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Books Nobody Else Reads

Peder

Peder

Well-Known Member
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?
 
Yup I think that definitely qualifies. I have of course heard of George Eliot but shockingly have not actually read any of her books. I started Middlemarch once upon a time but never finished it.

I have a long list:

Terry Pratchett Discworld - lots of ppl have read it but no-one I know.

Piers Anthony - Xanth - before Discworld there was Xanth.

Ian Fleming - James Bond

Lynn Hamilton a mildly obscure Australian writer who wrote Archaelogical Adventure Stories.

Ha Jin

Fritz Leiber

Haruki Murakami

Julie Otsuka

Elizabeth Peters - Amelia Peabody

Dai Sijie

Russel Thorndike - Dr Syn

Qiu Xialong - Inspector Chen

Xinran Xue

Mo Yan

Jin Yong
 
From that list, I've read Pratchett, Fleming and Dr Syn, but the rest had me scrambling for a wiki page.

My passion is late-nineteenth-century-and-early-twentieth-century books (all one word), which means that finding someone else who reads those books is nothing short of a miracle! My list:

Baroness Orczy- The Scarlet Pimpernel

John Buchan

Dorothy L. Sayers

Edmund Crispin

Leslie Charteris- The Saint

Sapper- Bulldog Drummond

Arthur Machen

G K Chesterton
 
Well lol I have read The Saint , The Scarlet Pimpernel and Dorithy L Sayers although not recently.

John Buchan - thats The 39 Steps yes? Also read that.

I should have included John Fowles as well.
 
I've read just a very few authors from your lists. I'm sure that is my loss.
Meadow: Xinran Xue (your recommendation), Haruki Murakami, John Fowles (all)
Richard Hannay: Scarlet Pimpernel a loooong time ago,

For my own list, here goes:
Gustave Flaubert
George Eliot
James Salter
Saul Bellow
Andrei Makine
Yoko Ogawa
Elie Wiesel
George Orwell
Tony Judt
Charles McCarry
Javier Marias
Karen Armstrong
Samuel Beckett
James Lee Burke
Ross MacDonald
John Banville
Benjamin Black
(Haruki Murakami)
Anita Shreve
Walker Percy
Norman Mailer
Philip Roth
Henning Mankell
Clarice Lispector
Roberto Bolano
Peter Matthiesen
(John Fowles)
China Mieville
Vladimir Nabokov
William Faulkner
Virginia Woolf
Marcel Proust
John Donne
Robert Spencer

all excellent.
 
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Is that John Donne the poet? People don't read China Mieville, Norman Mailer or Phillip Roth?

I grew up on Ross McDonald, Robert Parker, and John D. McDonald. My Dad had extensive collections of their books.

I read Waiting for Godot at university but unlike most people I actually enjoyed reading most of our setwork books.

Still there are a number of authors on there I havent heard of and a few that grab my eye too look up.
 
Meadow337 said:
Is that John Donne the poet? People don't read China Mieville, Norman Mailer or Phillip Roth?

I grew up on Ross McDonald, Robert Parker, and John D. McDonald. My Dad had extensive collections of their books.

I read Waiting for Godot at university but unlike most people I actually enjoyed reading most of our setwork books.

Still there are a number of authors on there I havent heard of and a few that grab my eye too look up.
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Yes, I wondered about listing the authors you mention. Many people have read them. They are popular. Just not very much in my reading circle I don't think, beginning with here. We'll see which other ones get questioned.
I enjoyed the other McDonald too and I think he might have been more popular, but the maze-like plots and the settings of Ross McDonald appealed to me especially.
Yes, John Donne the poet, but mostly for his Meditations.
And there should be one person here who questions Virginia Woolf, I'm betting. But, if only one, that isn't many, considering her place in literature.
So, I'm eager to see how many challenges there are. :)
 
I think a lot of those authors have gone out of fashion. If we were discussing these books 30 years ago we wouldn't be putting them on this list.

Some classics stay popular - Jane Austin always seems to have her following and Shakespeare of course (although that one puzzles me) and certain books from other authors - many people I'm sure have either read or heard of Middlemarch but who could even name any of George Elliot's other works? Ditto for Dickens - every one has heard of "A Christmas Carol" thanks in no small part to Disney and a few will be familiar with Oliver Twist but go beyond that ....

Same with popular authors. John D and Ross McDonald were best sellers in their time but now who has heard of them let alone read them? And yet if you are an aficionado of the detective novel they have to be included in your collection. Robert B Parker lived a little longer in the public consciousness because of the TV series. I'm certain there was a resurgence in his books when that was aired.
 
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And /gasp!/ some weren't even around when I was reading them. Hard to believe, but there are newly-minted people on the planet. :D

Detective/spy aficionado I have always been; just left out most of the names because I thought everyone must know about/read Len Deighton, John LeCarré and Kim Philby, for example. But they have been a long time back by now.

I guess we have to blow out the candles on some of our very best reading, even if the books are still there on our shelves. :(

PS: But I guess I shouldn't turn this into an oldies discussion. There are current authors too, more or less, who aren't widely read: James Salter, for example with one of the best modern novels I have read (Light Years). And I'll mention Thomas Pynchon, too, even though he is not exactly my cup of tea.
 
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I still want to get back to reading Pynchon but I've got too much going on right now to start something like that.

Add Joyce's Finnegans Wake though, whenever I tell people I'm reading and researching it they think I've gone mad. :(
 
Meadow337 said:
most of my list are current authors :p just some oldies too :)
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I should have been more scrupulous about confining my list to more current reading, but it just seems like yesterday that I read some of the oldies.

Polly Parrot said:
I still want to get back to reading Pynchon but I've got too much going on right now to start something like that.

Add Joyce's Finnegans Wake though, whenever I tell people I'm reading and researching it they think I've gone mad. :(
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I admire you for Finnegans Wake. I wish I had the knack for it. Really. Maybe one day.
And here I thought you were going to be the Virginia Woolf person, instead :)
 
I've read most of Woolf's books, or at the very least started them as they were part of my Master's. I'd like to reread her earlier stuff though.
 
Richard Hannay said:
From that list, I've read Pratchett, Fleming and Dr Syn, but the rest had me scrambling for a wiki page.

My passion is late-nineteenth-century-and-early-twentieth-century books (all one word), which means that finding someone else who reads those books is nothing short of a miracle! My list:

Baroness Orczy- The Scarlet Pimpernel

John Buchan

Dorothy L. Sayers

Edmund Crispin

Leslie Charteris- The Saint

Sapper- Bulldog Drummond

Arthur Machen

G K Chesterton
Click to expand...

Just BTW a lot of these books are available in digital format from Project Gutenberg
 
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