your chance to advertise a book that you love but is little known.
i'll start with:
"memoires of an invisible man" - h.f. saint. how to survive when you are invisible and on the run. brilliantly written, bitingly funny "hungry women" - laramie dunaway. disgustingly witty and plot hungry. women will probably enjoy more than men "be a good boy, johnny" - john tilsey. a great novella with lots of one-liners from a jaded cast "fanny" - erica jong. perfect historical fiction written in an authentic style with cameos from real historical characters "the bisley boy" - chris hunt. if queen elizabeth the first had actually been a man! "the talk of the town" - ardal o'hanlon. wickedly funny tale of small town ireland by dougal from "father ted"
please let us know which LITTLE KNOWN, FORGOTTEN or SHOULD BE BETTER KNOWN books you have enjoyed.
add: please limit recommendations to FICTION and try not to promote your own work ;-)
For me this has to be a series of books (actually there are only two but they follow on from each other). The first is called 'The Fat Ladies Club' and the follow on is 'The Fat Ladies Club: Five years on'. Both of these are fantastic. I picked the first up in a charity shop for 80p, but I would gladly have paid full price. They follow five mothers expecting babies and the first few months of having them and then the second one is five years later. They are packed full of funny little tales and I imagine many mums would find them very helpful. I'm not a mum yet but I'll be hanging on to these for when that time comes.
I started a similiar thread but hardly anyone joined in, let's hope this one works.
My hidden gems are Star Dreams by June Flaum Singer and Thunderheads by Colin Sharp.
Oh and you might not have heard of any of my books - Summerset, Mad About the Boy and Two Become One, so I thought I'd throw that in!!!
Seriously, Star Dreams is about two sisters who are the daughter of a hollywood movie star and they grow up to become famous in their own right and have a love-hate relationship. Thunderheads I read when I was a teenager and all I can rememember was that it was set in South Africa in the time of apartied and it was v good. I'd also like to give props to Never Love a Stranger by Harold Robins, it was his first book and one of the best books I've ever read.
The Pendragon Legend, by Anatal Szerb The Golem, by Gustav Meyerink The Other Side, by Alfred Kubin
It's all non-trendy East European fantasy writing, and it's all fantastic. If you're a bit nervous, read the Master and Maragarita as an accessible get-in and then launch yourself in.
The Pendragon Legend is set written by a Hungarian, but set in Wales.
This is probably not as well known now as it used to be - 'The History of Mr Poll'y by HG Wells. It's a real escapist story about a man who walks out of a loveless marriage and job he hates and finds a new life. He returns to find his wife has inherited his life insurance so he disappears to his new life where - no, I won't tell you the whole story. And a book that is becoming better known - 'Cut Short', the first in my new series of crime thrillers. Cut Short (DI Geraldine Steel)
The Forger, by Paul Watkins - a thriller set in the artistic community in Nazi-occupied Paris which I read about seven years ago but still stays with me. Maybe I'll read it again one day - wonder if I'd feel the same about it now? Hambletta-Maud - which book have you ordered? Must admit, the one with the crazy, long title recommended by BookJumper sounds interesting... Janet
A book that seems to have stuck in my memory is called the shadow of the wind by carlos ruiz zafon. I read this book by chance, as it is not somehting i would normally go for, but remember thinking i really enjoyed that. The book, is set in post- Spanish Civil War Barcelona and concerns a young boy called Daniel. Just after the war, Daniel's father takes him to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books, where he is asked by his father to choose a book he can read and keep. Daniel enjoys the book so much he searches to find more books by the author, but instead finds himself in a web of mystery.
There is now i believe a prequel to this book called The angels game. Which i havent got around to reading yet.
J. Watson - the one with the crazy long title is basically The Elephant Man meets The Count of Montecristo with a peppering of Frankenstein and Sweeney Todd. It's one of the most beautiful, horrifying, uplifting, depressing, moving and utterly life-changing things I've ever read... and I read a lot.
Strangely enough I started something similar back in July and included The Mists of Avalon (and the other 'Avalon' books) by Marion Zimmer Bradley - a retelling of the Arthurian myth from the female pagan perspective first published in the 80's it is still in print, before turning to Arthur she wrote several fantasy novels. - Canarino by Katherine Bucknell and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil by Fay Weldon. I would also add a new publication Dr Ragab's Universal Language by Robert Twigger which contains the words 'This happens quite often. You find something mind-bendingly life changing and someone else barely notices it.' Prety much sums up this kind of thread don't you think?
I don't think that Shadow of the Wind quite fits, is a well known book having been an R & J recommendation and Angel's Game recently spent several weeks in the top 10 for original fiction.
Myst (the book) is definitely worth reading - over and over again. (Rand Miller et al.) http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0593039599/ref=cm_cr_rev_prod_title
The Narrowboat Girl. Forgot the authors (a lady) name - sorry. (set in post WW1 Birmingham) The Night of the Wencelas. Lionel Davidson. Salt Mine. David Lippencott.
Best of all.. Red Cloth, Yellow Cloth. Ron Tufft. A study into the mind patterns of Comrade Stalin encapsulated inside a terriic, but horrific, fictional tale. Brilliant..
Rufus mentions The Narrowboat Girl but had forgotten the author's name. It's Annie Murray and she has written some excellent books mainly set in Old Birmingham.
After talking to my nana about things she used to read when she was younger - I ended up tracking down a series of books by Giovanni Guareschi - The little world of Don Camillo.
The stories revolve around an italian priest in a little village and his dealings with the villagers, in particular a communist mayor called peppone. lovely sets of stories I would definately recommend them.
I have also started to order books from this page, in particular the ones with oddest titles, so i may come back to thank you for these later on....
No book has so utterly captivated me in recent years as The Cloister and the Hearth, by Charles Reade; it's old fashioned, it's probably too long, and it digresses all around the houses, but I've rarely been so involved with a a set of characters...
Most of this list seems to be fiction, but for the facts about how we actually live from moment to moment, try Cheri Huber's The Key...and the Name of the Key is Willingness. You may never need to read a spiritual/self-help book again (even that one!)
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