LOVE STORIES TO WALLOW IN

Who knew feeling sorry for yourself could feel so good

• Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park is an extremely lovely, extremely heartbreaking story of two teenage misfits falling in love.
• Speaking of misfits falling in love, Don’s journey to finding the love of his life in The Rosie Project is guaranteed to make you feel a little bit gooey and sentimental.
• Sit down and cry it all out with The Fault In Our Stars.
• Hit the classics. A back-to-back reading of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights is sure to make you feel entirely miserable and unloved.
• Pride and Prejudice will give you a glimmer of hope that a Mr Collins is sometimes followed by a Colin Firth.
• Look, things are terrible anyway. If you are so inclined, why not just succumb to the syrupy, sickly-sweet, formulaic comfort of a Nicholas Sparks binge?

PAGETURNERS TO COMFORT (AND DISTRACT) YOU

Just forget about love already

• Nina Stibbe’s Love, Nina, a collection of real-life letters Nina wrote to her sister when she was a twenty-year-old nanny living in London, is as delightful and cozy as a cup of tea on a winter’s day.
• This could be the perfect time to dip back into a cherished childhood favourite like Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle or the always reliable Little Women.
• If you’re looking for violent and bloody distractions, George R.R. Martin’s phenomenally popular The Song of Ice and Fire series could be just the thing.
• Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels are literary sensations and absolute favourites at Readings (see our staff raving over here) and they will draw you immediately into the fascinating world of Naples, a city filled with scheming and drama.
• Now is a good time for some humour. Insightful books by funny people include Yes Please by Amy Poehler, The Family Law by Benjamin Law and Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling.
• Liane Moriaty’s six novels are all page-tuners. Start with her latest, Big Little Lies, and work your way backwards.
• Be inspired by women taking on the wilderness, solo, in Wild (1,100 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail) and Tracks (1,700 miles of hostile Australian desert).
• A little bit of Donna Tartt or Sarah Waters might help. Tartt’s first novel The Secret History is absorbing from beginning to end, and her most recent one, The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize last year. Waters’ writes addictive historical fiction full of twists and turns – try The Fingersmith or The Paying Guests.

ANTI-LOVE STORIES TO HELP YOU ACCEPT THAT LIFE IS BETTER THIS WAY

Relationships are terrible, and here’s the proof

• Heartburn is a thinly-veiled novel about Nora Ephron’s real-life marriage breakdown (her husband left her for another woman when she was seven months pregnant). So funny and highly recommended. It even includes recipes.
• Junot Díaz’s This Is How You Lose Her is largely populated by men that while endearing, you really hope never to date.
• The on-and-off relationship between Nora and Javo in Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip is utterly compelling, and utterly toxic.
• The tender and skillfully-wrought Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill examines a modern marriage slowly falling apart.
• The highly enjoyable The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P will make you pleased you aren’t dating Nathaniel (or any other literary hipster) right now.
• Lionel Shriver is consistently anti-romantic. Her best known novel We Need to Talk About Kevin will give you the horrors at the mere thought of settling down and having kids.
• If you’ve got the stomach for it, Tampa is a truly nasty sex romp told through the eyes of a female sociopath – an eighth-grade English teacher singly obsessed with fourteen year old boys. Sounds disgusting (and it is!), but it’s also quite fun, and about as anti-romantic as one can get.
• Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl will, quite simply, make you rejoice in being single.

Nina Kenwood