Do some readers want a book that makes them feel sad?

According to Canongate, the UK publishers of Kate Grenville's The Secret River, they do.

The book is one suggested by a book group I go to and it is very good (if very much a work of brain-candy), shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2006, no less.

But the quote on the cover that comes from Geraldine Bedell, of the Observer, says:

"A sad book, beautifully written and, at times, almost unbearable with the weight of loss."

For me, this seems a very strange choice of quote to put on the front cover of what, as a book shortlisted for a high profile prize, should be riding high at the top of the fiction charts and flying off the shelves of numerous bookshops.

Surely there were more appropriate quotes to put on the front cover? Or am I, unlearned in the arts of bookselling, unaware of the fact that some people sometimes just like a good, sad read?