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...

😮

Anyone remember and love Cynthia Harnett? The Wool Pack, Ring Out Bow Bells, The Load of Unicorn, The Great House, The Writing on the Hearth, Stars of Fortune. They were a fascinating introduction to periods of English history I never knew existed as a child when the school curriculum seemed firmly wedded to the Tudors. They are so well researched reading them felt like stepping into other and very different worlds.

I adored Stars of Fortune as a child and bought a second hand copy recently (and really want to visit Sulgrave Manor). Turns out lots of the 50 Bookers remember her books as well, I really want to read The Wool Pack now.

ETA: I don't know why her books are out of print, they are exciting stories with lotsof history. What's not to like?

I don't know why her books are out of print, either.

From above, I remember Swish of the Curtain and One Pair of Feet.

My recent revelation is that LM Montgomery, the author of Anne of Green Gables, also wrote adult fiction. I enjoyed The Blue Castle as a break from my usual diet of thrillers. Passed it on to a friend and she did too.

I always thought The Blue Castle had a lot of resemblance to The Ladies Of Missalonghi.

Such a lovely thread.

I've loved Monica Dickens, the Sue Barton books (remember when she treats an ancient man who was a bugle boy at the charge of the light brigade?), The semi attached couple and semi detached house.

on the rarely read line I would add Miss Marjoribanks by Mrs Oliphant. So so funny.

Also Mrs Bridges by Evan S Connell and Mr Bridges by same author. both made into a film with paul Newman and Joanne Woodward years ago but the books are lovely.

A librarian called Nancy Pearl published a book of lesser known authors worth reading a good few years ago (Book Lust- probably only available in the US) and she had some wonderful suggestions. Best of which was The Bear Went Over the Mountain.

Also anything by Laurie Colwin (again maybe only available in the US). She died very young but wrote some lovely cookbooks and novels.

And Strange Journey by Maud Cairns - recently reprinted by the British Library Women Writers 1930s series. Just great.

Pookie puts the world to rights.

I got addicted to the Jalna books by Mazo de la Roche as a young teen in the 1960s. They're awful but I still love them and re-read them 😁

I had a huge crush on Renny Whiteoak.

Bit horsey for me. Alayne never understood him though 😁

I couldn't stand Finch angsting all over the place.

Also anything by Laurie Colwin (again maybe only available in the US). She died very young but wrote some lovely cookbooks and novels.
And Strange Journey by Maud Cairns - recently reprinted by the British Library Women Writers 1930s series. Just great

Now, that is weird @Pallisers, as I’m reading a Laurie Colwin at this very minute and absolutely loving it. So funny and true. She was such a good writer.
And I read that Maud Cairnes book a few months ago - isn’t it great? If you haven’t read it I also loved One Year's Time by Angela Milne, from the same BL series.

My late mother was very fond of the Whiteoaks books but I could never get into them . The Herries chronicles by Hugh Walpole on the other hand I absolutely loved. First read them aged about 13 then at least twice more in my teens and 20s. The doomed romances! The Lake District scenery!

I had the Herries chrilonicles from my Granny, but I've never read them - she gave me the Jeremy books (also by Walpole), which I did love.

I never got into Mazo de la Roche either. I tried a couple. It's disappointing when there's an author who's written a lot but you just can't get into them.

I shall take a look. The Thorn Birds was epic but I never explored her writing further. Thanks.

@EBearhug I liked the Jeremy books as a child though even then they felt quite dated and I suspect they haven’t worn well. I listened to an unabridged audio of the first three Herries books a few years back and enjoyed them though not with the wholehearted love of my teens.

We read The Woolpack in high school in Y7 back in the late 80’s / early 90’s. Got to say, we all found it horribly dull. But I was thinking about it a year or so ago as I was doing a lot of reading of historical fiction from that time, and was thinking that now, I’d likely really enjoy it. Wool tariffs and trading didn’t seem that interesting as an 11 year old - we preferred the wizard of Earthsea! But now, I need to read it again!

The Ladies of Missalonghi is ringing vague bells with me, @sueelleker - I'll have to search out a copy and read it, to see if I've read it before.

@Talipesmum - I'd forgotten about the Earthsea books too. This thread is expanding my to-read list exponentially. Other posters have mentioned the Sue Barton books - they are on the list for a re-read too.

Does anyone on here want an almost complete set of the Malcolm Saville Lone Pine series? I have about three quarters of the set, but it is one series I have never felt the pull to re-read, so I need to get rid of it to make space on the bookshelves. I'm happy to hand it on, for a contribution towards the postage.

Lovely thread OP.

Big DWJs fan. The only complaint I had about her writing is that bookshops and libraries could never decide whether to shelve her books under W or J!

The Adventure Books by Willard Price that have really dated now. The exploits of Hal and Roger Hunt, collecting animals and making enemies who get their just desserts.

I love the Hounds of the Morris an and anything by Robert Westall. The Summer of my German Soldier still enrages me, although it's been years since I have read it. The way the heroine was treated by her family!

Two long favourite books are the King of the Copper Mountains by Paul Biegel and the Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban both, imo, quite melancholic. Not something I would think but be to my taste but the tales have stuck with me.

There was also a series of books that my sister and I would get as soon as a new title appeared in the library. This thread just reminded me of them. Unfortunately I don't remember the details. They were about a bunch of suburban children solving domestic mysteries, such as who put red paint on all the clay rabbits in the neighbourhood gardens. If anyone has any ideas....?

The DWJ book I really wish she'd lived to write was a final Dalemark book, explaining what really happened to the family that 'the historian' suggests suffered something improbably appalling. It's ages since I read the Dalemark books, I must go back to them.

Has anyone read The Year of the Griffin and the Magids books?

@terpsichore thank you so much - that Angela Milne book is free with my kindle unlimited! I just downloaded it.

Just like his flibbertygibbet mother 😁

I have read Year of the Griffin which I enjoyed though it wouldn’t be top of my list. I’m very fond of The Merlin Conspiracy which has Magid elements. Agree about Dalemark. Spellcoats is probably my favourite of the sequence but they’re all very good.

And what I've just started reading for the umpteenth time over the last 50+ years, one of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries - in this case Miss Silver Comes to Stay, first published in 1951. Whisper it, but in some ways, and specifically as comfort reads, I prefer Miss Silver to Miss Marple (Maud knitted her way through a novel-length investigation before Jane did).