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...

Not from tick bite. Judy gets very ill after she runs away from school and journeys home in rain and cold. They go to Yarrahappini and then she saves the baby (The General) from a falling tree…at cost to herself…

Don't know, but one of the girls dies saving her brother from a falling tree.

Oh maybe I'm getting it confused. I did Google and definitely remember the black cover with all the children.

Good grief. I remember the baby being known as the General, but had completely blanked the death of the sister!

I'd be a terrible court case witness.

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies. Very Victorian.

‘It’s getting very dark Pip’…

😭

Judy’s death is harrowing.

It depends what you mean by ‘traitor. He was executed by firing squad by the Provisional Government in Dublin in 1922, having served in the Boer War, become dusillusioned with British imperialism, run guns into Ireland before WWi which were used in the 1916 Rising, served in the British Navy, been a Sinn Féin MP, been part of the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, vehemently opposed the Treaty, went on the run with the anti-Treaty forces in Cork during the civil war (where he hid out briefly on my grandfather’s farm) and was denounced and captured in his own house in Wicklow.

He had one of those terribly dashing deaths where he shook hands with the firing squad and made his teenage son (who became president of Ireland in the early 1970s) vow he would meet and shake hands with everyone who had signed his death warrant.

One of the numerous siblings sings Abide With Me as she dies.

Should have sung The Red Sarafan. Then she'd have lived.

I've never read Seven Little Australians because I knew Judy died.

Beth's death (which I also knew about in advance) was sufficient. I didn't need any more Victorian deathbed scenes.

It really is! Poor Meg, only 14, having to be the grown-up while her sister is dying. Bunty clinging to her foot. Pip running 10 miles to get help and 10 miles back. It’s utterly devastating.

Ahhh yes - the Robin singing to Joey, to save her from pneumonia.

One of my favourite kids books!

When I first read Good Wives I dismissed Beth’s death as maudlin - typical of its age. As an adult, who has lost a sister, I found it… emotional. It is a realistic, if somewhat sanitised scene, when a much loved daughter and sister dies. And now I’m crying.

Clearly the Robin should have been sent to various deathbeds in 19thc fiction to sing The Red and thereby save Little Nell, Beth March, Smike, Helen Burns etc.

I can take or leave Beth whom I find tiresomely Angel in the House-y, but I think Jo’s grief and suppressed anger and sense of personal crisis as the ‘daughter at home’ afterwards are very well done.

The poem that Jo wrote makes me cry.

You've jogged my memory and I remember eagerly lapping up those books in my teens.

Porky by Deborah Moggach. Very dark but beautifully written as all here are, especially her more vintage stuff.

Definitely the dark tower by Stephen king. If i find a fellow reader I follow them and start a conversation about it lol

Sleep in peace by Phyllis Bentley

Scottish readers will likely know The house with the green shutters by George Douglas Brown; English one (like me) will be much rarer.

Those of Arnold Bennett's novels that aren't usually reprinted: for example A man from the north, Helen with the high hand, Lord Raingo, Imperial Palace.

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I've read the one about Mrs Overtheway. The relationship between the child and Mrs Overtheway and is touching, but I find the stories the latter tells pretty dull.

For some reason I love A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov. I rarely meet people who know it. It's a wonderful character study and reminiscent of Polidori's Vampyre.

I was obsessed with John Wyndham as a teenager! We did Day of the Triffids in first year at secondary school and I was hooked. Went to the library and worked my way through them all. Thanks for the reminder :)

Love that book, read it years ago at university. I recently found an old copy in a second hand bookshop so am keen to see if it has the same impact on me now.

The White Company, by Conan Doyle. One of his historical novels, and a cracking read, but I've never met anyone else who's read it.

The 87th Precinct series, by Ed McBain. Written in the 60s I think, and not ever mentioned now. My Dad was a big fan and passed them on to me. They started my love of the police procedural.