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 Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham

I relate. Not the book itself but at 13 I read one if my parents books

Let's go play at the adams'

Still feel sick when I think of it now 35 years later 😪

I’ve read it!

Lord of the Forest by BB is fantastic. Such a good childrens' history/nature story.

Not at all highbrow, but much-loved...

The Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton - about a young man who woos a young woman by sending her all the gifts mentioned in the Twelve days of Christmas.

Giggling in the Shrubbery- a collection of memoirs from women who attended boarding school in the early part of the 20th century. Very Chalet School/Malory Towers etc. Just splendid.

Read them! If I was at home I'd send you a pic of the Virago paperback 😀

Children’s book for me too: Silver Snaffles about a pony that could talk if his owner stood in a certain dark corner in the stable….. I loved it as a child. It belonged to my late mother and was published in the ‘30s I think …..

Is that Jean de floret in translation?

My DS loves Pynchon. I enjoyed The Crying of Lot 49.

May I recommend, or at least find anyone else who's read: St. Elmo or Saved At Last. (It gets a namecheck in E. M. Forster's Howard's End, being read by the housekeeper in the kitchen.) Trekkies might describe it as a Mary Sue.

"By American author Augusta Jane Evans published in 1866. Featuring the sexual tension between the protagonist St. Elmo, a cynical man, and the heroine Edna Earl, a beautiful and devout girl, the novel was about the agency of women who could save men from apostasy."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.Elmo(novel)

The Land of Green Ginger, by Noel Langley.

The Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles, by Julie Andrews.

I absolutely adored this book as a child. Phrases and mental images from it stop pop up in my head some 50y after I first read it. When I introduced my dds to it, they also fell in love with it.

When I brought up the issue that bothered me about the book (as an a parent), they're already spotted it: not going into strangers' houses etc. But, oh, the magic of that book! I can feel a re-read coming on 😊

Monica Dickens books-My Turn to make the Tea. One Pair of Feet and Marianna were books I enjoyed, more so than Charles Dickens (her grandfather I think)
Not met anyone who has read these, would be interested to know if people on here have!

Haven't read those Marcel Pagnole books, but recently enjoyed re watching Jean de Florette and Manon de Source films.

I love that book so much!

Oh I remember buying this when book seller people came to school in top juniors. A few of us all wanted to buy it because it had this amazing front cover with a woman with floods of long hair down each side, and we were all arguing about who was going to buy the last 3 copies. I remember loving it but not what it was about!

Oh! Wasn’t it a flying land? An island in the sky? This brings back very powerful but very vague memories for me!

Pidge and Bridget on an adventure… lots of Gaelic words that I never knew how to pronounce, like the bodb and tir na nog. Remember very little of the actual plot beyond loving it.

A children's series from me too: the Lone Pine adventures by Malcolm Saville. Out of print now, I'm sure. I read them in the 80s and they were quite old fashioned even then but vastly, vastly superior to Enid Blyton! Wonderful sense of place, including Rye and Dartmoor. And a truly menacing 'baddie'.

Also loved Hounds of the Morrigan and Alan Garner!

Yes, this! My dad shared it with us as it was one of his favourites.

Also in the same mental category are:
My Friend Mr Leakey (J B S Haldane)
and
The Wind on the Moon (Eric Linklater, Nicholas Bentley - creepy pictures)

I was going to say this! So now there are a few of us

I read the Lone Pine series. I still have some of my old copies.

Yes, a long time ago. Very enjoyable.

I don't think I've read any of these!

Mine is The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, the only other person I've ever met who's read it my ex-p (pretty sure I read it first though )

I have read this, in the dim and distant past - assuming it's a time-slip book?

I’ve read the Solitaire Mystery! Around 30 years ago, so can’t remember the story at all.

I’ve never met anyone who’s read Rebecca’s World… my teacher read it to my class when I was in year 3 and I always remember the bit where it says things are always in the last place you look, because once you’ve found it you don’t need to look anymore. That logic stuck with me when I was about 8!