This month on the reading group we’re asking for nominations of books about love. Since Valentine’s Day is on the way, and since last month’s choice of a funny book, Good Omens, was such a tonic we want to continue the positivity. A little human warmth can never go amiss, after all.
It’s also undeniable that love is a big topic in literature. In its own way, the epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is a love story, as is the Iliad and a healthy percentage of all literature since.
A quick scan of my own shelves suggests books as varied as Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, A Month in the Country by JL Carr, The Passion by Jeanette Winterson, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey, Emma by Jane Austen – and, oh yes, Romeo and Juliet by that jobbing writer Shakespeare.
It’s almost harder to name novels that aren’t about love than ones that are – and that’s one of the things that makes this topic so interesting. Don’t think we’ve gone completely soft, either. Literary love isn’t all hearts and goo. Under the Volcano is also about love. Raymond Chandler was known to talk about the subject, too. Personally, I’m thinking the less cheesy, the better – but I really want to hear your suggestions.
All you have to do to make a nomination is to suggest a book in the comments below. (And if you want to tell us why you like the book, so much the better.) I’ll put those nominations into a hat towards the end of the week and we’ll read the book that comes out of it.
Finally, a quick heads up that Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five turns 50 in March, which feels like a very good reason to read it then. But first, February!
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