Books you thought no one else has read

Dulcima by H E Bates. Though it was a novella, it made an impact on my younger self.

Philippa Gregory's early novels, especially the Wideacre trilogy, and The Other Boleyn Girl are far more impressive than her more recent, chick-lit paint, by numbers historical fluff.

Depends which early novels you’re talking about - not read the Wideacre Trilogy so can’t comment on that but she wrote a couple of more contemporary books, one of which (Zelda’s Cut) was very odd indeed! Like a completely different author.

Isaac Campion about a boy whose favoured older brother dies and he has to leave school and work on the family farm with his Brutish father. I read it when I was about 10 and it’s really stayed with me.

Two children’s books-Tales from End Cottage and More Tales from End Cottage. About a woman who lives in the country with two Dogs, Two Cats and some hens. She keeps Bees and gardens. It’s actually provided the blue print for the life I want (through I’ve only just realised it having found some battered old copies in my mums attic and re read).

I’ve never met anyone who’s read Pamela Belle - I particularly enjoyed the Heron quartet, The Moon In The Water, The Chains Of Fate, Alathea and The Lodestar.

I've read Pamela Belle! It was a long time ago and I don't remember the titles, though I think The Moon in the Water may have been one. She wrote about a seventeenth century family, as I recall.

I completely agree. I'm old enough to have taken O Level English Literature, also did the A Level and went on to do a Literature degree.

In the end, every last speck of pleasure I found in my subject had gone. I'd been trained to rip a book apart, dissect it, over analyse it, apply a Marxist interpretation, a Feminist interpretation, a Post Modernist interpretation, a Colonial interpretation, whatever. And all for what, exactly? It's just cleverness for cleverness sake.

Philippa Gregory's early novels, especially the Wideacre trilogy, and The Other Boleyn Girl are far more impressive than her more recent, chick-lit paint, by numbers historical fluff.

Georgette Heyer is still popular I think…didn’t they redo all the covers?

Not many people seem to remember Philippa Gregory’s early novels, before the Tudoring: Wideacre, The Favoured Child and Meridon. I think she’s kinda rejected them now, but at the time I loved them, despite the deeply odd incest storyline placed front and centre 😳

And apart from people I’ve lent to, I’ve never met anyone who’s read Pamela Belle - I particularly enjoyed the Heron quartet, The Moon In The Water, The Chains Of Fate, Alathea and The Lodestar.

I think loads of people read those. I finished April Lady a few days ago. I certainly have a few friends who are fans, and my copies were mostly inherited from my Granny.

Georgette Heyer's romantic novels about Georgian England.

Same here, couldn't get into Felix's books; they don't have the same depth as Dick's.

Dick Francis - another great writer. Loved his novels about horses!

Read all of his. Have also read some of his son Felix's books, but find them uneven in quality. Have given up on some of them.

Dick Francis - another great writer. Loved his novels about horses!

I didn't really care about his "far right" views as I just loved reading his novels. Anyway, I think his "far right views" about Communism turned out to be right as their systems were overthrown in the late eighties.

I liked Dennis Wheatley as a teenager. I now cringe at the thought of his far right views.

I read The Satanist as a teenager. Unfortunately, the last page was missing. In the days before World of Books/Amazon, tracking down a book was hard. It took me years to find a copy. It really wasn’t worth it.

The best of the Dennis Wheatley black magic books was definitely The Haunting of Toby Jugg.

The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley.

A school friend of mine was a great Dennis Wheatley fan, and our local library had a lot of his books, so I knew of them, but never felt like reading them.

The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley.

I have them all but haven’t read them recently, @Timeforatincture - they’re on a very high shelf, and I haven’t got round to asking one of the tall people in the house to get them down for me. 😳

Yes!!! Loved them - read them all. My mother had read them in her youth and recommended them to me. DM passed away some years ago and I'm over 60! Wonder if anyone still reads them?

@Boiledeggandtoast - I read Cider with Rosie as a young teen, and really loved it. Thinking back (an awful long way - I took my O levels in 1981), I don't remember any of the other books we studied in previous years being as badly spoiled for me as TKAM, so maybe it was the stress of having to study it for the exam that didn't help.

I definitely don't see myself ever rereading it.

We did FFTMC for the first year of GCSEs in 1988, but Hardy is unavoidable at school in Dorchester. I passed Max Gate on the way to and from school every day. We also did a load of his poetry.

We did TKAM in the 3rd year (now year 9) so I think that had been a set book at some point as there were loads of copies. It meant I learnt about Eli Whitney's cotton gin and the cotton boll weevil.

I did Far From The Madding Crowd for O level in 1981…

Followed by Tess in 1983.

It looks like the exam board were heavily in tragic mode at the time!

Books no one else has read…

Naughty Sophia by Winifred Letts. Very naughty girl, an arch-duchess, after one rudeness too far, gets sent to a poor family to learn her manners.

My stepmother had a copy which I read many times. I have recently got my own after years of searching.

I don’t remember FFTMC being a set text but I do remember everyone swooning over the film . Terence Stamp as Sgt Troy! We did Under the Greenwood Tree in what would now be Year 10. Not sure that it would enthral contemporary teenagers.

The Children of Green Knowe is the absolute top of my favourite childhood books.

Occasionally Hardy’s The Woodlanders was set by way of variation.

It was The Woodlanders, with FFTMC for the top set, at my school in 1969. I'm not aware of TKAM ever being set - my siblings followed me up the school, so I think I would have known.

We had extracts from CWR and LOTF lower down the school for reading and comprehension.