Books you’ve read because they were mentioned in another book

[Bruisername]

Just read a book by a favourite author and they mentioned a few books and authors as it was set in the publishing world. looked them up and discovered Nathaniel West.

I suppose it’s a good way of finding new books because if you like the author you will most likely want to read their suggestions

have you come across any gems this way?

I read Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit after seeing it mentioned in John Irving's The Cider House Rules. The character doesn't read it; for reasons that become apparent, she has more urgent things on her mind - but I really wanted to and I wasn't disappointed. It's one of Dickens's best.

Agree on little dorritt. Not a huge dickens fan but liked that one

I will look up the Irving book

Often! I like it as a way to discover something new.

What did you read and which book prompted it?

Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West
mentioned in A Tangeled Web by RH Greenan (kindle only)

I read 'The reading list' and although I had already done a few of the books on there, I have reread one and have read 3 more from it (so far).
A great way to lead to other books.

I read more Checkov stories after reading "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain" (which I love and recommend to anybody who loves reading!)

I read 'Skellig' after reading 'The Final Year' - both children's / YA books.
I plan to read David Copperfield after reading Demon Copperhead but haven't got round to it yet. I guess that's not quite the same thing though as it's not actually mentioned in the book.

Georgette Heyer.

I think she was mentioned in Elly Griffiths.

I read Great Expectations because a passage from it was used for a comprehension question in my GCSE Eng Lang exam. Though I had previously read other Dickens, and I knew of it before that point, so it wasn't a discovery as such.

Literary critics have guided my reading for years. Harold Bloom especially has given me all sorts of ideas. It was because of him that I read Dickens’ Bleak House, Austen’s Persuasion and Eliot’s Middlemarch.

But I guess you mean more works of fiction. I was a big fan of Aldous Huxley when I was young, and his novels constantly refer to other writers. He often has clever, urbane characters chatting about literature, and it was through Huxley that I first heard of people like Montaigne, Walter Pater, Dante, etc. I read Voltaire’s Candide because a character in one of Huxley’s novels discusses him. Also D H Lawrence. I was in awe of Huxley. He was a door into a better world. Through his books I discovered a whole range of philosophers, poets, painters, etc.

Antony Burgess was another writer who constantly referred to other authors. Virginia Woolf and Oscar Wilde were two more.

I was in awe of Huxley. He was a door into a better world.

Doors of perception, even.

This reminds me of something from I'd heard long ago. The author Dean Koontz made numerous references to The Book of Counted Sorrows - which is imaginary, his invention - and people used to write to the publisher asking where they could find it, because they weren't having any luck tracking it down.

This isn't quite what you're asking, but the New York Times, which may be the only newspaper in America that still has a free-standing book section, has a weekly feature called "By the Book," which is an author interview - and they are always mentioning favorite books. If it's an author I like, I sometimes make a note of it.

www.nytimes.com/column/by-the-book

A bit different, but I read Flowers for Algernon because in the tv show Friends, Chandler was surprised that Joe hadn’t ever read it. Fantastic book!

I read Love in the Time of Cholera as it was mentioned in American Dirt

I absolutely loved American Dirt

Mmm didn’t feel the same about Love in the Time of Cholera but it was ok

Yes I didn’t enjoy the suggested book as much as the book it was suggested in!

I read Herodotus' Histories after reading The English Patient.

I've read poems because they were mentioned in books, the most recent being on a reread of Flambards, Sothey's the Battle of Blenheim.

@Dappy777 could you please share the list you're working from? That sounds really interesting!

Not a book, but I read Persuasion because of The Lake House with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.