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 often go for Miss Silver if I want a cosy bedtime read and have nothing else suitable to hand. I know most of them so well that I can dip in and out rather than read the whole book. They're all on fadedpage.

"Fame is the Spur." Howard Spring. And there was a fantastic series on the BBC back in the day in the eighties. A socialist politician who betrays his earlier beliefs. 😄 sounds familiar

Thanks for the fadedpage tip @MissRoseDurward , there are quite a few non-Miss Silver ones there that I haven't read. yet.

……with her needles held low, in the continental fashion 😂

……with her needles held low, in the continental fashion

I've just watched a video of someone doing it that way. It looks very awkward when you're used to doing it the other way, but maybe I'll try it one day.

@pollyhemlock I have been reading Nella Last’s Peace (mass observation diaries) and she loved the Herries books - first time I came across them!

@MissRoseDurward I recognise your name - GH?

@SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius if nobody else has clamoured for them, I would take the Lone Pine books! My aunt had them & I loved them as a child but never read them since.

oh tush, I knew I knew the name but couldn't immediately place it, and I read that book within the last three weeks!

Has anyone got an opinion on whether Miss Silver's walnut-framed steel engravings were the black-and-white versions or coloured? her room is so bright and cheerful generally that I'd prefer them to be coloured, but understand that both price and taste make the B&W more likely.

or - that's the Black Brunswicker, and of course I've googled them all

@InigoJollifant I loved The Good Companions as I assume from your name you do. Again it was one of my
mother’s favourites. Must give it a reread sometime. So many books…

That's a beautiful painting!

Isn't it? I've just googled, and the young woman model was Charles Dickens' daughter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Brunswicker

Miss Silver's pictures (and her study furniture) are referenced repeatedly in the books, and there's a sense that a mid 20th century reader should know what they looked like even while finding them old-fashioned.

Me! I am also a massive DWJ’s fan. I loved the Crown of Dalemark but I still had questions at the end. The Spellcoats is my favourite. I enjoyed the Rupert/Mallory Magid books but Year of the Griffin isn’t one of my DWJ favourites (it’s still good though).

It was interesting to see some other DWJ fans on here who enjoyed Mary K Harris. I have my copies of Penny’s Way and Seraphina. They don’t seem to be a natural match to Diana Wynne Jones in content.

I loved both - they are very different, but both intelligently written with space for imagination to emerge. MKH's first book, Gretel at St Brides, published in 1941, was almost a conventional school story, except Gretel was a Jewish refugee from Germany.

I really want a final Dalemark book. I wonder did the notes she left behind hold any clues?

I’m often surprised by the books people have read. A while ago, I really got into the Victorian aesthetes. I had been reading Harold Bloom and was inspired by his love of Walter Pater. I ordered a couple of Pater’s books online and was amazed to discover that a work colleague wrote her university dissertation on Pater! I’d barely met anyone else who’d even heard of him.

A few other writers no one seems to read (just curious to see if anyone on this thread is familiar with them):

Swinburne
Ford Maddox Ford
A E Housman
Lawrence Durrell
Henry Green
David Lindsay

I love A E Housman's A Shropshire Lad. I recently saw Tom Stoppard's play The Invention of Love with Simon Russell Beale as AEH looking back at his life and unrequited love.

I also liked The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford.

Housman and Swinburne yes, Green and Ford as names, Durrell as brother Larry. Lindsay's name meant nothing but googling him I was reminded that I'd read something, no idea what, about A Voyage to Arcturus as an influence on Lewis and Tolkien.

I think that about half a century ago I tried to read the Alexandria quartet, without success.

I’ve read A Voyage to Arcturus

not a great fan of Ford Maddox Ford

read a Lawrence Durrell because of his brother!!

Lots of copies of Fattypuffs and Thinifers on ebay. I loved this one as a child too - think it was on Jackanory once.

I know of all those people. But then the 19thc, and the early 20th, are very much my thing.

(And especially Housman, particularly because a number of composers made beautiful settings of poems from A Shropshire Lad)

Housman and Lawrence Durrell, yes. (I'm slightly ashamed to admit to trying Durrell only in order to see what he was writing while his irritating little brother took the mickey.)

Not the others. Would you recommend them?

@InigoJollifant Yes, The Tollgate. One of the things I love about GH is her wonderful secondary characters. Some of them are almost Dickensian. I think Papa Chawleigh is my favourite, but there are many others.

Miss Silver's pictures (and her study furniture) are referenced repeatedly in the books, and there's a sense that a mid 20th century reader should know what they looked like even while finding them old-fashioned.

The peacock blue curtains and carpet, looking a little worn and shabby after the war, and the many silver filigree photo frames with pictures of babies...

Of course they genuinely do reflect Miss Silver's personal taste, but also create a reassuring ambience for potential clients.

George S Schuyler is another one I came across and found really interesting

Kobo Abe
Robert Sheckley
Anna Kavan

most of the Penguin Science Fiction classics really!

Thank you for favouring my papa!

@JennyChawleigh

I thought I had seen you around here, Miss Chawleigh. (Being only a nursemaid/maidservant myself, I could not presume to address you as Jenny.) I hope Mr Chawleigh is well. Or should I be saying Alderman Chawleigh?

Oh this is such a wonderful thread! It’s sent me on a happy half hour looking through my childhood bookshelf. Here are some favourites that have all been mentioned above. It’s so lovely to be reminded of them - I am going to do lots rereading!