Free The Novel Cure: From Abandonment to Zestlessness: 751 Books to Cure What Ails You by Ella Berthoud, Susan Elderkin

failing to be the solid rock that your partner needs? Or are you living your love life to the wrong sound track? Get it right, and this breakup will be your last.
    See also
:
Appetite, loss of • Bed, inability to get out of • Cry, in need of a good • Lovesickness • Sadness • Shelf, fear of being left on the • Tired and emotional, being
THE TEN BEST BREAKUP NOVELS
    Call Me by Your Name ANDRÉ ACIMAN
    Wuthering Heights
EMILY BRONTË
    The End of the Story
LYDIA DAVIS
    This Is How You Lose Her
JUNOT DÍAZ
    Heartburn
NORA EPHRON
    The Love of My Youth
MARY GORDON
    The End of the Affair
GRAHAM GREENE
    High Fidelity
NICK HORNBY
    Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry
LEANNE SHAPTON
    Anna Karenina
LEO TOLSTOY
BROKE, BEING
    The Great Gatsby
    F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
    •   •   •
    Money
    MARTIN AMIS
    •   •   •
    Young Hearts Crying
    RICHARD YATES
    S o you’re out of cash. That’s half the problem. Maybe you’re out of work (see: Unemployment; Depression, economic) or maybe you’re spending more than you earn (see: Extravagance). Either way, you’re convinced that if only you had a bit more money in the bank, all your problems would be solved. That’s the other half of the problem. We’ll deal with that half first.
    James Gatz—aka Jay Gatsby—had the same stupid idea: that money would bring him what he most longed for, in this case, Daisy Buchanan. In ill-begotten ways, he amassed a fortune, bought the flashiest house on West Egg, then hurled his hundreds on stupendously extravagant parties to lure the lovely Daisy back into his arms, like a moth to an enchanted flame.
    Gatsby is one of literature’s most powerful dreamers (hence the “great”), and his passion and longing for Daisy is as gorgeous to behold as the little green light at the end of her dock. But the fact is, having more money than we need to cover the essentials in life (food, clothes, shelter, and, of course, books) causes more problems than it solves. Not only does it fail to bring Gatsby lasting happiness with Daisy, but the making of it causes him to abandon and defile his true self. What does he think he’s doing calling everyone “old sport” in a fake English accent, owning more shirts than he can possibly wear, and holding parties that he doesn’t enjoy? And what does he expect Daisy to do when she discovers how he earned it all? When the flame sputters, and Gatsby goes out, he has no one to blame but himself.
    As for being broke, our cure comes in three parts. First, read
Money
by Martin Amis to remind yourself of the horrible ways in which money can taint and corrupt. Then read
Young Hearts Crying
by Richard Yates to see how an inherited fortune can obscure the path to a life of purpose and a sense of self-worth. Finally, return to
The Great Gatsby
and do what James Gatz should have done: inhabit and accept your impoverished self and find someone who loves you as you are. Then quit wasting money on lottery tickets, downsize, and learn to budget. If your job still doesn’t bring inenough for the basics, get another one. If it does, stop whining and get on with living happily ever after within your modest means.
    See also:
Tax return, fear of doing
BROKEN CHINA
    Utz
    BRUCE CHATWIN
    T he percussive smash of china hitting the floor is a dramatic shock of a sound that is always impressive. Unfortunately, the satisfaction it brings doesn’t last long, and is quickly superseded by dismay. Broken china is strangely symbolic of the human heart—one minute so robust and whole, and the next so irreparably damaged. Luckily, unlike a broken heart, broken china can often be glued back together.
    But if your broken Davenport sugar bowl, handed down through the generations, is beyond repair, read
Utz
. Kaspar Utz is a Czechoslovakian connoisseur of Meissen porcelain with compulsive collecting habits who becomes a prisoner to his own