Books you thought no one else has read

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

I loved The Lute Player and Lovers All Untrue. Loosely based on the Madeline Smith case.

Has anyone else read The Crowthers of Bankdam?

I may have read it a long time ago. I've definitely read Dover Harbour, by the same author (Thomas Armstrong) and I think I read King Cotton.

Has anyone read anything by Kenneth Roberts? He wrote long historical novels set in America mostly around the time of the American Revolution.

And Elswyth Thane? She wrote a series (The Williamsburg series) featuring linked American and English families from the time of the American Revolution down to the Second World War, taking in a lot of national and international events.

Oh, just looked and there are cheap Kindle editions. Surprising, because some of the books are set in the American South, and I'd have thought that (while perfectly OK for the time they were written) they wouldn't be acceptable today.

Has anyone else read The Crowthers of Bankdam? I read it around the end of primary school, & re read it for years but have lost my copy. Must get one & see what I think of it now!

Sorry that's How Far To Bethlehem

Thank you. Gad's Hall was the very first Norah Lofts book I ever read, and then I was absolutely hooked. I can't believe she's no longer in print?

My all time favourites are The Town House trilogy and her Knight's Acre trilogy. Of her stand alone books, I think I love The Lute Player and How Far To Jerusalem the most?

I've read Seven Little Australians too, @Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies - I remember the TV series from when I was a child. I didn't realise there was a sequel, though - off to Amazon for me!

Such a great description @Araminta (and araminta is such a norah Lofts name :) )

I reread Gads Hall and The Haunting of Gads Hall nearly every year.

Oh I absolutely love her! I am (slowly) collecting all her books. Have just finished 'Madselin' and 'Day of the Butterly'.

There's a real gritty, edginess to her books. You can feel the dirt beneath your feet, and smell the smoke from the hearth. People are revealed as being envious, malicious, and outright twisted, even children.

I think all of Kate O Brien's offer something. She writes wonderfully about beauty - so even The Last of Summer has that - plus the mother in law from hell :)

I've not only read Seven Little Australians, but also its sequel (The House at Misrule).

Yes, by Eileen Bell. My children enjoyed these, still have copies of them in the loft.

I’ve read Seven Little Australians @LittleBitofBread

also Molesworth, George MacDonald and Angela Brazil. Love Angela Brazil! My daughter has read a lot of them too as you can get them free on kindle.

It’s great to meet another fan of As Music and Splendour! The usual KOB narrative is that the quality of her work tailed off after That Lady, but AMAS is by far my favourite of hers (and I think The Flower of May is underrated too…) For me, her poorest novel is The Last of Summer.

I love The Riddle of the Sands, though I must reread it — it’s been years.

I have also read Riddle of the Sands. One of my late father’s favourite books and a great spy story. Actually features a character called Carruthers of the Foreign Office.

Yes to Erskine Childers.

I loved As Music And Splendour - but I love all of Kate O Brien's novels. would highly recommend them.

Norah Lofts is another writer who has fallen out of fashion but is excellent. I regularly re-read her.

That's the Nichols link I meant to post earlier

/https://www.goodreads.com/series/96575-allways-trilogy

Yes, I've read the Riddle of the Sands

Childers - a brave man, a gentleman, and a true patriot.

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

Yes! Arthur Ransome meets John Buchan.

Don't know if it's in print, but it's out of copyright, so it'll be free online on Project Gutenberg or somewhere.

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

Very likely out of print at this point.

I read Tristram Shandy. Took me about 5 years, because he takes half the bloody book just to be born.

I decided lfe is too short ever to read Moby Dick.

I see them categorised here as 'memoirs'; he moved from the village in Huntingdonshire to London (during the war) and then to a Georgian house he called 'Merry Hall' in the books. Very funny, acute observation of character, and good plant talk.

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.

This sounds so heavenly that I've just impulse-ordered a paperback from Amazon!

I LOVED ThePhantom Tolbooth. It's probably actually a bit clever-clever and annoying (the car that goes without saying...), but at the time it was an eye-opener for me in how you could play tricks with language.

I've read those! (In French!)