The most under-rated books you have read - recommendations please

DuchessofAvon - Tove Jansson "The Summer Book" - sparse, quiet, unsettling and beautiful Ahh, yes. Such a gem of a book. Love Tove Jansson's writing.

Goodnight Mister Tom - read for the first time at the back end of last year. Wonderful.

Nadeem Aslam - Maps For Lost Lovers and The Wasted Vigil. Beautiful writing.

The Snow Goose - Paul Gallico. Sends shivers down my spine yet it's barely talked about.

David Nobbs - Reggie Perrin, Cupid's Dart etc. Funny as fuck.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers - Yiyun Li. Bleak stories but sharp.

A Mouse and His Child and Riddley Walker - Russell Hoban. These should be way more popular than they seem to be.

Oooh yes to A Lost Lady by Willa Cather, Winifred Holtby's The Crowded Street and anything by Barbara Pym .

A few more: Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood, a creepily haunting and sometimes comical (in a dark way) novella about an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family in decline. Actually I don't think it was under-rated, it's just not as well known now as IMHO it deserves to be.

The Rector's Daughter by F M Mayor. Again perhaps less known than under-rated? About Mary Jocelyn, a 30 something spinster in Edwardian East Anglia, daughter of the retired rector (you'd never have guessed that ) who is charming, erudite - and thoroughly selfish. Mary and the new rector Mr Herbert, it soon becomes clear, have feelings for each other but fate intervenes. It's one of those books where for long periods not a whole lot happens, but it's stayed firmly in my consciousness since first read about 20 years ago. The characters so vivid I have clear mental pictures of them and part of me would love it to be dramatised. No sex (so Andrew Davies would have to write some in!) but one of the most highly charged and moving romantic encounters I've yet read.

The Blood Doctor by Barbara Vine. Generally reckoned to be one of her weaker offerings but I love it. A lot of the criticism stems from the fact that what the Blood Doctor actually did becomes obvious quite early on... that didn't detract from my absorption in the book though. I find it desperately sad and chilling.

Agree with Main Street, although it just about shattered me when I read it. So depressing- and real!

Another Barbara Comyns- The Juniper Tree.

Hmm...my dear Beauty Myth bible! None of my peers have read it, and it would be so good for them...

My Antonia by Willa Cather.

That's partly to keep this bumped until I can print it out.

Gah! Most of these are NOT ON KINDLE. Grr!

Octavia Butler is great, by the way, especially the Xenogenesis series.

Recently found in a 2nd hand shop Kindred by Octavia E Butler--not sure how it is rated i think it may have been an American ,school, book. It is wonderful I read it once then straight away again.

Goodnight Mister Tom, ive read it twice since reading it at school.

Oh yes, Goodnight Mister Tom is a lovely book - there are some great kids books that are still nice to read as an adult.

I love all the Eva Ibotson books as well - they are really for children but they soothe my soul.

Try Goodnight Mister Tom
A childrens book really I suppose but I absolutely loved it

I read Tom Jones by Fielding at Uni and loved it - far more relevant and funny than I had imagined before I read it.

I love the Lucia books by E F Benson - they are all well worth a read

Does anyone remember the Carbonel series by Barbara Sleigh? I remember loving these as a child and recently picked them up at a car boot sale so read them again and still enjoyed them.

another big Robertson Davies checking in
so incredibly funny and humane writing

Amazing Duchess, I saw this thread had been bumped and came on to say "monica dickens!". One Pair of Feet is particularly good (all about her being an - untrained - nurse during WWII), I remember so many bits from that.

Also I've never met anyone else who's read Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding, despite it being a "classic". It's brilliant, definition of Romp.

yy to Robertson Davies, Rumer Godden (In This House OF Brede is one I read over and over again) and all of Piprabbit's suggestions.

Elizabeth Goudge "The Little White Horse" is a kids classic - ignore the travesty of the film called Moonacre.

Tove Janssen "The Summer Book" - sparse, quiet, unsettling and beautiful.

Monica Dickens "One Pair of Hands", "One Pair of Feet" and "Mariana". THe firsttwo make me giggle and the last is sweet.

Marge Piersy is generally under-rated I think.

I was so glad to see someone else mention Robertson Davies, no one in RL has ever read any. My name is a RD character, my favourite character ever.

Mary Renault is also not much read now, she is a brilliant read. The Persian Boy is the most beautiful love story.

I love this thread, it has given me inspiration for my Amazon list.

Twoifbythesea Christmas mystery is brilliant and is read before xmas every year! I cry from about the fourth page of through a glass. :)

The Truth about Lorin Jones - Alison Lurie (in fact most books by Alison Lurie, including Don't Tell the Grown-ups - Subversive Children's Literature).

Letter's to Alice on first reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon.

The Child that Books Built - Francis Spufford.

(Seems to be a bit of theme developing here).

There is a very good novel called "What Was Lost" by Catherine O'Flynn, which came out a couple of years back. It won the Costa First Novel Prize so I suppose it's technically not that underrated, but a lot of people seem not to have heard of it and it did suffer from a hideous cover when first released. Thankfully it has since been re-issued with something more intriguing.

Other under-rated/un-hyped novels I have enjoyed in recent years include "Soft" by Rupert Thomson, "Little Green Man" by Simon Armitage, "The H-Bomb Girl" by Stephen Baxter and "Wasted" by Nicola Morgan. Those are just a few off the top of my head really.

I adore Through A Glass Darkly, cry every time. Also The Christmas Mystery is another gem by him. A good one to read in the run up to Christmas!

I like Jostein Garders other books, not just sophie's world which I think is always made out to be the best-particuarly through a glass darkly. And I really like the thireenth tale although I cant remember the writer.
I always think a good book is one that you think about a few days after finishing and wonder what happened next.

'Saki - Short Stories. Cannot understand why everyone hasn't heard of him. Sharp and hilarious.'

I'm on my third copy now, others have fallen to pieces through being over-read. I must get a quality hard back next time.

Ooh - I've just been on Amazon and when I searched for 'Letters of a Fainthearted Feminist' the books that come up under 'Customers who bought this also bought' are all off this thread! It included Professor Branestawn ... surely that can only be in there because half MN is shopping from this thread?

Well ... it amused me anyway.

In recent books have read A taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan about the Brontes and Nourishment by Gerard Woodward - both very good books that seem to have gone unnoticed.

In older books I have to say I am a devoted George Gissing fan - The Nether World, The Odd Women and New Grub Street are fantastic Victorian novels and shamefully overlooked.

Mrs Craddock by Somerset Maugham is a very good novel about a failing marriage - very funny too.

The Slaves of Solitude - a very sad but also funny book about boarding house life in the second world war by Patrick Hamilton is a geat read as is his book Twenty Thousand streets under the sky that has had a bit of revival lately ( BBC 3 made a drama of it a few summers back)

Great thread remimded me of some old faves that I must get again and some new things to try

Did anyone hear ever enjoy 'the lone ranger and tonto fistfight in heaven' by sherman alexie?

littlecheesypineappleone I studied knowledge of angels at a level, it's a brilliant book. I loved the idea of the religious iconography being terrifying to someone who had never come across it. Of course being 16-17 year olds we found THAT bit bloody hilarious!

I don't know if this book is underrated or not but one of my favourite books is angelas ashes, I'll always recommend it to people. I love how despite everything there's an undercurrent of hope all the way through. I tried to get DH to read it but he said the film depressed him too much so won't give it a chance.

Neil gaimon's Coraline is also a fab book, I'm not sure many people realised it even was a book when the film came out. It's a really quick read but extremely dark and creepy, loves it!

In terms of younger childrens books (coraline is a teen book I think) I've got two: the whales song, beautiful illustrations and a lovely story. Still have memories of my mum reading it to me when I was little. The other is the true story of the three little pigs, it's so quirky, the 'incident' is all a big misunderstanding the poor wolf has a streaming cold and all he wants from the little pigs is a cup of sugar! I've just bought this one to read to ds!

The Brontes Went to Woolworths is one of my favourite books. So glad it's not just me.