10 Greatest Love Stories In Literature By Adele Parks

Today on book tour for ‘If You Go Away’ by one of my favourite authors, Adele Parks talks about her 10 greatest love stories in literature.

Books
Compiling a list of my most romantic books was a very different experience to compiling a list of my most romantic movies or songs. It brought home to me something I’ve long since known but tend to forget from time to time – books are incredibly powerful! Whilst my reaction to romantic movies and songs tends to largely to do with my own romantic status (they offer valuable succour, consolation or inspiration) and they often give me a legitimate channel to deal with my own emotions (no one is alone when they watch Casablanca) – however, books go a step further.

I am transported by novels. I’m swept up by and immersed in the lives of the heroes and heroines; it doesn’t matter whether I’m in love or heartbroken if I am reading I care more about poor fated Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire or Cecilia and Robbie than I care about my own status. I utterly forget myself and if the book is properly brilliant I become someone quite different. For a short and poignant time I live their lives; it’s deep and very personal. I fall in love with Heathcliff every time even though I know that nothing good will ever come of a psychologically damaged, morbidly jealous, foundling but then, deep down, which girl can resist “a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man” willing to disinter her grave? Passionate, resilient and morally admirable Jane Eyre is a role model, as is confident, witty but fallible Elizabeth Bennet. I’m consumed with grief anew when Anna ends up on the tracks or Ennis finds his shirt tucked inside of Jack’s. Sigh.

1. Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx
2. The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
3. Atonement by Ian McEwan
4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
6. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
7. Anna Karenina by Tolstoy
8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fritzgerald
9. Invitation To The Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann
10. PS I Love You Cecilia Ahern

You can buy [amazon_link id=”B00N9AVKCU” target=”_blank” ]If You Go Away from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.