Top 15 most depressing books If you want, over several hundred pages, to see a fine young working-class man try painfully hard to better himself and fail abjectly; get repeatedly duped, tricked, manipulated, knocked back and deserted by all comers, from Christminster (for which, read "Oxford") university, to his supposed nearest and dearest - and finally die in penury, abandoned by his true love, and un-mourned by his grasping belle - then yes, by all means tuck into Hardy's last novel. What could be more fun? Picture: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy