The most under-rated books you have read - recommendations please

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

OK - they are doing overrated books over in AIBU - let's do under-rated because I'm bored of being negative.

These are my favourites that need dusting off and distributing to everyone instead of the usual McEwan / Franzen / Orange / Booker / TV adaptations snooze-fests.

Main Street - Sinclair Lewis.
Beautiful book about a young woman's growing disillusion with suburban life in the midwest.

Angel - Elizabeth Taylor
I know she is raved about by those who know but it's time for her to be famous and exalted. Amazing book about an Edwardian romantic novelist who is totally deluded.

Damon Runyan short stories - hilarious vivid and brilliant - set in the New York of the 1920s and full of gangsters and molls.

The Sheltering Sky - Paul Bowles
Frankly weird but engrossing tale of travellers crossing the Sahara.

Please dig out all of the above and let me know your secret favourites.

Glad this thread hasn't died. Pleased to report that I have returned from the library today with Barbara Pym and am looking forward to curling up with her in the bath tonight.

"The Missing Extra" by Jacky Rom is a cross between a detective story and the glamourous world of fame and fortune. It tells the story of a young girl with a very pushy backstage mother who lands her first movie role and solves a mystery whilst on set. The book is fast paced and funny. This is the first in a series of 5 books the 2nd of which has just been published called "The Lost Script" Both books are worth a read my girls loved them, aimed at children age 8 - 12.

Might get this going again.....worth a try! I just remembered a book I used to love and haven't read for years - 'In This House of Brede' by Rumer Godden. It's about a businesswoman who enters a convent - sounds unlikely, I know, but it's a great book. Actually, all her books are well worth reading, not just 'Black Narcissus' which is probably her best-known now, I suppose, because of the film.

Oh, and something else I love is Betty MacDonald's books - 'The Plague and I' and 'The Egg and I' (there are a couple more, too). Not fiction, as they're based on her own life, but they're hilarious. The sort of book you go back to and curl up with contentedly on the sofa on a horrible winter afternoon.....must dig them out again!

In 1968 my family moved from deepest rural England to Berkeley California - for just one year. I think it was the culture shock that turned me into a compulsive reader - that and some lovely American kids' books. As well as classics like Laura I Wilder, I encountered: All of a Kind Family (about a poorish Jewish family of girls in New York); The Little Witch Girl, and a lovely picture book called Paddle to the Sea. Where are they now? Probably out of print. I was nine.

Has anyone read 'Lila Says'? It's anonymous and French and I loved it when I first read it. Must dig it out again.

Also I might be the only person who hadn't heard of 'Fugitive Pieces' by Anne Michaels but I suspect I'm not and it is an amazing novel.

Wow some wonderful books have been mentioned here - and huge numbers added to my 'wishlist'.

I love most of the books I've encountered by Marge Piercy. She's kind of like a cross between John Irving (think marvellous rich characters) and Margaret Atwood.

Also, the Bone People by Keri Hulme is awesome.

Teenage DD and I read, out load to each other, "The Evil Seed" by Joanne Harris, late nights on hols. Good spooky stuff.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield,
Snow by Max Fermine,
The Toucan Feather by N. Stafford-Deitsch
Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

... enjoy!

Evenkeel, thank you for reminding me about Betty MacDonald! I remember finding her books laugh out loud funny as a teenager (am now in my 40s).

Midnight's children by salman rushdie- controversial figure but a lovely fiction about children all born at the midnight hour.
plus have to seriously recommend christopher brookmyre as the sickest funny crime writer I have on our bookshelf (a scottish carl hiaasen if that means anything to anyone)

gone blank now... it's ages since i read a book apart from "what to expect in the first year"!!

Wonderful tingle in the spine when evenkeel recommends what I was going to - Betty Macdonald. Also i remember 'paddle to the river' as well marytuda, had completely forgotten it for years though! ds would love it I think.

I am back to let you all know that I am reading The Brontes Went To Woolworths and it is possibly the most brilliantly delightful and totally incomprehensible book I have ever read.

The Brontes Went to Woolworths is one of my favourite books. So glad it's not just me.

littlecheesypineappleone I studied knowledge of angels at a level, it's a brilliant book. I loved the idea of the religious iconography being terrifying to someone who had never come across it. Of course being 16-17 year olds we found THAT bit bloody hilarious!

I don't know if this book is underrated or not but one of my favourite books is angelas ashes, I'll always recommend it to people. I love how despite everything there's an undercurrent of hope all the way through. I tried to get DH to read it but he said the film depressed him too much so won't give it a chance.

Neil gaimon's Coraline is also a fab book, I'm not sure many people realised it even was a book when the film came out. It's a really quick read but extremely dark and creepy, loves it!

In terms of younger childrens books (coraline is a teen book I think) I've got two: the whales song, beautiful illustrations and a lovely story. Still have memories of my mum reading it to me when I was little. The other is the true story of the three little pigs, it's so quirky, the 'incident' is all a big misunderstanding the poor wolf has a streaming cold and all he wants from the little pigs is a cup of sugar! I've just bought this one to read to ds!

Did anyone hear ever enjoy 'the lone ranger and tonto fistfight in heaven' by sherman alexie?

In recent books have read A taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan about the Brontes and Nourishment by Gerard Woodward - both very good books that seem to have gone unnoticed.

In older books I have to say I am a devoted George Gissing fan - The Nether World, The Odd Women and New Grub Street are fantastic Victorian novels and shamefully overlooked.

Mrs Craddock by Somerset Maugham is a very good novel about a failing marriage - very funny too.

The Slaves of Solitude - a very sad but also funny book about boarding house life in the second world war by Patrick Hamilton is a geat read as is his book Twenty Thousand streets under the sky that has had a bit of revival lately ( BBC 3 made a drama of it a few summers back)

Great thread remimded me of some old faves that I must get again and some new things to try

Ooh - I've just been on Amazon and when I searched for 'Letters of a Fainthearted Feminist' the books that come up under 'Customers who bought this also bought' are all off this thread! It included Professor Branestawn ... surely that can only be in there because half MN is shopping from this thread?

Well ... it amused me anyway.

'Saki - Short Stories. Cannot understand why everyone hasn't heard of him. Sharp and hilarious.'

I'm on my third copy now, others have fallen to pieces through being over-read. I must get a quality hard back next time.

I like Jostein Garders other books, not just sophie's world which I think is always made out to be the best-particuarly through a glass darkly. And I really like the thireenth tale although I cant remember the writer.
I always think a good book is one that you think about a few days after finishing and wonder what happened next.

I adore Through A Glass Darkly, cry every time. Also The Christmas Mystery is another gem by him. A good one to read in the run up to Christmas!

There is a very good novel called "What Was Lost" by Catherine O'Flynn, which came out a couple of years back. It won the Costa First Novel Prize so I suppose it's technically not that underrated, but a lot of people seem not to have heard of it and it did suffer from a hideous cover when first released. Thankfully it has since been re-issued with something more intriguing.

Other under-rated/un-hyped novels I have enjoyed in recent years include "Soft" by Rupert Thomson, "Little Green Man" by Simon Armitage, "The H-Bomb Girl" by Stephen Baxter and "Wasted" by Nicola Morgan. Those are just a few off the top of my head really.

The Truth about Lorin Jones - Alison Lurie (in fact most books by Alison Lurie, including Don't Tell the Grown-ups - Subversive Children's Literature).

Letter's to Alice on first reading Jane Austen - Fay Weldon.

The Child that Books Built - Francis Spufford.

(Seems to be a bit of theme developing here).

Twoifbythesea Christmas mystery is brilliant and is read before xmas every year! I cry from about the fourth page of through a glass. :)

I was so glad to see someone else mention Robertson Davies, no one in RL has ever read any. My name is a RD character, my favourite character ever.

Mary Renault is also not much read now, she is a brilliant read. The Persian Boy is the most beautiful love story.

I love this thread, it has given me inspiration for my Amazon list.