Books you thought no one else has read

My great uncle was a friend of Laurie Lee. My copy of Cider With Rosie has a personal message to my uncle.

When I was in a church (appropriately enough in the Cotswolds) waiting for the banns to be read for my marriage, we got to the prayers for the sick. My sister’s name featured fairly prominently (she was in ITU at the time). I should have been upset, but I found myself giggling, remembering Laurie Lee’s boast that he’d been the subject of the Sunday prayers for weeks in CWR. My sister, like Laurie Lee, had several weeks of prayers, but did pull through.

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius You might enjoy U A Fanthorpe's poem Dear Mr Lee about studying Cider With Rosie. https://anotherhand.livejournal.com/81641.html

Interestingly Kes didn’t seem to feature at all . I suspect it may have been a class reader in the 70s but not in our all girls’ convent in the southeast! A friend of mine who was the school librarian had a prolonged argument with Chief Nun about whether it was permissible to have Catcher in the Rye in the school library. In the end she allowed it in the Restricted section.

What, no Kes? My school had cupboards literally full to bursting of school editions of Kes from the 70s that we were made dutifully to trudge through in the 90s, on the basis that if you were growing up in a poor area of a depressing Northern town, what you’d absolutely love to read about is growing up poor in a depressing Northern town.

We also had Cider With Rosie and To Kill a Mockingbird, but Of Mice and Men also featured heavily as well.

I did O level English Lit in the early 80s, and we did To Kill A Mockingbird, @pollyhemlock - and it completely spoiled the book for me. Having to pick it apart in such detail took away any pleasure in it. I am an avid reader and often reread books, but this is one that I have never, and will never reread. I haven't read her other book either.

I know that you need to study a book in depth, to pass exams, but surely it is counterproductive to do it to such an extent that there is no pleasure left in the book at all?

In the late 60s early 70s there seemed to be a rotation of 3 novels set for O level: Cider
with Rosie; Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird. Occasionally Hardy’s The Woodlanders was set by way of variation. LOTF and TKAM still feature on the English syllabus but not CWR, as far as I can see.

Also read Cider with Rosie for O level. Thought it was great and would really like to reread it .

I did it too probably about the same time as you. Back in the day as they say. A glorious book. Probably banned today,

I did Cider with Rosie as an O level set text in the days when O levels were a thing ( I’m quite ancient) . Not sure it would be set now what with the murder, attempted rape, underage sex and incest. Certainly emphasises the darker side of rural life.

Cider with Rosie, don't know if it's been mentioned.

@Terpsichore and @ChessieFL

Well, that's put me in my box! 😂

I’ve read Mr Bowling too! Think it got discussed on our 50 Books thread at
some point.

I read that a couple of years ago, @MrsMappFlint - do you listen to the Backlisted podcast? Andy Miller, one of the hosts, was singing its praises because it had been reprinted, so I grabbed it when I spotted a copy secondhand. Agree that it was entertaining enough, but not earth-shattering. I’ve got another of Henderson's books to try, which I haven’t got round to yet.

I've just finished, Mr Bowling Buys a Newspaper by Donald Henderson, first published in 1943.
Raymond Chandler called it the best book he had ever read.

It wasn't the best book I have ever read. Set just after the war, Mr Bowling goes about murdering men because he wants to be hanged. A bit strange but under 200 pp.

I'll be surprised if many people have read it.

The case of the silver egg by Desmond Skirrow. A Blytonesque plot of children outwitting criminals when the police are too stupid to, but so much better done. It's very funny - by using child characters he sends up the thriller genre (James Bond carries a pistol and drinks Martini; the hero here carries a water pistol and drinks strawberry Nesquik), it gives an atmospheric portrayal of south London and the Surrey commuter belt of the mid-1960s, and at what Orwell called the narrow technical level it's superbly written.

Anything by Rodie Sudbery, but especially The pigsleg. Sudbery is now sadly in eclipse; I remember her daughter writing that she had started a PhD because her children's books could no longer get published.

Moving up to adult books, Katherine Govier. She's Canadian, and I think only three of her ten novels have been published here, Random descent, Between men and Three views of crystal water. I got the rest direct from Canada: I especially recommend Angel Walk and The Three Sisters bar and hotel. And Canada is popular at the moment: why not explore these?

Holtby was a Yorkshirewoman. The Land of Green Ginger is the name of a street in Hull.

I've read that.

@AlbertCampion You're welcome - hope it is the one - and I'd very much recommend the other Rebecca Wait book I mentioned too.

Thank you so much @FrostyMorn! That does sound like it - I’ve ordered a copy and will reread. It has been bugging me for ages so I can’t thank you enough!

@AlbertCampion
This sounds like The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Wait. Desperately sad! I listened to it on audible having read her more recent novel I'm Sorry you Feel That Way which I found really funny - not fully appreciating the subject matter (and rather stupidly I listened to it on a holiday - did rather cast a shadow!). But it's beautifully written.

Just finished this. Thank you so much - what a lovely book.

@Whatafabulousoaktreesadly it’s not that, although I now want to read it!

I read it around the same time as I read We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and The Shock of the Fall - so I think it was possibly popular around then.

Could this have been Patrick Gale, A Perfectly Good Man? Barnaby sat with Lenny, as I recall

I LOVE Monica Dickens, especially Marianna, and such a coincidence as I recommended her to a friend of mine only today and sent her a picture of my Monica shelf which as 17 of them! Beautifully written, absorbing stories and not at all saccharine - was devastated by Thursday Afternoons and couldn't read it again. Kate and Emma is hard-hitting too. Great to find another fan!

This seems like a good place to ask: I’m searching for a book I’m sure I read with my book group about ten years ago. It’s narrated by a young man who is estranged from his parents. Gradually, we find out that his father can’t forgive him because he sat with his suicidal brother when he took pills and didn’t get help. It was very sad - the narrator explains at the end that his brother had tried to kill himself numerous times and he had come to realise that the best thing he could do to help him was to make sure he felt safe and loved as he ended his life. It made a real impact on me, but I can’t find anyone who remembers it at all! Am starting to think I dreamt it. Does it ring a bell with anyone?