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...

It’s a wonderful book and I always look for Elizabeth Cambridge at every secondhand bookshop I go into, but I’ve never found anything else by her. She wrote 5 other novels, according to Wikipedia.

It’s certainly intense and unusual. There’s also some sort of caveman iirc.

I think the caveman character is meant to be the very first 'watcher' on Alderley Edge (as Cadellin was).

Has anyone mentioned The Dark is Rising quintet by Susan Cooper?

Ah yes I think you’re right. Must have another look at it.

Read this book on school. Loved it.

Loved these as well.

Other book that I have never met any other readers of is Gwyneth Jones 'Bold As Love' and the sequels.

It's been republished in Sci-fi masterworks series so obviously some people somewhere have read it...

And, I think that Colin is the current 'watcher' which is why he's very reluctant to leave The Edge (and why he has to physically live on The Edge in a glorified shed, rather than in a conventional house nearby).

Absolutely love these books. I re-read The Dark Is Rising every Christmas.

Yes- I’m sure you’re right. Alan Garner is fascinated by quantum physics and also by myth and landscape , so I think he is blending the two interests in this book. He does something similar in Treacle Walker. Another very strange book.

As an angst-ridden teenager I loved the novels of Jane Gaskell. The Serpent, The Dragon, Atlan. The Shiny Narrow Grin. YA science fiction Zenna Henderson The People.

I have read a lot of books on people's lists, in particular I remember A Girl of The Limberlost. I liked Victorian and Edwardian novels. The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett was lovely.

Oh Miss Silver! Her characters all seemed to have a loyal old nanny who would tuck them up in bed with TWO hot waterbottles. That is now my definition of cosiness.

Just remembered Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs. Probably questionable nowadays re age gap!

It’s less the age gap than the power-differential, grooming and longterm deception — this man is in some authority position over an orphanage, selects one of the girls to attend university on the basis that she writes to him monthly without him disclosing his identity, then he befriends her and later courts her during her holidays without disclosing who he is, while she’s still entirely financially dependent on him!

Yes red flags all over!

But she very stubbornly insists on getting a vacation job, not once but twice I think, and returns a check. Possibly also gets a scholarship that covers two years of fees. Undertakes to continue writing the letters, since he is still subsidising her, but sticks to it.

It's ages since I read it, but Judy does assert her independence. And points out that a boy would do the same thing (the rich man has given the same deal to boys from the orphanage in the past).

Very good points.

Yes red flags all over!

I’d forgotten about Daddy Long Legs - as you say nowadays readers would be horrified, yet it was a very popular and much loved book.

I think the narrator/heroine was so appealing, that was the book's charm.

Several Georgette Heyer Books had big age gaps, too. I just mentally age up one, age down another! Easy to do as a reader, bit harder in a movie.

I think what you see in Hollywood films is almost an echo of Victorian values...powerful sexy older man paired with much younger partner. Like silver backed gorillas having their pick of the young females. Yuck.

I wonder which books that are popular today will shock readers in 50 years time.

Interesting question! I hope people will still be reading books.

And the film of Daddy Long-Legs starred Leslie Caron (aged 24) opposite Fred Astaire (aged 56)….

Exactly!

The Irish RM stories of Somerville & Ross. People watched the TV series with Peter Bowles but no one I know read them. Have seen reference to The Real Charlotte on MN.

@InigoJollifant & @MissRoseDurward, very true about GH's splendid secondary characters. The Foundling is full of them, the crook who plots the kidnapping is a gem.