This month in the reading group, we’re looking for your nominations for books that celebrate the human spirit in the face of huge odds.

This theme comes thanks to a suggestion from a contributor called allworthy over on Tips, links and suggestions, who proposes Notes on Blindness by John M Hull as a potential candidate.

The book that first popped into my head was John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces and good old Ignatius J Reilly’s managing to get through the days in spite of himself. The times being as they are, I was also quickly drawn to political books and stories where the underdogs successfully stick it to the Man.

But the beauty of this theme is that it can be as wide or as narrow as you like. The battle of humanity against insectoid aliens in Robert A Heinlein’s Starship Troopers could be just as valid as any of Diana Athill’s beautiful musings about old age, or Bill Bryson’s struggle up the Appalachian Trail in A Walk in the Woods. You might see a triumph of the human spirit in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, in Jean-Dominique Bauby’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Or even – why not? – Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. The only limitation is that we want to see some good in it. And if you are in need of it, let’s try to cheer ourselves up a little too.

All you have to do for your choice to be counted is to nominate in the comments below. I’ll return here in a few days’ time, print out the nominations and pull the winner out of a hat.