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 also read Christmas With The Savages!

I love Christmas with the Savages!

NO WAY! I’ve never met anyone who’s even heard of it!

how wonderful!

I can't remember if I already mentioned the Uncle books on this thread. The author was JP Martin and Uncle was a very rich elephant who wore a purple dressing gown. He lived in an enormous castle and went off to explore various parts of it, and kept coming up against his sworn enemy Beaver Hateman and his family.

It sounds completely bat shit, but I loved them. When DS was little I tried to buy second hand copies for him but they were selling or hundreds of pounds! Eventually someone bought the rights and published them all in one volume.

A book I reread many times was Knight Crusader by Ronal Welch, I just loved it but couldn't interest DS in it sadly.

I remember the TV adaptation of Seven Little Australians, and being traumatised by it!

@tobee you have just given me such a nostalgia kick remembering those picture books by John S Goodall!

I know I bought that Edwardian Christmas that you show but I think he did several? There was one I remember where it showed a town changing throughout the centuries, ending in a very 1970s traffic jam snaking through the streets!
As a child I found them fascinating to look at, so much detail in the pictures. Later I remember buying them at birthdays and Christmas for my beloved granny who died in the 90s.I suppose the Edwardian ones reminded her of her childhood, she really liked them.

In a (slightly!) similar vein, does anyone remember the Friendship Books of David Hope? They were poetry anthologies (some well known/classic poets, some not) with full page colour illustrations. A new one would come out every year and I would look forward to getting it in my Christmas stocking. I was thinking about them the other day, and I found that they stopped being published about 10 years ago, shame! They might have been a bit cheesy I suppose but I loved them.

There was one I remember where it showed a town changing throughout the centuries, ending in a very 1970s traffic jam snaking through the streets!

I loved this book so much! I also remember the Edwardian one.

Actually those poetry books were the FIRESIDE books of David Hope, not Friendship. Maybe the title shows they were aimed at the pensioners of the day, but I must have been an odd kid as I loved them. 😊

Yes, I loved the Uncle books. The author had a fantastic imagination.

Does anyone else find that when you buy a secondhand copy of a beloved childhood book it has to be the same edition? A modern reprint just doesn’t work!

Especially given the tendency to update the text for modern audiences - from £sd to decimal, for example - and not have the original illustrations. I don't know if it's copyright issues or whatever, but The Faraway Tree without the original illustrations just isn't the same.

There was once an edition of the Narnia books without Pauline Bayes. Just not right. That was a copyright issue, I believe.

Didn't John S. Goodall illustrate Miss Read's Village School books? Nice cosy nostalgic reads. And Miss Clare Remembers, the elderly teacher looking back over her life.

I agree entirely about Pauline Baynes and Narnia. Has anybody else read Annabel and Bryony, a story set in a military fairyland, also illustrated by her?

And whilst thinking of illustrations, I loved the slightly frightening illustrations in The Land of Far Beyond, Enid Blyton’s retelling of A Pilgrim’s Progress. Unfortunately, the modern copies have different pictures.

Anything illustrated by Edward Ardizzone immediately transports me back to childhood.

@MissRoseDurward Yes, completely agree about the illustrations; there’s something so deeply satisfying about seeing them and unlocking a long-forgotten memory.

The Faraway Tree was never quite the same once they changed the names, either - who wants Rick and Franny when they can have Dick and Fanny?! 🤷🏻‍♀️

I've read King of the Copper Mountains
Christmas with the Savages
John Goodall
Elizabeth Goudge
Seven Little Australians (last week for first time!)
Semi Detached Couple

And my unsung reads (off the top of my head) are "London Belongs to Me" and "The Children of the Archbishop", and Enid Blytons version of The Pilgrims Progress which left a great impression on me!

Cross posted with The Land of Far Beyond!!! Someone else got there before me 🤗

And What about Violet Needham...The Black Riders, The Woods of Windri and The Changeling of Monte Lucio?

God yes, those illustrations were absolutely terrifying!

The Faraway Tree was never quite the same once they changed the names, either - who wants Rick and Franny when they can have Dick and Fanny?!

Yes indeed! Reclaim the names!
They can't change all the Dicks in fiction - Dick in the Famous Five, Dick Callum, Richard Hannay was Dick to his friends, Dick Bettany, and one of the Bastable children was Dicky, as I recall. And E. Nesbit is another author who needs the original illustrations.

Same here. I loved his Tim stories, and also his illustrations for Eleanor Farjeon’s stories (Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep, etc), both of which are incredibly evocative for me.

This page from ‘Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain’ has stuck with me in particular. I recall it being the first time I encountered the phrase ‘Davy Jones’s Locker’.

Not to mention Titty, in the Swallows and Amazons books.

Titty became Kitty in the recent film!

My mistake - Tatty, not Kitty…

Reclaim the Dicks!

My mistake - Tatty, not Kitty…

She was Kitty in the 1960s tv series, as I recall. What got me into reading Arthur Ransome.

I've never got over missing the last episode of that because I was in hospital having my adenoids out.