The book that really got to me most recently was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It’s about a young girl who’s raped and murdered and she tells the story of her life and watches over her family from heaven. Please don’t think the whole book is sorrowful and depressing because it’s not. Some parts had me laughing out loud, and it was a very uplifting book–best thing I’ve read in quite a while, but I cried like a baby at certain parts.
I have a book called “Snowflake in My Hand”. It’s by Samantha Mooney, who worked with cats who are sick (feline leukemia, I think.) I read that whenever I need a good cry. (I used to be a cat person. Now I’m primarily a dog person.)
Nop’s Trials by Donald McCaig made me cry.
I always cry at the end of “The Last Unicorn” and during “The Innkeeper’s Song” by Peter S. Beagle.
What can I say, I’m just an old softie.
“Of mice and men” got be pretty good. “The horse wisperer” too…
And as a younger kid “The little Mermaid”, the REAL one, where she dies at the end… Geez, why make fairytales so sad!
** A Prayer For Owen Meany ** <----- probably my favorite book of all time.
** Lonesome Dove ** twice
** The Power of One ** <----a book I adored but only read on recommendation because the topic seemed to be something I would never, ever be interested in. FANTASTIC book, unbelievably bad movie.
** Cold Mountain ** <------- Do you love great writing? Read this book. Then be prepared to be sideswiped.
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. The scene where Claire decides she must return to the present, leaving Jamie Fraser, always has me in a puddle on the floor.
Then I read Voyager and I’m all perked up again.
Damn slashdot, anyway.
The Human Comedy, William Saroyan.
I’m bloody hopeless, and can barely read the newspaper cartoons without a box of tissues handy. 
However, the first book that I can recall getting mega-weepy with was Hand Me Down by Leigh Bonheur. It was the autobiography of this young child/woman who, born illegitimately back in the days when it was disgrace, was passed around from family to abusive family because no-one really wanted her. I read it first when I was 10 yrs old and was incredibly moved by her courage, but also horrified that people could do such evil things to each other.
I’ll give a third vote to A Prayer For Owen Meany, but I can’t believe that no one has mentioned Watership Down, considering that I’ve read it about a dozen times and still can’t get through the part where Hazel is led away from his warren (where he has lived so long that very few remember who he was and what he did) to the hereafter by the Black Rabbit of Inle. Dang, I’m choking up just writing about it.
When I was a kid The Giving Tree used to make me cry nearly every time I read it.
I read Huckleberry Finn in my mid 20’s and actually shed a tear when Huck regrets giving up Jim, misses him terribly and starts to cry.
Oh yeah, The Giving Tree still gets me. “And the tree was happy.” sob
Also chock me up to those who bawled through Bridge to Tarabithia, Where the Red Fern Grows and Charlotte’s Web. Fantastic books, all of them. Really heavy stuff for little kids.
There was also one that we read in elementary school, called Priscilla the Pig, which was the story of this pig who was raised in a house with this family. She dies at the end, and I remember the pages of my book were all wrinkled up right at that part because I was sobbing my little eight year old heart out.
The Death and Life of Superman - novel form, not the comic book. Only book that has ever made me cry. I’ve also never cried at a movie as far as I can remember.
Me too on Charlotte’s Web, Bridge to Teribithia, The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe, Where the Red Fern Grows, Tuesdays with Morrie, and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Also The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks
I’ll 2nd “Of Mice and Men”. The end makes me cry everytime I read it.
Jeez, just thinking about “The Giving Tree” depresses me.
More recently, Connie Willis’ Passage drained me and saddened me to the point I couldn’t finish it. Just skimmed the last few bits to find out what happens in the end. She’s such a powerful writer.
But that’s just the latest, I cry very easily.
My voice gets all choked up every time I read Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever to my kids. Very emotional experience, despite having read it so often.
I’m with Larry Mudd - Microserfs made me cry because it was so beautiful and just… it had so much heart, you know?
The Fionavar Tapestry always makes me cry… The thing that got me the most was when the Baelrath calls to the Giants and changes them forever. I think I had been previously scarred by this sort of theme when I read the ending of The High King. When I read it the second time, I almost couldn’t stand to read Kevin’s warmhearted banter with his father at the beginning of the book, knowing what Kevin’s future was.
I originally read the Tapestry when I was on vacation with my family, and I remember sitting on the beach crying. My parents were looking at each other like; “Maybe we should take it away from her;” and I was going; “Noooo, sob, it’s soo-ooo-oo good! sob”
His Dark Materials got me too, especially when the surviving Angel was being overcome by waves of anguish that would ebb and flow.
On a happier note: I was sitting on a bench during the summer a few years ago, reading Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and I couldn’t stop tears from coming when Hagrid gave Harry the photo album. For a moment I thought; “If anyone sees me, they’ll think I’m crazy, chuckling and crying over a kid’s book.” But there you are.
Actually, The Lord of the Rings, at the very, very,very end at the Gray Havens. Gets me everytime. I have a theory that that parts not gonna make it into the theatrical release of the movie, but I could be wrong. Won’t be the same anyway. The book gets me everytime.
This was the first book I thought of when I read the thread title. I suspect that my children used to ask me to read it specifically to make me cry. It’s a perennial favorite with the preschool crowd at Sunday school, too.
But I’m not exactly a tough nut to crack when it comes to emotional books. A lot of the ones already mentioned do it to me, and any book in which an animal dies can set me off. The original Lassie Come-Home and Black Beauty made me cry when I was ten, and the same passages make me cry today. I can’t read Cleveland Amory’s non-fiction memoir, The Cat Who Came For Christmas, if I plan to go out in public within the next 24 hours, because too many people think I’ve just had a loved one die.
Toby Tyler
If it’s any consolation, that part got to me as well. Granted, I’m not that impressed with how the books are written on the whole, and I cry at the opening of a bank, but I thought that was the best-written part of the whole series so far.