No Valentines? Take a quiz. You know it's how you kill time on Facebook.

Valentine's Day is this coming Sunday, which means it will doubly suck. Might as well live vicariously. Crawl under a blanket, get the chocolates out, and see how the other half lived, according to author Francine Prose:

If, as Shakespeare informs us in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the course of true love never did run smooth, often that road seems even rougher in literature than in life. Some of the world’s most celebrated masterpieces are populated by vivid, beautifully drawn characters whose romantic disappointments and satisfactions I’ve enjoyed talking about, with my students, in the literature classes I’ve taught over the years.

In compiling this quiz about some of my favorite fiction (and one memoir), I’m reminded of something that’s helpful to remember this coming and every Valentine’s Day: The course of true love can follow any number of paths, at once similar and unique for every lover and beloved. The classics below encourage us not only to acknowledge but also to embrace the broadest, the least judgmental and the most generous definition of love...

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