Jonathan Franzen, in case you didn’t know, is the guy who drew the wrath of Oprah by refusing to have her sticker on the cover of every copy of this book. You can kind of see his point – by the time he got around to being nominated for Tearjerker of the Week, the quality of her books had gone rapidly downhill.

But these short stories are poignant and, ironically given the title, heartwarming; worthy of anyone's time and nowhere near late-term Oprah level.