Page 4 | Books you thought no one else has read

tweetysylvester · 2025-03-07T20:00:12+00:00

It's so fun to find rare books to read, or just look up or hear about less known books, so thought I'd start a thread about this. Nostalgic novels, YA books, current titles you discovered very randomly...

FlorbelaEspanca · 21/06/2025 12:08

TragicMuse · 09/05/2025 10:44

For the Victorians, we have a lot of Mrs Ewing! All still at my mum’s.

.

FlorbelaEspanca · 21/06/2025 12:04

Sleep in peace by Phyllis Bentley

Scottish readers will likely know The house with the green shutters by George Douglas Brown; English one (like me) will be much rarer.

Those of Arnold Bennett's novels that aren't usually reprinted: for example A man from the north, Helen with the high hand, Lord Raingo, Imperial Palace.

shellyleppard · 18/06/2025 22:28

Definitely the dark tower by Stephen king. If i find a fellow reader I follow them and start a conversation about it lol

JudyInDisguiseWithGlasses · 18/06/2025 19:25

Porky by Deborah Moggach. Very dark but beautifully written as all here are, especially her more vintage stuff.

YourAmplePlumPoster · 15/05/2025 08:03

DeanElderberry · 09/05/2025 18:42

I didn't get on with Beverly Nichols' children's books but loved his slightly twee books about gardening and houses and cats and village communities - fiction but set more or less in places he actually lived in. Come to think of it, they mightn't be a bad re-read.

You've jogged my memory and I remember eagerly lapping up those books in my teens.

sueelleker · 13/05/2025 20:18

The poem that Jo wrote makes me cry.

NotSoFar · 13/05/2025 20:11

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 13/05/2025 19:21

When I first read Good Wives I dismissed Beth’s death as maudlin - typical of its age. As an adult, who has lost a sister, I found it… emotional. It is a realistic, if somewhat sanitised scene, when a much loved daughter and sister dies. And now I’m crying.

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I can take or leave Beth whom I find tiresomely Angel in the House-y, but I think Jo’s grief and suppressed anger and sense of personal crisis as the ‘daughter at home’ afterwards are very well done.

NotSoFar · 13/05/2025 20:08

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 13/05/2025 15:58

Ahhh yes - the Robin singing to Joey, to save her from pneumonia.

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Clearly the Robin should have been sent to various deathbeds in 19thc fiction to sing The Red and thereby save Little Nell, Beth March, Smike, Helen Burns etc.

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 13/05/2025 19:21

MissRoseDurward · 13/05/2025 15:42

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies.

Should have sung The Red Sarafan. Then she'd have lived.

I've never read Seven Little Australians because I knew Judy died.

Beth's death (which I also knew about in advance) was sufficient. I didn't need any more Victorian deathbed scenes.

When I first read Good Wives I dismissed Beth’s death as maudlin - typical of its age. As an adult, who has lost a sister, I found it… emotional. It is a realistic, if somewhat sanitised scene, when a much loved daughter and sister dies. And now I’m crying.

Sleepthief · 13/05/2025 16:51

LoyalGreenHam · 07/03/2025 20:12

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea. Gearing up to read it to my daughter but terrified it won’t be as magical as I remember it!

One of my favourite kids books!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 13/05/2025 15:58

MissRoseDurward · 13/05/2025 15:42

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies.

Should have sung The Red Sarafan. Then she'd have lived.

I've never read Seven Little Australians because I knew Judy died.

Beth's death (which I also knew about in advance) was sufficient. I didn't need any more Victorian deathbed scenes.

Ahhh yes - the Robin singing to Joey, to save her from pneumonia.

TragicMuse · 13/05/2025 15:44

CatChant · 13/05/2025 15:11

Judy’s death is harrowing.

It really is! Poor Meg, only 14, having to be the grown-up while her sister is dying. Bunty clinging to her foot. Pip running 10 miles to get help and 10 miles back. It’s utterly devastating.

MissRoseDurward · 13/05/2025 15:42

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies.

Should have sung The Red Sarafan. Then she'd have lived.

I've never read Seven Little Australians because I knew Judy died.

Beth's death (which I also knew about in advance) was sufficient. I didn't need any more Victorian deathbed scenes.

NotSoFar · 13/05/2025 15:34

lcakethereforeIam · 12/05/2025 20:55

I've seen the film! I meant to read the book but I don't believe I ever got round to it. Wasn't the author shot as a traitor?

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It depends what you mean by ‘traitor. He was executed by firing squad by the Provisional Government in Dublin in 1922, having served in the Boer War, become dusillusioned with British imperialism, run guns into Ireland before WWi which were used in the 1916 Rising, served in the British Navy, been a Sinn Féin MP, been part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, vehemently opposed the Treaty, went on the run with the anti-Treaty forces in Cork during the civil war (where he hid out briefly on my grandfather’s farm) and was denounced and captured in his own house in Wicklow.

He had one of those terribly dashing deaths where he shook hands with the firing squad and made his teenage son (who became president of Ireland in the early 1970s) vow he would meet and shake hands with everyone who had signed his death warrant.

CatChant · 13/05/2025 15:11

Judy’s death is harrowing.

TragicMuse · 13/05/2025 14:53

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 13/05/2025 13:44

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies. Very Victorian.

‘It’s getting very dark Pip’…

😭

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 13/05/2025 13:44

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies. Very Victorian.

MementoMountain · 13/05/2025 11:52

TragicMuse · 12/05/2025 22:28

Not from tick bite. Judy gets very ill after she runs away from school and journeys home in rain and cold. They go to Yarrahappini and then she saves the baby (The General) from a falling tree…at cost to herself…

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Good grief. I remember the baby being known as the General, but had completely blanked the death of the sister!

I'd be a terrible court case witness.

Stowickthevast · 13/05/2025 08:04

Oh maybe I'm getting it confused. I did Google and definitely remember the black cover with all the children.

sueelleker · 13/05/2025 07:28

Don't know, but one of the girls dies saving her brother from a falling tree.

TragicMuse · 12/05/2025 22:28

Stowickthevast · 12/05/2025 21:48

In Seven Little Australians, does one of the children die after being bitten by a tick?

I think I was given it aged 9 when we had just moved to Australia temporarily, and remembered being terrified - not least because I had no idea what a tick looked like.

Not from tick bite. Judy gets very ill after she runs away from school and journeys home in rain and cold. They go to Yarrahappini and then she saves the baby (The General) from a falling tree…at cost to herself…

Stowickthevast · 12/05/2025 21:48

In Seven Little Australians, does one of the children die after being bitten by a tick?

I think I was given it aged 9 when we had just moved to Australia temporarily, and remembered being terrified - not least because I had no idea what a tick looked like.

lcakethereforeIam · 12/05/2025 20:55

mathanxiety · 09/05/2025 18:56

Has anyone else read The Riddle of the Sands, by Erskine Childers?

Very likely out of print at this point.

I've seen the film! I meant to read the book but I don't believe I ever got round to it. Wasn't the author shot as a traitor?

Terpsichore · 12/05/2025 15:40

Arraminta · 12/05/2025 10:39

Oh I didn't know that? What was the Madeline Smith case?

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I haven’t read the books mentioned, but Madeleine Smith was a 19thc Scottish girl of a wealthy family who conducted a passionate illicit affair with a young man from the Channel Islands, Emile L'Angelier. There were compromising letters and when she tried to break off the affair because her parents were marrying her off to a suitable fiancé, L'Angelier threatened to go public. He died horribly of arsenic poisoning - Smith had been seen buying said arsenic - the letters were found and Smith was tried in 1857. Famously, the case was found 'not proven' and there’s been argument ever since over whether or not she actually killed him.
She moved to America eventually and didn’t die till 1926.

InigoJollifant · 12/05/2025 10:41

I found Lovers All Untrue so depressing!