Strong stuff

I’ve wasted much reading time trying to sort blogging problems and am still unsuccessful so if there is a Whizz out there…help! Using an old computer, I would like to say I would be very happy to read the Orange winners, and have started Linda Grant. I’m pleased to read authors new to me, many I’ve never heard of, which gets me out of a rather narrow rut of clinging to a few favourites.
To answer Val’s specific question, I haven’t read Beloved, and would be interested to one day. I can understand Emily’s feeling on these strong subjects. I don’t think that one should shelter from the facts of life and living, but man’s inhumanity to man has been and is beyond comprehension and bearing. It is difficult as we are usually helpless onlookers and this is very stressful. We need to feel we can make things better. Therefore I think we have to pick the moment that is right for us and read such books in small doses. Do you agree? The books Emily mentioned that started bleakly but ended on a positive note are perhaps the best use of the novel which hopes to inform, acquire the empathy it is looking for but not leave the reader in a state of hopeless misery.