed two family members. The owner of the corporation sees that he needs to plan for an appeal after the family wins a large settlement, so the owner finances the campaign of a state supreme court justice. There are twists and turns, but the ending is severely depressing, especially for those of us from West Virginia.

The novel is similar to a case in West Virginia, where coal mogul Don Blankenship bought his own personal supreme court justice, to avoid paying out $50 million in a fraud lawsuit. When I read the book, I kept waiting for the happy ending, for the family to get some form of justice for all of their pain and loss. At the end of the book, I cried.

For more about the background of the story behind the story, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Appeal

[Fred Sanders]

71. Atrocities all around, except the land belonged to the natives, to the victor go the spoils of war,

including writing the history of it.

Did I mention the Native Indians were on the land first?

[smirkymonkey]

72. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

I have read a ton of classic literature, but for some reason that book had just gotten under my skin. My 6th grade teacher introduced us to it and I have read it at least 10 times since then.

[Nye Bevan]

73. Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945

Compelling, extremely long and detailed, and utterly harrowing.

Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1933-1945 is an abridged edition of Saul Friedländer's definitive Pulitzer Prize-winning two-volume history of the Holocaust: Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939 and The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945.

The book's first part, dealing with the National Socialist campaign of oppression, restores the voices of Jews who were engulfed in an increasingly horrifying reality following the Nazi accession to power. Friedländer also provides the accounts of the persecutors themselves—and, perhaps most telling of all, the testimonies of ordinary German citizens who, in general, stood silent and unmoved by the increasing waves of segregation, humiliation, impoverishment, and violence.

The second part covers the German extermination policies that resulted in the murder of six million European Jews—an official program that depended upon the cooperation of local authorities and police departments, the passivity of the populations, and the willingness of the victims to submit in desperate hope of surviving long enough to escape the German vise.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B001UFP6J4/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1414551083&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70

[hfojvt]

74. Bury my heart took me a long time

because I was taking careful notes, so I could later document what a bunch of BS it is. I am maybe 1/4 done with that project.

But I know that is deep heresy here. Questioning the holy writ.

Still, that book is not as true as you might think.

[WinkyDink]

75. If you include NON-fiction, as in "history," there's really no end, is there?

[Hestia]

76. I know it is cheesy, but "Bridges of Madison County." It caught me by surprise at how much

the ending really affected me and boy did I cry. Haven't really cried like that since from a book.

[Barack_America]

77. Mine followed it up with an in-class showing of the movie...

I elected to sit outside by myself in the hall. I was 9.

30 years on and I still think of that book at least once a year.

[Barack_America]

78. Steinbeck books should come with a warning label.

Only one that didn't leave me horribly depressed was East of Eden. That one I liked.

[Mz Pip]

79. The Art of Racing in the Rain.

I'll admit I cried during that one.

The Yearling, by Marjorie Kinnen Rawlings had many tear worthy moments in it as did Sinclair Lewis' Main Street.

A Thousand Cranes I read that to my class whenI was teaching 4th grade. I could barely keep it together at the end.

[Mz Pip]

80. Wonderful book.

I agree.

[bhikkhu]

81. I was just thinking about that book...

I read it when I was 16, and it was something of a depth charge to the psyche. Its hard at this point to know what to think about it, knowing a great deal more of the history, and perhaps I was bit too young. But a couple of other really good books lately are "Empire of the Summer Moon" by Qwynne, and "1493'C by Mann. Both fascinating reads.

[A Little Weird]

82. All Quiet on the Western Front

It probably had more to do with when I read it than anything but it tore me up.

[hfojvt]

83. on which land?

So it is okay for the Sioux to push the Crows and Kiowa off the land, and pay nothing in compensation, but it is horrible and awful and an atrocity for whites to push Sioux off the land and then pay for it?

How much did the Sauk pay for their village?

Blackhawk describes how it was founded.

"They all descended Rock river - drove the Kas-kas-kias from the country, and commenced the erection of their village, determined never to leave it." (Blackhawk autobiography p 46)

But since Kaskaskias and Sauk are both "natives" it is no big deal for the Sauk to do this? Instead it is heartbreaking for the whites to take the land from the Sauk? And when the whites did so they

a) gave the Sauk at least 1.5 million acres in Iowa
b) paid $20,000 a year over the next thirty years

I would say that the whites certainly did better by the Sauk than the Sauk did by the Kaskaskias.

[KT2000]

84. that one did it for me too

there was so much love and respect for others in that book. When the doctor died - so sad and such a loss of goodness. Thank goodness for quiet, sympathetic doctors.

[enigmatic]

85. The Kryptonite Kid by Joesph Torchia

[img][/img]

[tkmorris]

86. Perhaps, but it's truer than YOU think

Your attempts to discredit it are completely unsurprising. I feel sorry for you. Going through life without empathy seems as if it would make it impossible to love. Life without love is not a thing I would wish on anyone.

[sueh]

87. Yes. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

The hardships endured by the family never ended.

[Are_grits_groceries]

88. I read that book many, many years ago.

I have never forgotten it. It has always haunted me.

[fizzgig]

89. that was one of our silent reading books in the fifth grade

i just remember trying to not bawl in the middle of class.

[pnwest]

90. Marley and me! I sobbed like a four year

Old who dropped her ice cream. The love and grief POURED out of those pages, and I wailed! Stayed with me for days.

[Mojorabbit]

91. Great book! nt

[Spider Jerusalem]

92. That was the book I thought of when I saw your thread title, actually (n/t)

[Inkfreak]

93. Great mention. I felt the same way. (nt)

[mnhtnbb]

94. Art of Racing...

Oh my, I cried buckets.

[bklyncowgirl]

95. Anything where some poor much loved animal dies at the end.

The Red Pony, Sounder, A Day No Pigs Would Die, The Yearling.

[True Blue Door]

96. Flowers for Algernon.

I related to it. My mind was a lot more powerful in childhood than it is now, but I went through some kind of unknown physical change as a teenager that drastically cut back on my resources (went to a bunch of doctors over it - never found anything).

Used to have a near-photographic memory, and on going to sleep I would immediately transition to a fully lucid dreaming state, so I was more or less conscious 24 hours a day (sometimes more than 24 if the dreams were time-expanded - which is a real thing, in case you've never experienced or heard of it).

Never had to actually think about anything: Information would just automatically get sucked into my mind and correlated with everything else. The change was sudden and shocking: The lucid dreaming ended, cutting my conscious time by a third or more; I suddenly had to work to remember things, which happened so abruptly that I didn't have the memory skills that normal people have, so for a while it was effectively like being senile - I would put things in the wrong places, forget how to go somewhere I'd been going for months, etc. etc.

I couldn't just look at something and automatically know umpteen things about it, and my experiences weren't massively synesthetic anymore, so my world was gutted and turned superficial.

It was so devastating I wrote a letter to myself to remind me of what I'd lost. I remember writing it, but it's hard to remember exactly what I was talking about - I only have vague impressions anymore. I said this in the letter: "I knew things there are no words for." But when I read Flowers for Algernon, it had brought it all back.

[deutsey]

97. Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman

Essentially about Hitler's invasion of the USSR and life under Stalin from the Russian point of view.

From Wikipedia:

The novel at heart narrates the history of the Shaposhnikov family and the Battle of Stalingrad. It is written in the socialist realist style, which can make it seem odd in parts to western readers.

Life and Fate is a multi-faceted novel, one of its themes being that the Great Patriotic War was the struggle between two comparable totalitarian states. The tragedy of the common people is that they have to fight both the invaders and the totalitarianism of their own state.

Life and Fate is a sprawling account of life on the eastern front, with countless plotlines taking place simultaneously all across Russia and Eastern Europe. Although each story has a linear progression, the events are not necessarily presented in chronological order. Grossman will, for example, introduce a character, then ignore that character for hundreds of pages, and then return to recount events that took place the very next day. Thus, it is difficult to synopsize the novel, but the plot can be boiled down to three basic plotlines: the Shtrum/Shapashnikov family, the siege of Stalingrad, and life in the camps of Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Although Life and Fate is divided into three parts, all of these plotlines are featured in every section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Fate

[JonLP24]

98. Distant Land of My Father

Breaks my heart that father & daughter could never go back to pre-WWII Shanghai not just the place but the time.

Plus, the father experiences torturous prison conditions first from the Japanese and also later by the Communists.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

99. It sounds silly, but a children's book: Love You Forever, by Robert Munsch.

Dammit if I don't tear up every single time after my kid's bring it to me to read.

I don't think they get it. But I do.

The backstory behind the author writing the book is equally as heartbreaking.

[Phentex]

100. I loved that book...

will never forget it.

[Phentex]

101. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter...

tragic in so many ways.

[JustAnotherGen]

102. So many as I am an avid reader -

But in the past 5 or 10 years?

Non Fiction -

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda


Fiction -

Un Secret or a A Memory by Phillipe Grimbert
Un Secret was also made into a movie a few years ago.

[RoverSuswade]

103. Sarkhan by Eugene Burdick.

The ending pissed me off and opened my eyes about how a naïve US government can be manipulated by "smarter" countries.

[Arugula Latte]

104. Oh gawd, I could hardly read that one to my kids.

[Prophet 451]

105. Read it, it's excellent

Other books that made me cry (even before I was ill):
The Plague Dogs and We3 (the latter being an update of teh former).

[UglyGreed]

106. I never was able to

sit through a book, too hyper I guess. But I admit I have been brought to tears over some songs.

[arthritisR_US]

107. I read it about 10 years ago and it did

the same to me! I just watched the HBO movie of it last week.

[CrispyQ]

108. "101 Things You Can Do to Help the Animals" by PETA.

Our inhumanity recorded on every single page. Hardest reading ever.

on edit: Are brutal to each other because we are brutal to animals or are we brutal to animals because we are brutal to each other?

[Rocket_Scientist65]

109. Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Because Darth was just a lonely and misunderstood Sith Lord mistreated in his youth by his Dark Master, loathed by the public, and hated by his children

[Rowdyboy]

110. The first book my mother ever gave me...."Black Beauty"

An 1877 novel about animal welfare and basic human decency.

".... there is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham...."

—Black Beauty, Chapter 13, last paragraph.

[Enthusiast]

111. The Cider House Rules, by John Irving is one of our favorites.

[Enthusiast]

112. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee is one of a few books that I have read twice.

[theaocp]

113. I wouldn't say a book broke my heart, but

it did make me physically throw it across my vehicle. When Thomas Covenant had hurtloam applied to his leprosy and was able to feel his nerves again, he ended up raping the girl who healed him. I was so utterly disgusted by what I was reading that I threw the book across our car as my mom was driving. While the character is a tragic hero, it showed the power of literature and good writing to me while in high school. I'll never forget that moment.

[RebelOne]

114. I read Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee many years ago.

It has always broken my heart how we have treated and abused our Native Americans.