Fiction becomes markedly more depressing after times of economic austerity, such as the Great Depression or even the first world war, a study has suggested.

The trend appears to emerge around a decade after the worst of any economic troubles, and the lead author of the study from Bristol University, Alex Bentley, predicts that a new burst of maudlin fiction is on the horizon after our latest recession. Do you enjoy a gloomy book, or does misery lit make you run screaming for the nearest self-help book?

Tell us about your favourite bleak novels, or write a paragraph of depressing prose for us to weep over.