By Beatrix S
Valentine’s Day is the celebration of love and a time when people should remember how beautiful love is. What better way to celebrate love than to read a beautiful love story or to offer such a story to your loved ones? Here is my list of the top 5 books for Valentine’s Day.
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje is a classic love story perfect for Valentine’s Day. The book starts with the image of a nurse trying to ease the pain and the wounds of her patient. The patient soon reveals his story, a wonderful love story, and other details about his troubled life. It was published in 1992 and it soon became a classic. The English Patient is one of those love stories you will never forget.
Firefly Lane
by Kristin Hannah is not as much a love story as it is an emotional story about friendship. The book was published in 2008 and it’s one of those bestsellers everyone should read. It portrays two different women, one who chooses career and success and one who chooses marriage; these two women are good friends. But no friendship is without envy and the women seem to have a competition going on between them. The book is also about the 1970s, how life was then, how simple people would find joy, and how everybody had more understanding and compassion.
Bitter Moon
by Pascal Bruckner is an amazing story about love and hate. It is told by one of the lovers to a stranger. The story is about him and his beautiful wife and how their sadistic relationship began. We can see how Pascal Bruckner manages to enter the dark corners of the human mind, creating a story so unbelievable yet resembling our own loves stories, more or less. The book was published in 2003 and will definitely impress somebody who is not into classic love stories.
The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger is a sensitive love story that will melt your heart. If you want to offer this book as a gift for Valentine’s Day, you will surely impress the person you are offering it to. The story is about a woman who has a husband with a strange genetic condition. This condition allows him to travel in time, without being able to control where or when he travels. The novel shows the way this couple manages to understand each other and the difficulties they have to overcome because of the condition. Published in 2003, this unusual love story is also the basis of an acclaimed movie.
Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell is a beautiful and classic book perfect for Valentine’s Day. The book has millions of fans all over the world and it was adapted into an Oscar-winning movie that had the same success. The book is the story of a very ambitious woman, a girl who learns about life too soon but manages to overcome the hardships, and a love story with amusing moments. It was published in 1936 and it caught the attention of critics, being considered one of the best books at that time.