Let's talk about slightly obscure books.

[ContessaLovesTheSunshine]

I'm currently reading the Saki short stories again, which I think are not especially well known. They are bitingly funny, incisive and cutting, but can also be incredibly bleak.

I just finished reading one of the longer ones about a mother who becomes estranged from her feckless adult son and I HOWLED - it's just too real. I have an overwhelming urge to go wake my boys with hugs (I won't. They would not thank me. But still). I strongly encourage anyone with mildly exasperating children to read just that story, if none of the others, purely for perspective.

Please recommend your own less-well-known gems

The Lumber Room is my favourite of those.
"Oh but can't possibly rescue you as I'm not allowed in there. You must be the voice of the Evil One".

"Aunt Clara" by Noel Streatfield is one of my favourite more obscure books.
Elizabeth Goudge: "Makebelieve" is wonderful, but also her adult book "The Bird in the Tree" gives such an atmosphere when reading it.

Clovis is one of the funniest characters in English Lit. Try W W Jacobs's collections of short stories both funny and macabre. "The Monkey's Paw" (very dark) is probably his best know story today but there's some funny ones as well. They have nautical titles such as "Deep Waters" or "Many Cargoes" as many of them feature sailors ashore in London docks.

Also, as a novel there's "The Hole in the Wall" by Arthur Morrison a minor classic IMO.

The two that always spring to mind first for me are:

Little Boy Lost Marghanita Laski

The Last Samurai Helen DeWitt

and I’d add

Great Granny Webster Caroline Blackwood

The Corner That Held Them Sylvia Townsend Warner

All four are staggeringly brilliant in too many different ways to describe.

I’m reading the playscript of The Three Birds by Joanna Laurens at the moment. Her use of language is astonishing.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity - Will Self ?
Anything by Robert Rankin ...

I have the Bodley Head Saki(Published 1963) inherited from my father.The Introduction is every bit a good read as the stories and so many of the characters and events in the stories can be traced back to events in Munro's own life. It's been a fixture in my life since whenever - now,thanks to you, due for a re-read.

Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. I have never been able to get it out of my head: to quote Wikipedia: "The novel's characters live a harsh life in a small area which is presently the English county of Kent, and know little of the world outside of "Inland" (England). Their level of civilization is similar to England's prehistoric Iron Age, although they do not produce their own iron but salvage it from ancient machinery. Church and state have combined into one secretive institution, whose mythology, based on misinterpreted stories of the war and an old Catholic saint (Eustace), is enacted in puppet shows."

We read Saki short stories in the first year of secondary and I loved them! I really should re-read them as an adult. Thank you for the reminder.

I love the short stories of Alastair Macleod The Lost Salt Gift of Blood - that's my obscure one for you.

@StoatofDisarray Riddley Walker has been on my "want to read" list for a while. Need to track down a copy of it.

I read a review of it a little while ago, which gave away some of the ending. Not sure how much of an actual spoiler it was, having not read the book yet, but the comments underneath the article criticised the reviewer for giving something crucial away.

Ok I love the Saki short stories.

Somehow got hold of them about 13 which sparked a love of literature.

Will be looking up recommendations

Gosh, I haven't read Saki in years, despite really loving them! Thanks for making such a great thread reminding me! I'm off to see whether I can get them on audiobook.

I dimly remember what I think might be a Saki story that made me laugh so hard I was crying. The hero arranged something akin to a 'Pan parade' with increasingly desolate local children trailing in a big line, while playing instruments very badly - if anyone knows the story, I'd be really grateful for the title!

Oh, and for my suggestion - I absolutely LOVE E F Benson's Lucia stories.

DS3 is reading my old copy of Riddley Walker ATM, it's captured his imagination, kind of appropriate considering I first lent it to his father in the 80's when we were " courting".
Little Boy Lost is so sad...

@OriginofSpecies I think I know what the reviewer gave away, and if anyone reading this is thinking of giving the book a try I urge you not to look it up, even on Wikipedia, as everyone seems determined to give away the "plot twist" in the first sentence!

It's written in a dialect, BTW, so best to read it out loud to yourself for the first few pages.

I think the book should be filmed or made into a play: it's very timely in what it says about mass media, disinformation, power, insularity, belief, etc.

Riddley Walker has been on my "want to read" list for a while. Mine too! Downloaded the free sample at the beginning of summer but have been too distracted even for that.

Why have I never read any Saki? His books were everywhere in libraries when I was a child, and he seems to be a writer that other writers recommend. But somehow I’ve never found a point of ... contact. And too many other things pressing now.

I read Saki's "The Open Window" at school when I was 14, I remember being told it was a perfect example of a short story - absolutely textbook. Still think it stands up as perfection!

www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/OpeWin.shtml

I dimly remember what I think might be a Saki story that made me laugh so hard I was crying. The hero arranged something akin to a 'Pan parade' with increasingly desolate local children trailing in a big line, while playing instruments very badly - if anyone knows the story, I'd be really grateful for the title!

Definitely a Saki story - one of the Reginalds I will see if I can track it down!

Most of the obscure books I remember I can't remember the names of. I remember reading a book when I was 8 that I loved.

I think it was called Enoch set I think during or around WW1 or WW2 about a boy who lived with his mum and older epileptic brother who went to visit his uncle and cousins on a farm and his sister in the city or fair. Turns out his sister was really his mother. His older brother was epileptic and his mother and the church congregation/vicar perform a exorcism and he dies and there was sugar mice.

Thats all I remember and I've been searching for years for this book but any and all googling just brings up the Book of Enoch.

@ContessaLovesTheSunshine - if you can track it down, I would be SO grateful! I would love to re-read it!

verticality - Reginald's choir treat

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! You have totally made my day!

"With strategic insight, he led his shy, bullet-headed charges to the nearest woodland stream and allowed them to bathe; then he seated himself on their discarded garments and discoursed on their immediate future, which, he decreed, was to embrace a Bacchanalian procession through the village. Forethought had provided the occasion with a supply of tin whistles, but the introduction of a he-goat from a neighbouring orchard was a brilliant afterthought. Properly, Reginald explained, there should have been an outfit of panther skins; as it was, those who had spotted handkerchiefs were allowed to wear them, which they did with thankfulness. Reginald recognised the impossibility, in the time at his disposal, of teaching his shivering neophytes a chant in honour of Bacchus, so he started them off with a more familiar, if less appropriate, temperance hymn. After all, he said, it is the spirit of the thing that counts. Following the etiquette of dramatic authors on first nights, he remained discreetly in the background while the procession, with extreme diffidence and the goat, wound its way lugubriously towards the village. The singing had died down long before the main street was reached, but the miserable wailing of pipes brought the inhabitants to their doors. Reginald said he had seen something like it in pictures; the villagers had seen nothing like it in their lives, and remarked as much freely."

Howling!!

Reginald's family never forgave him. They had no sense of humour

Got to love Reginald!!

I've a couple that I've read relatively recently. The Pink Suit by Nicole Mary Kelby. About the pink suit Jackie Kennedy was wearing when JFK was shot. From the point of view of one of the dressmaker/designers at the place in New York that made it for her. Full of fascinating detail about the business (and politics) of making clothes, and the lives of immigrants/second-generation citizens of New York at that time.

And The Household Spirit by Tod Wodika. It's hard to summarise but it's basically about two neighbours in the boondocks of upstate New York, both misfits. It's very original and surprising, and has a perfect ending. I LOVE it. When I looked into him it turned out he'd written another, but it's not nearly as good as this. I don't know if he's still being published or if he's been dropped.

When I was at school I read a book called "The Jacaranda Tree" which was set in Burma during the British Empire. I remember really enjoying it even at around 13/14. I have looked for it online to buy a copy, with no joy. Sometimes I think I have imagined the whole thing

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0413775992/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_njRuDb73NNKCT?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

This one, whocanbebothered?

Gwen Raverat's Period Piece is luffly. Completely uplifting and chucklesome.