Read this when
Stoner
A 'boring' book about a guy nobody remembers. Somehow it's the one everyone cries over. 📚
Who it's for
Stoner follows a man through a lifetime of small defeats (a cold marriage, a stalled career, a daughter pulled away from him) and finds, beneath them, a deep love of literature and a brief, real love affair.
Feelings it meets
What it is
John Williams's 1965 novel follows William Stoner, a farm boy who enrolls at the University of Missouri to study agriculture but switches to literature after encountering Shakespeare's Sonnet 73 in a required English course. He becomes a professor and enters an unhappy marriage with Edith, and their daughter Grace grows up amid her mother's emotional manipulation.
Where to find it
In print; widely available from libraries (Libby/Hoopla) and as an audiobook. Still in copyright, so not on Project Gutenberg.
Before you start
Heads up: Marital cruelty and death from cancer.
Age: Ages 16+
We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1
