The Notebook

The Notebook

by Nicholas Sparks

Warner $71

A tender love story about loyalty, kindness and passion. Or a shallow, sickly sweet tearjerker that will make sceptics cringe. It's hard to be indifferent to this best-seller. Set in America's deep south, an unnamed old man sits by the bedside of an old woman, reading to her every day from an aged notebook. The story he tells her is of Noah Taylor Calhoun and Allison Nelson, teenagers who fell in love, but were unable to marry because she was of higher social standing than him. Their lives had to take separate paths, but their love for each other endured. No prizes for guessing the identity of the elderly couple, but it's still a captivating story. It's short enough to be read in an evening and bravely explores the effects of Alzheimer's disease.