Here are just a few books to read this Valentine’s Day. I know some  of you may be holed up alone tonight, and I hope these give you the hope to find happiness and love in the near and distant future. The novels are not all above the professorial brow of high literature, but they will all hopefully do what literature does best–give you perspective on one of life’s most difficult mysteries.

Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles

The love story of two English ruralites captures is both idyllic and tragic, but Hardy paints two genuine characters who find love in spite of a number of social and geographical obstacles. Think Austen with far less dinner parties.

Ernest Hemingway – A Farewell to Arms

A novel that brings out the best and worst of Hemingway’s stoic prose is also, admittedly, a great love story. Fred, an ambulance driver fighting…