What's your favourite random book?

[BrendasUmbrella]

Like an obscure fiction book you love but have never heard anyone mention and maybe it's because it has a really off-putting cover? Or a non fiction book that's to do with a hobby you have zero interest in but the book captures your imagination anyway?

I think my favourite is Jane Asher's Fancy Dress. Jane Asher (ex girlfriend of Paul McCartney, not sure what else she is known for) makes fancy dress costumes for her celeb friends and family to model. My favourite is the jellyfish costumer that is literally an umbrella covered in bubble wrap and trimmed with metallic streamers. Or maybe Terry Jones as a topless girl with papier mache boobs jumping out of a cake... I found it in a charity shop and it has survived several bookcase culls, because I can't part with it!

How To Be Dead by Dave Turner. It was originally only online. The premise is a guy who has a near death experience & goes to work for Death (Grim Reaper). Doesn't sound great but it's funny and well written.

I've actually worn a costume from the Jane Asher Fancy Dress book in a play when I was younger

A book called Random Family by a girl who ran social research projects with Hispanic people in New York. Gripping true-life tales of drug-dealer dads and baby moms with hundreds of children - fascinating view of toxic masculinity.

The reader on the 6:15 (or maybe some other number, I can't quite remember!)
It's a beautiful short novel, quirky and has a good ending.

I remember jane Asher for her cakes and baking. Definitely not fancy dress 😁😁

Jane Asher is an actress.

I’ve read that too coughing

Here it is in all its horror glory.

My mum had that book! Used to love looking at it when I was a kid. I also had at least two costumes from there for plays. I can still remember the pins and the swearing!

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. One of the best sci-fi books ever! Read it 25 years ago and hardly found anyone else who has read it, but it's always in stock in Waterstones. Made into a film 3 years ago which, sadly, didn't do it justice.

Dreams of Leaving by Rupert Thomson. It was a not-for-sale copy left at the bookshop I worked at as a student. I was utterly entranced by it. I think he is a great author that not many people I know seem to have read.

I’ve worn costumes from that book as well

I like recipe books from the same era too.

The Days of Judy B by Rose Heiney. Published in 2008 and sank without trace, but it deserved to do much better than it did. It’s a brilliant exploration of the gap between our real lives and what we project to others - written before Facebook, Instagram etc really took off, but weirdly prescient of them.

I quite often buy random books from the Oxfam bookshop because the first page or so looks interesting. The one I just finished was great. It's called The Defeat of John Hawkins, about an Elizabethan slaving expedition that went wrong.

Don’t Knock the Corners Off by Caroline Glyn. Long out of print.

I love the "Wraethu" books - the original series is by Storm Constantine, and over the years she has encouraged and engaged with fan fic so there are several "canon" nooks by other authors too.
I have hardly ever "met" anyone else who has read them though.
I also love "A Companion to Wolves" which is one of those "If I had to explain, you wouldn't underdstand" type things which defies description but is just mind numbingly brilliant!

oops, "Wraeththu" even!

Into the Darklands.....obscure fantasy book by Michelle Sagara

"Moobli" by mike tomkies - tomkies had an incredible, varied life and part if it was what he was best known for; moving to the absolute middle of nowhere to monitor wildlife in scotland, nature writing. But he had a dog, a german shepherd, with him for company and this is the story of that dog - i defy any doglover not to cry come the end! Never met anyone who's read it.

Somewhat embarrassing, given my user name - 'Miss Piggy's Guide to Life' by Henry Beard. It has the most amazing photographs of Miss Piggy and her guide to dieting is outstanding . I love it though and can never bear to throw it out.

I also have a secret love for a book called 'Mission' by Patrick Tilly about Jesus returning to earth and how he finds modern life. It sort of fascinates me.

I was just thinking my user name actually comes from a photograph in that book

Rebecca's World by Terry Nation (creator of the daleks) it was read to me when I was at school and I could never remember the name of it, school friends said I must have dreamt it but I managed to find it years and years later and spent about £20 to buy it from a seller on eBay because it's no longer in print. Brilliant story with a fantastic female heroine.

The Little White Car, a kind of 'chic lit' romantic novel about the driver of the white fiat uno which was meant to have clipped the car that Princess Diana was travelling in when she died. The protagonist decides to dismantle the car and dispose of it piece by piece to avoid being traced.

Stuart a life lived backwards..about the chaotic life of stuart short. moving.

How to Survive Christmas by Gilly Cooper.

I’m not even a a Gilly Cooper fan, but I picked this up in a charity shop a couple of years ago. It’s kind of a combination of handy tips and a comic story about a family Christmas. It was written in the eighties, is hilariously dated and works on the assumption the reader is an upper middle class Cotswolds living housewife with a city banker husband. it’s a real peek into another time and world.