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...

I've read it! I really enjoyed it.

Yes, i read Eleanor Farjeon. Also Ruth Manning-Sanders, illustrated by Robin Jacques.

@Tarkan I also read 'I Never Promised you a Rose Garden' and found it fascinating! As a teenager in about 1979. Maybe I've still got my old paperback around somewhere.. My copy gave the author's name as 'Hannah Green' but somehow I became aware this was the pen name of Joanne Greenberg.

But I just discovered that I can get it on Kindle, only £4.99.

Did you know that a film adaptation came out in 1977? About 3 or 4 years ago I bought it digitally on Prime, but I see it's no longer available there. But you can apparently stream it for free on something called Plex. Or the DVD is still available. The film was not bad but not a patch on the book, as often happens.

Oh Hannah Green definitely rings more of a bell than Joanne Greenberg does, thanks @Pemba

I didn't know there was a movie and I've just found out there was a play around 20 years ago as well. I'll have to keep an eye out for the movie though. Thanks!

Ooh, I loved those and the illustrations were fabulous. My favourite was The Book of Witches (I still have a treasured hardback copy.)

Eleanor Farjeon’s fairy tales have a particularly haunting quality. My favourite was Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep.

Oh I remember reading this! It was fantastic.

I’ve read and reread both the Monica Dickens books. Not sure how I came across them - I recall I had second hand copies.

Oh, I read I Never Promised You a Rose Garden too! My best friend was being diagnosed with schizophrenia around this time and it had a very powerful impact on me. I hadn’t read anything like it before. The whole theme about all her delusions having characters. Interesting, I remember reading recently that as part of therapy, people with psychosis were being encouraged to creat avatars for the voices they hear and that this was beneficial for them.

Yes I agree - and I have a copy of Eleanor Farjeon's "om Tiddler's Ground". The whole story plays on London placenames - the Batter Sea, the Swiss Cottage etc.

The dark tower series by Stephen king......horrendously long gap between publishing books though

I've not heard of Brendan Chase, thanks for the recommendation 😀

I loved the Lone Pine books, borrowed from the library in the late 70s. Malcolm Savile seems to have been completely forgotten.

Pynchon can be hard work but Mason
& Dixon is one of my favourite books

@FlatErica thank you - it sounds excellent.

I also loved all those Helen Forrester books as a teen, we must have had similar tastes!

Oh my god I loved this book as a kid! Can't remember anything about it now but seeing the title on this thread was a total flashback

Meant to say earlier, I lovedTheLand of Green Ginger. The two unappealing princes (one was called Rub Dub Ben Thud, but I can’t remember the other) and the magic carpet. Alas, my copy is long gone - this thread has inspired me to buy it for DD.

I really love old books and have enjoyed:

From Jest to Earnest by E. P. Roe
Red Dickon by Tom Bevan
Her Benny by Silas Hocking
From Death into Life by William Haslam

Has anyone else read any of those? I love nothing more than a good rifle through the vintage books in charity shops or second-hand book shops and have found some real gems.

From memory I think Tintac Ping Foo is the name of the other prince. Tried to find my copy to check but it seems to be mislaid in the house somewhere. Too many books, not enough organisation. 😁

Her Benny! That takes me back, @TakeMyLifeAndLetItBe, we had a copy of that at home, probably because my parents were both from Liverpool, where it’s set. I just googled and stumbled across an audiobook version of it on the Internet Archive, which is read by an American woman. Very odd hearing her try to render the dialect of two Victorian Scouse urchins….

Elizabeth Goudge books.
Green Dolphin Country is my favourite, the one I re-read when I feel under the weather and know chunks by heart but I also love Gentian Hill.
And all the Anya Seton books, not just Katherine.

Her Benny! I was given that as a child! It was a bit mawkish even for seven year old me, though - proper melodrama.

We had a copy of one called Zack and Debby, too. A proper Victorian cautionary tale that had been given to some poor unsuspecting child as a Sunday School prize. It was like proto-misery porn.

I was ‘adopted’ by the old lady next door when I was little, and she used to pass books on to me. One I loved was called ‘About My Father’s Business’ - a memoir of a little girl growing up above her father’s grocery shop. I think it might have been set around the 1930s. It had some lovely gentle humour in it, and I still remember odd lines from it to this day.

Green Darkness by Anya Seton is one of my favourite books, read it first in my late teens, and re-read several times. I read Katherine much later and didn't really see the attraction.
I didn't know the author was American until just now.

RF Delderfield - discovered in my mid-teens when I read Diana and To Serve them All my Days. I think some have read the Horseman Riding By books, but I preferred the Swann family trilogy, which seems less well known. I also enjoyed the WW2 Avenue books - partly because they were set near to where I live.

I recently read To Serve Them All My Days. My mother was a big Delderfield fan, but I'd never read one till this point.