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...

We did FFTMC for the first year of GCSEs in 1988, but Hardy is unavoidable at school in Dorchester. I passed Max Gate on the way to and from school every day. We also did a load of his poetry.

We did TKAM in the 3rd year (now year 9) so I think that had been a set book at some point as there were loads of copies. It meant I learnt about Eli Whitney's cotton gin and the cotton boll weevil.

@Boiledeggandtoast - I read Cider with Rosie as a young teen, and really loved it. Thinking back (an awful long way - I took my O levels in 1981), I don't remember any of the other books we studied in previous years being as badly spoiled for me as TKAM, so maybe it was the stress of having to study it for the exam that didn't help.

I definitely don't see myself ever rereading it.

Yes!!! Loved them - read them all. My mother had read them in her youth and recommended them to me. DM passed away some years ago and I'm over 60! Wonder if anyone still reads them?

I have them all but haven’t read them recently, @Timeforatincture - they’re on a very high shelf, and I haven’t got round to asking one of the tall people in the house to get them down for me. 😳

The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley.

The Devil Rides Out by Dennis Wheatley.

A school friend of mine was a great Dennis Wheatley fan, and our local library had a lot of his books, so I knew of them, but never felt like reading them.

I liked Dennis Wheatley as a teenager. I now cringe at the thought of his far right views.

I read The Satanist as a teenager. Unfortunately, the last page was missing. In the days before World of Books/Amazon, tracking down a book was hard. It took me years to find a copy. It really wasn’t worth it.

The best of the Dennis Wheatley black magic books was definitely The Haunting of Toby Jugg.

I didn't really care about his "far right" views as I just loved reading his novels. Anyway, I think his "far right views" about Communism turned out to be right as their systems were overthrown in the late eighties.

Dick Francis - another great writer. Loved his novels about horses!

Dick Francis - another great writer. Loved his novels about horses!

Read all of his. Have also read some of his son Felix's books, but find them uneven in quality. Have given up on some of them.

Same here, couldn't get into Felix's books; they don't have the same depth as Dick's.

Georgette Heyer's romantic novels about Georgian England.

I think loads of people read those. I finished April Lady a few days ago. I certainly have a few friends who are fans, and my copies were mostly inherited from my Granny.

Georgette Heyer is still popular I think…didn’t they redo all the covers?

Not many people seem to remember Philippa Gregory’s early novels, before the Tudoring: Wideacre, The Favoured Child and Meridon. I think she’s kinda rejected them now, but at the time I loved them, despite the deeply odd incest storyline placed front and centre 😳

And apart from people I’ve lent to, I’ve never met anyone who’s read Pamela Belle - I particularly enjoyed the Heron quartet, The Moon In The Water, The Chains Of Fate, Alathea and The Lodestar.

Philippa Gregory's early novels, especially the Wideacre trilogy, and The Other Boleyn Girl are far more impressive than her more recent, chick-lit paint, by numbers historical fluff.

I completely agree. I'm old enough to have taken O Level English Literature, also did the A Level and went on to do a Literature degree.

In the end, every last speck of pleasure I found in my subject had gone. I'd been trained to rip a book apart, dissect it, over analyse it, apply a Marxist interpretation, a Feminist interpretation, a Post Modernist interpretation, a Colonial interpretation, whatever. And all for what, exactly? It's just cleverness for cleverness sake.

I’ve never met anyone who’s read Pamela Belle - I particularly enjoyed the Heron quartet, The Moon In The Water, The Chains Of Fate, Alathea and The Lodestar.

I've read Pamela Belle! It was a long time ago and I don't remember the titles, though I think The Moon in the Water may have been one. She wrote about a seventeenth century family, as I recall.

Two children’s books-Tales from End Cottage and More Tales from End Cottage. About a woman who lives in the country with two Dogs, Two Cats and some hens. She keeps Bees and gardens. It’s actually provided the blue print for the life I want (through I’ve only just realised it having found some battered old copies in my mums attic and re read).

Isaac Campion about a boy whose favoured older brother dies and he has to leave school and work on the family farm with his Brutish father. I read it when I was about 10 and it’s really stayed with me.

Philippa Gregory's early novels, especially the Wideacre trilogy, and The Other Boleyn Girl are far more impressive than her more recent, chick-lit paint, by numbers historical fluff.

Depends which early novels you’re talking about - not read the Wideacre Trilogy so can’t comment on that but she wrote a couple of more contemporary books, one of which (Zelda’s Cut) was very odd indeed! Like a completely different author.

Dulcima by H E Bates. Though it was a novella, it made an impact on my younger self.

The movie was good too.

OMG I read that too - yes makes me feel sick to think of it Horrible.

Yes, Zelda's Cut and The Little House had a very peculiar tang to them. Actually quite eerie in many ways?

But her early historical books like Wide Acre, The Wise Woman were much more richly detailed than her later stuff.

Who's read the MacGregor Princess and the Goblin books? I loved them as a 7/8 year old, but have not found anyone else who has read them.

The Princess and the Goblin
The Princess and Curdie

Also, Beverley Nicols' The Tree that Sat Down and The Stream that
Stood Still. Lovely, imaginative books for kids. No-one seems to have read them but me.