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Books Nobody Else Reads

Uh, a little surprised by the list - it has so many big names there! I'm sure there are plenty who've read a lot of those.

Myself, I was thinking along the lines of George Alec Effinger, or Michael Cisco (difficult!!!!). Ken Grimwood wrote one of the best what-if stories I've read in Replay.
 
yeah I realise a lot of big names on every one's lists ... but try finding people who actually read them. This forum has more readers of hmm how shall I say 'harder' books than most and its still hard to find people who read certain authors or within certain genres.
 
Meadow337 said:
Just BTW a lot of these books are available in digital format from Project Gutenberg
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I'm slightly unsure about the digital format- I can't really read novel-length works on the computer, as it tends to give me migraines. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned!

I agree with direstraits' point, but there are a lot of books by famous authors which are very obscure. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, for example, wrote some other great books aside from the Sherlock Holmes canon, (The Lost World, The White Company etc. etc.) but they are seldom really discussed. Mary Shelley wrote a post-apocalyptic novel called The Last Man, while Bram Stoker wrote The Lair of the White Worm, but there names are so associated with Frankenstein and Dracula that it is difficult to find these other works in bookshops.
 
the computer screen is difficult for reading for long periods - causes eyestrain - apparently because you blink less (I was reading this just last night having looked up stuff about tired eyes).

I agree with you about 'obscure' books by famous authors. The Lost World was actually quite good and both the 'early' movie adaptations are an important part of cinema history (1925 and 1960)
 
I meant book I am reading (Poison Study) that nobody else is? :D

PS in view of questions about listing books/authors that many have read, I'll pare my list and re-post to save confusion.
 
OK, my own list restated:

James Salter
Andrei Makine
Elie Wiesel
Tony Judt
Charles McCarry
Javier Marias
Karen Armstrong
James Lee Burke
Walker Percy
Clarice Lispector
Peter Matthiesen
all excellent
 
I have a long list:
Clarice Lispector
Roberto Bolano
Peter Matthiesen
(John Fowles)
China Mieville
Vladimir Nabokov
William Faulkner
Virginia Woolf
Marcel Proust
John Donne
Robert Spencer
 
pontalba said:
Read it a few months ago, loved it! Especially the ending.....
But I understand his other books do not compare that well with Replay.
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Hey, that would make my original post ineligible, since you've read it! :)

Seriously, though, how cool was that book? :) I thought it was an interesting commentary on how you should be wanting what you have, instead of having what you want, but the protagonist got to try every scenario out, so of course he'd say that! :)

That book got me thinking for so long after I've closed the book... ah, what could have been. :)
 
direstraits said:
Hey, that would make my original post ineligible, since you've read it! :)

Seriously, though, how cool was that book? :) I thought it was an interesting commentary on how you should be wanting what you have, instead of having what you want, but the protagonist got to try every scenario out, so of course he'd say that! :)

That book got me thinking for so long after I've closed the book... ah, what could have been. :)
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Verra cool. :cool: And, yes, I agree...want what you have is def a theme. But also, it highlighted what a lack of communication does to a relationship. It also puts to the lie the old adage....if I could be 18 and know what I know now...........hah.

I really, really wanted the book to continue...it (the replays) obviously was not an isolated incident, but how widespread was the phenomenon? Was it a serial sort of occurrence, in that when one replay was over, another was begun. Was there some sort of self-limiting aspect going on?
 
I really like that premise, to go back in time with the knowledge you have now. I wouldn't remember horseracing results, that's for sure, but I would indeed make less mistakes. But I would also act a little very differently, a little too matured and dreary for an 18 year old, I think. ;)

But I thought the book ended at the right place. The lesson taught, the phenomenon of the replays happening to others wasn't really that interesting to me (which of course was the sf aspect of the story, oh how times have changed!) :) Just necessary the protagonist to have a conversation about it with someone.
 
Peder said:
Do you ever get the feeling that you read books that nobody else reads. Like nobody ever responds or mentions them?.

Right now, for me, I think it might be Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Why? Just because I wanted to read an obscure (to me) Victorian novel published in the 1870's by an author I had at least heard of. Two volumes, too! :(

I hope I live through it, because Victorians are not at all my favorites. /fingers crossed/

What book or books are you reading that nobody else seems to read?
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Peder - Just wondering how you liked Daniel Deronda. George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) is considered one of the finest writers in the English language and I fully concur with that assessment. I consider the final paragraph of Middlemarch as one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs. - G.E.

The writings of Eliot as well as Dickens were sympathetic to the lower classes and were, due to their popularity, arguably instrumental in affecting much needed social change in 19th century England. It is my consideration that ironically the cited quote (above) could be directly associated with George Eliot herself.
 
DATo, Yes she is -- considered to be one of the finest -- but she still competes for my attention among many others, finest and less than finest. I have read the first chapter or so, up to where Deronda makes his entry with a noble gesture.
The book is quite readable and I will get back to it. But for me, classic authors including Victorians are not necessarily more compelling than less illustrious authors. Heresy I know! During Deronda's hiatus I have, for example, finished and enjoyed Stoner by John Williams and The Martian by Andy Weir. For the record, here is the list to date, with Stoner promising to be a Best in 2014 for me:

January
1/7 Washington Square by Henry James. Stubborn, dumb people destroying their lives.
1/17 Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert. Emma finds and loses love, with a very sad end.
1/19 Stoner by John Williams. Life, Love and Death of Professor Bill Stoner. Excellent.
1/30 Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett. Murder, corruption, love, prostitution in Thailand.
February
2/5 Poison Study by Mary Snyder. A chore to read.
2/7 To Kill a Mockingbird. Excellent 100pg summary version with analysis by Trisha Lively.
2/11 Faust pt1 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Still a winner, plus the excruciating end.
2/16 The Intercept by Dick Wolf. Excellent. Ah-wooo!
2/18 Love and Math by Edward Frenkel. His love, still not mine.
2/19 The Answer to the Riddle is Me by David Stuart MacLean. Amnesiac recovering
2/22 The Martian by Andy Weir. Great survival story of astronaut accidentally left behind on Mars.
March
Still working on If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino.
 
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