Books you thought no one else has read

[tweetysylvester]

It's so fun to find rare books to read, or just look up or hear about less known books, so thought I'd start a thread about this. Nostalgic novels, YA books, current titles you discovered very randomly...

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy - it is well known, loads of people must have read it…but I haven’t met one

I've read it, years ago, so long I can barely remember it, but the title is memorable!

I rarely meet anyone who reads Pynchon or Donald Barthelme

'The Semi-Attached Couple' and 'The Semi-Detached House' by Emily Eden. First published in 1860.

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea. Gearing up to read it to my daughter but terrified it won’t be as magical as I remember it!

The Lymond Chronicles

I’ve read those , love them. I have them in a Virago edition from the 1980s.

You will find a very vocal Lymond fan group on MN. Dorothy Dunnett regularly comes up on any historical fiction recommendations. My desert island books.

That reminds me that I’ve had a copy of it sitting on my bookshelves, for over a year now. I’ll have to try to read it soon.

Adele Parks ... Playing away

I read and like Barthalme but I just couldn’t get on with Pynchon! I do intend to try again one day.

I read this as a child. I’m still not sure I quite got what was going on! I read it at the same time as Alan Garner, so it all got a bit mixed up with The Weirdstone of Brisingamen in my head.

Not all Pynchon, try The Crying of Lot 49, it's fairly manageable compared to some.

I think that most of mine are children’s and YA books that I used to love.

The House of Rats by Stephen Elboz. It was a rather strange and eerie book but I loved it as a child. I’ll have to buy a copy and read it again.

@LoyalGreenHam - I loved that book! So imaginative

'Stranger in the Forest'
My parents' copy lay on the coffee table my whole life. I read it when younger, then my DP read it when we visited my parents, loved it, so I had to buy our own copy to sit on our coffee table!

'Dangerous Angels' or the Weetzie Bat books, as it is sometimes known. My copy was passed around all my female friends as a teen, eventually disappearing... I ordered myself another last year with the exact cover I'd had originally.

Loved this book!

The flesh eaters by L.A Morse.

read it as a 13 year old. Still feel sick now over 25 years later

This is going to sound a bit pretentious but it's not really. If you travel to Iceland you can't escape the work of an author called Halldor Laxness, particularly his best-known work Independent People. It's an incredible novel about the life of an isolated farmer and the changing times he lives in. It's a fantastic book. It's nice to finally be able to recommend it!

The City Boy by Herman Wouk

The Water of The Hills by Marcel Pagnol. The film adaptations are well known but the books much less so. (At least in the UK)

I love this book!

A children's book called The Gauntlet by Ronald Welch. It was my absolute favourite as a child, and I still read it every now and again for the comfort/nostalgia. It's often described as a children's classic, but I have never met another person who has actually read it.

The tobacco lords trilogy by Margaret Thompson Davies. I couldn’t get on with any of her other books, but this is wonderful! Like a Jacobean soap opera really. Reminded me of forever amber for some reason

Oh blimey. Read those as well - Jean de Florette and Manon des Sources? This seems to be my 80s book reading thread!