Oh, yes. That’s a good one.
I don’t cry over books very often anymore, but when I was younger I did all the time. I remember reading The Outsiders in 8th grade, hiding it behind my history textbook in class, and getting so upset that I had to leave the room for a few minutes.
A friend of mine lent me her copy last year. It sat in my bag for a while and I found it when I was meant to be studying. An hour later the same friend found me sitting in the uni library in tears, too upset to be embarrased. I told her why I was crying, and she got a little sniffly too.
I remember crawling under my bed with my duvet wrapped around me and bawling at the end of Catcher in the Rye. It doesn’t have the same effect on me now, but, aged fifteen, it knocked me right over.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve read Lord of the Rings, but I cry at the ending every single time.It affects me more now that I’m older than it did when I first read it, in fact I found myself tearing up trying to explain to a friend exactly why I found it so sad.
There are entirely too many for me to list here, since I cry over just about anything sad or touching. There are a couple of Eminem songs that make me cry, for crying out loud.
Charlotte’s Web is the first I can remember crying over. My mom read it to me and I wouldn’t let her finish.
The Little Matchstick Girl I think it’s called. I hate that story.
The Velveteen Rabbit can’t believe it hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Okay, then on to more mature things.
The Catcher in the Rye Sob-fest.
On the Road Perhaps I’m the only person ever to have bawled uncontrollably at the end of this one.
Frankenstein Weird, I know. Imagine me sobbing to my boyfriend (now husband) … “He just wanted to have friends!”
Not weird at all, methinks. Frankenstein was an incredibly sad book. I don’t remember if I cried so I didn’t list this one, but it definitely crossed my mind.
I have comments as well as my own votes, plus a lengthy dissertation on LotR which I will post separately, so that those who are sick & tired of LotR discussions may skip it.
Asimov, when he handed Keyes the Hugo, whispered “I must find out how you did it” and Keyes replied “When you find out, tell me…I want to do it again.” Daniel Keyes now teaches (literature? writing?) at a university in Florida. (Quotes from memory, I don’t have my reference materials at hand.)
The image of the 5 silouettes on the wall is one of the strongest memories I have of my childhood reading.
Do not pass go, run directly to your library or bookstore and get The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.
On to my own tear-jerkers (SF geek alert):
The Man Who Walked Home by Tiptree. I’m a sucker for anyone making a super-human effort.
Lord of Light by Zelazny. “The Lokopalas are never defeated.”
The Shattered Chain by Bradley. I’m also a sucker for anyone who takes full responsibility for their own actions. (Note: The DAW edition has one of the worst cover art paintings I’ve ever seen.)
Both of these make me blubber like a little kid. Especially The Doomsday Book. I’ve read it several times but every time it hits me the same way–just when you don’t think anything could possibly get worse for her, it gets worse.
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon makes me tear up too. The first time I read the entire series I was pregnant and with the combination of Jamie and Claire’s goodbyes and the hormones, I was a sobbing, quivering mess. I cried almost all the way through the entire series, even when
Black Jack Randall dies!
And although I am loathe to admit it–The Bridges of Madison County made me cry too. I don’t even have the excuse of pregancy hormones to hide behind on that choice.
I bawl at a lot of books. Doesn’t take much.
Yes, I remember jumping up and yelling to my husband:
What the fuck? He killed all of them! Every damn one! This was before I found out the mother was still alive, though barely.
I just finished Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas a few minutes ago, and I was bawling when
I got to the section where Odd’s friends confronted him about Stormy’s death. I just lost it. It felt like a punch in the gut.
Another recent series that had me bawling several times was Robin Hobb’s series. Both the scenes where
Nighteyes died and where the Fool left once he realized that Fitz loved him but would never be with him the way the Fool needed.
A Farewell to Arms and A Separate Peace.
The Jade Peony, by Wayson Choy.
I read it cover-to-cover one night in 1997.
It’s divided into three sections, from the point-of-view of three siblings growing up in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the late 1930s and early 1940s. It’s quite sneaky in that the first section, about the youngest sister, is light-hearted and quite humourous. The middle section is more poignant-- a little sad, but beautiful. But the last section-- the last section is heartbreakingly tragic. I didn’t just cry. I sobbed. I guess some of it may have been sleep-deprivation leaving me emotionally vulnerable, but no other book has ever effected me so powerfully.
I’ve bought four copies of The Jade Peony, and I still don’t have one sitting on my shelf. It’s one of those “You have got to read this!” kind of publications. I push it on everyone that I can.
I think I got a bit weepy during parts of Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music, too, although that hardly compares.
Seems this thread fizzled out but I HAD to compile a list, if for nothing else than my own benefit- reading the lists of others was cathartic!
The Island of the Blue Dolphins- When she has a reverie of her first dog while happily watching her new one. Very poignant.
The Sirens of Titan- Waterworks. Unk’s letter to himself has me wringing my hands in despair, the fate of Chrono, Beatrice, Rumfoord, and poor poor Salo! And the end…don’t get me started!
Landscape: Memory (Matthew Stadler)- Seems no one has ever heard of this, it’s incredibly poignant, bittersweetly recalling the San Francisco World Fair with a child’s reaction to WWI. Powerful and elusive. Cried buckets.
Sounds lame, but in GenX where Coupland describes the bomb, its bague “sexiness”, it really kills me. Dredges up all the feelings of the dread of something both incomprehensible and inevitable, which was so common during the Cold War. I was a teenager and it had a HUGE impact on who I am today. We don’t talk about this enough.
errrrr…there are MANY more, I’m a big bawler.
My first howler was ‘The Happy Prince’ by Oscar Wilde.
I haven’t stopped snivelling since. 
Under the Skin , by Michel Faber. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be sick. What a book.
I’ll second The Power of One. Also, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, and Les Miserables (especially the passages where I can read the story while hearing the music playing in my mind).
First, seconds:
Night, Of Mice and Men, Watership Down, Lord of the Flies.
Regarding Lord of the Flies:I didn’t cry when Piggy dies, but when Ralph weeps for “the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy” I absolutely break down – that’s the whole book right there.
No Kill, No Thrill: True story of the Ng/Lake murders. Extremely difficult to get through.
The Little Prince: I can’t believe I haven’t seen this one on this thread. I keep extra copies of an American translation in paperback at my house. If it ever comes up and I discover that someone has not read this book, I give them a copy.
The part about the fox and the roses, especially.
And that ending (for those who’ve read it and care to be reminded):[SPOILER]
Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can ever be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has – yes or no? – eaten a rose.
Look up at the sky. Ask yourselves: Is it yes or no? Has the sheep eaten the flower? And you will see how everything changes…
And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance![/SPOILER]
When my eldest was around 10 and we were still in that wonderful time when he *wanted * me to read to him, I used to read a couple Christmas stories every year. One year, we had Truman Capote’s, A Christmas Memory, and by the time I got to the end, I simply couldn’t finish reading it, I was so choked up. And Ryan, tender little soul that he was and still is, said, “Aww, poor Mommy.”
The Nanny Diaries.
No, I’m serious.
I started out thinking it was going to be light reading, just something to scoff at as having no bearing on my own experience as a mother’s help. Instead, I got drawn in almost without realizing it. I know there are a lot of people who actively dislike this book, but the common thread seems to be “Why does she take all that crap from her employers? Why doesn’t she stand up for herself?”
Because she’s twenty-one, that’s why. And (and this is one of the reasons I could relate), she’s beginning to realize that there really is no job on earth where you get to have everything just right for your needs. Subconsciously, she realized that quitting would only help herself, while staying for the sake of the kid was the Right Thing to do.
I could see so much of myself in her, it was amazing. I saw all her mistakes, knew why she was making them, and, contrary to the nay-sayers, saw her learning from them. Towards the end, I was getting a swelling sense of dread, and when Mrs. X dismissed her in one sentence and hustled her out of the house without even letting her say goodbye to Grayer
I started sobbing and could not stop. I was still awash when I finished the book and made room for it on the shelf; I had to watch a South Park episode to calm myself down. (Nothing snaps me out of a sobfest like watching Cartman being mean.)
…snif…
Mines was the entire Three Book trilogy of Linda Lay Shuler called:
** She who Remembers**
** Voice of the Eagle**
and
** Let the Drums Speak**
The ending of Voice on thr Eagle was the one that really got me
There was also anothe trilogy from Sue Harrison called
** Mother Earth , Father Sky **
** My Sister the Moon **
and
** Brother Wind **
The ending to “My Sister the Moon” was to me the saddest of the three. 
These two women “to me” have to be two of the greatest writers of our time
Catcher In The Rye only made me cry in frustration, because I hated that damn book but I had to write a paper on it in 11th grade. But here are a few books that squeezed a few actual tears out of me:
The Great Hunt (Wheel Of Time Vol. 2)
When Lord Ingtar admitted to Rand that he became a Darkfriend to try to save his country, but sacrificed himself in the end to let Rand escape. Also, from one of the other books when Nynaeve underwent the three trials, and had to leave a life in which she was happily married to Lan.
Finn MacCool, Morgan Llewellyn. The entire story is very tragic from beginning to end, but also very full of life.
Some other books didn’t make me cry, exactly, but I did suffer a fit of morose introspection and dark philosophizing afterwards: Fahrenheit 451, All Quiet On The Western Front, A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, Of Mice And Men, Grapes Of Wrath, Frankenstein
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee had me going for a while.
*Birdsong also was very moving indeed. The reaction to the hardened onlookers to The Somme really got to me.
I thought of another one in this category off late, and behold the thread resurfaces.
The Great Profundo by Bernard MacLaverty.