Favorite "forgotten" books?

Alferd_Packer · 14th October 2010, 12:19 PM

OK, what are your favorite, but obscure books that you would like to reread?

1) Anything by Clifford D Simak, especially the Goblin reservation (but not Mastodonia because I still have my original 1979 eddition)

2) The Swallows and Amazons series

3) The Ken Holt Mystery Series.

I read all of these as a kid and would enjoy rereading them if I can find copies.

patchbunny · 14th October 2010, 12:34 PM

I'd name one, but I've forgotten it.

There. I've gotten that joke out of the way. The thread may now continue.

Giggywig · 14th October 2010, 12:44 PM

When I was growing up I read plenty of Emilio Salgari's works. Apparently they are not even available in English, so I'd probably be hard pressed to find them here.

patchbunny · 14th October 2010, 05:07 PM

Actually, to be honest about this thread, I rather enjoyed the Moomin' books as a kid, and I've not seen those in decades. I wouldn't mind giving those a read again.

Belgian thought · 14th October 2010, 05:19 PM

Alfred Hitchcock "Mysteries" series - circa 1973

fuelair · 14th October 2010, 05:56 PM

I miss somehow Simak's books qualifying as obscure - and I have most of them (though not in immediate access.

fuelair · 14th October 2010, 05:57 PM

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...mintroll+books

Regular books and the comic strip collection

JerryGarcia · 14th October 2010, 06:55 PM

Two by Nathanael West : Miss Lonleyhearts and Day of the Locust

jakesteele · 14th October 2010, 07:09 PM

One of my favorites is a little know book by Robert Silverberg called "The Book of Skulls".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Skulls

Four college kids stumble on to a secret monastery that can grant immortality. The catch is is that two must die. One must be sacrificed and one must be sacrificed.

Also, I don't know if you could consider this obscure or unknown, but "The Magus" by John Fowles is one of the most mind *********** books I've ever read.

dasmiller · 14th October 2010, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by jakesteele

One of my favorites is a little know book by Robert Silverberg called "The Book of Skulls".

Good catch, and it's not the sort of book I'd have expected Silverberg to write.

I'd list:
"The Dragon Never Sleeps" by Glen Cook,
"Misplaced Persons" by Lee Harding
"Rainbow's End" by Vernor Vinge. And pretty much everything else by Vernor Vinge.
"Fables For Our Time" by James Thurber (collection of short stories)
"Memoirs of a Space Traveller" by Stanislaw Lem (also a collection of short stories)
and the whole Black Company series by Glen Cook.

I'm considering "To Reign In Hell" by Steven Brust, "Blood Music" by Greg Bear, Timescape" by Gregory Benford, and "Why Call Them Back From Heaven" by Clifford Simak to be non-obscure.

I don't have any consistent rationale for which books I think are obscure vs. non-obscure.

wasapi · 14th October 2010, 08:10 PM

The Night Visitor, by B. Traven.

It seems many people only know of Traven from The Treasure of Seirra Madre. The Night Visitor is a collection of short stories, and probably my favorite of many, many short story collections I've read.

Julia

Marquis de Carabas · 14th October 2010, 08:11 PM

Deadeye Dick - A Vonnegut tome that doesn't get much love, it seems, but is still one of my favorites.

Oystein · 15th October 2010, 05:28 AM

Oh, I have forgotten what it was........

Ok, here is one: I wasn't out of school very long, where I hated my German and Literature classes. I never read the novels we were supposed to read. I got into reading real books only after it wasn't mandatory any longer. (Before that, adventure books for leasure, of course).
So I had the Karamasoffs and Notre Dame already behind me when my sister recommended "Dancing with the Wolves", the novel that the Costner movie was based on. My was that a bad book, with an even worse German translation!! I needed a quick antidote, so I picked up the slimmest book in our "serious literature" shelf, and it was:

Roßhalde - by Hermann Hesse, written 1914.

Hesse is well known and much loved for his Steppenwolf and Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game, but I didn't know him then. I read Roßhalde. A book that even many Hesse fans have never read, and most have forgotten. To me then the boring story of the fading of an artist's wedding - nothing that rang a bell in my life. But boy, what a superb language! How finely crafted every sentence, how well designed the overall effort! While the content didn't interest me, just reading such fine language was an immense joy!
Hesse himself said, 28 years later: "Back then, with this book, I had reached the full height of artisanship and technique that is possible to me, and I never progressed any further".
I never went back to trivial literature and mediocre autors.

TragicMonkey · 15th October 2010, 05:34 AM

Well, I haven't forgotten it, but most other people have. It used to be considered a great classic, and there's even a statue of one of the characters in a public park somewhere, but it's been out of fashion for decades. WH Hudson's "Green Mansions". It's so little known that people don't recall it even after Audrey Hepburn was in a movie adaptation, which flopped.

Alferd_Packer · 15th October 2010, 05:50 AM

Originally Posted by fuelair

I miss somehow Simak's books qualifying as obscure - and I have most of them (though not in immediate access.

My local library has four Simak titles, three of them in Russian.

Bikewer · 15th October 2010, 05:56 AM

Back when I first started my police career, in the late 60s, I read a series (three, as I recall) of books called "The Commissions of Augustus Mandrell". These were enormously clever books about a thoroughly-amoral assassin and his "commissions". In one, Hitler is smuggled out of Germany post-war masquerading as one of his own doubles, and ends up becoming the Baseball Commissioner....
That sort of thing. Very droll and literate...

Evidently out of print and unobtainable now....At least as of the last time I looked.

Mojo · 15th October 2010, 06:02 AM

Colin Watson's Flaxborough novels.

TragicMonkey · 15th October 2010, 07:28 AM

Oh, and I don't know if anybody else reads Chaim Potok any more. They used to have great library book sales in my city, so I have lots of books but many of them aren't sitting on the shelves in regular bookstores. I've quite a few authors and books I'd never have read if it hadn't been for library sales. James Melville's Superintendent Otani mysteries, and the Miss Melville books spring to mind. I think you can still find Shizuko Natsuki in bookstores, but I wouldn't have encountered her books otherwise. I have no idea whether she's hugely popular in Japan, but over here I've yet to encounter anybody else who's even heard of her.

Also Pearl Buck. Practically everybody's heard of "The Good Earth" even if they haven't read it, but her other (and much better) books are pretty much forgotten. "Pavilion of Women" and "Mandala", and the ones she wrote under a man's name.

Piscivore · 15th October 2010, 10:27 AM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

Well, I haven't forgotten it, but most other people have. It used to be considered a great classic, and there's even a statue of one of the characters in a public park somewhere, but it's been out of fashion for decades. WH Hudson's "Green Mansions". It's so little known that people don't recall it even after Audrey Hepburn was in a movie adaptation, which flopped.

I have a very nice old copy of that, it's about time for a re-read.

W.D.Clinger · 15th October 2010, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Alferd_Packer

OK, what are your favorite, but obscure books that you would like to reread?

I'm looking forward to re-reading the first volume of an autobiography by Negley Farson^WP, The Way of a Transgressor, 1936. (I don't own the second volume, written 21 years later, and haven't read it.)

Farson is full of himself, but he knows that and keeps it in check. As a foreign correspondent, he witnessed some remarkable events of the early 20th century, writes well, and tells us enough but not too much of his private life.

Swagomatic · 15th October 2010, 03:38 PM

When I was in my early twenties, I was reading a lot of Russian authors, and a friend let me read his copy of "Oblomov," by Ivan Goncharov. It was a weird, kind of funny book about this semi-wealthy Russian layabout.

applecorped · 15th October 2010, 03:43 PM

The Bible. I forgot how it ends.

fuelair · 15th October 2010, 06:07 PM

Originally Posted by Bikewer

Back when I first started my police career, in the late 60s, I read a series (three, as I recall) of books called "The Commissions of Augustus Mandrell". These were enormously clever books about a thoroughly-amoral assassin and his "commissions". In one, Hitler is smuggled out of Germany post-war masquerading as one of his own doubles, and ends up becoming the Baseball Commissioner....
That sort of thing. Very droll and literate...

Evidently out of print and unobtainable now....At least as of the last time I looked.

Thoroughly fun books - but all the stories were a bit too much intertwined (lots of repeating characters given the secrecy and secret nature of the main character)!!

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...rell&x=13&y=22

Loss Leader · 15th October 2010, 06:42 PM

Is Of Human Bondage obscure? I loved that book and nobody else seems to have read it.

Damien Evans · 15th October 2010, 06:57 PM

Originally Posted by applecorped

The Bible. I forgot how it ends.

The author describing a really bad acid trip.

FattyCatty · 15th October 2010, 07:14 PM

Originally Posted by TragicMonkey

<snip>
I've quite a few authors and books I'd never have read if it hadn't been for library sales. James Melville's Superintendent Otani mysteries, and the Miss Melville books spring to mind. I think you can still find Shizuko Natsuki in bookstores, but I wouldn't have encountered her books otherwise. I have no idea whether she's hugely popular in Japan, but over here I've yet to encounter anybody else who's even heard of her.
<snip>

I've got the Miss Melville books, if you mean the ones by Evelyn Smith. I also like the Jocelyn O'Roarke series by Jane Dentinger; the first book in the series is Murder on Cue.

RSLancastr · 15th October 2010, 07:28 PM

I don't know how obscure it is, but I've been wanting to reread The Deathworld Trilogy. Similarly, there was a three-or-four volume set of pulpy science fiction novels titled The Expendables about a rag-tag group of mercenaries and scientists sent to check out earth-like planets to determine if they were colonizable. The recent film of the same name is apparently unrelated.

fuelair · 15th October 2010, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

Is Of Human Bondage obscure? I loved that book and nobody else seems to have read it.

No, not obscure at all - but in all fairness there are gigantic multiples of thousands of novels out there, And a goodly number of classics have not appeared on any of the best/worst/least understandable/most overrated (etc.) lists in this forum.

FattyCatty · 15th October 2010, 09:40 PM

I really like the Steven Brust Vlad Taltos books, starting with Jhereg. The world he created is interesting, with sorcery and gods (maybe not so much fun for an atheist?), and I like most of his characters.

Helen · 15th October 2010, 11:46 PM

Katherine Mansfield's short stories.

And perhaps Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains . I don't know if they really are forgotten, but it seems to me that they have disappeared behind Cabaret.

Aitch · 16th October 2010, 01:07 AM

Originally Posted by Mojo

Colin Watson's Flaxborough novels.

Got most of them - superb books.

They also made a pretty good TV series out of (some of) them. Starred Anton Rodgers as Purbright and Moray Watson as the Chief Constable. Of course that was the young, slim, not-bald Anton Rodgers.

ETA: And it's out on DVD!

Guybrush Threepwood · 17th October 2010, 07:38 AM

Originally Posted by RSLancastr

I don't know how obscure it is, but I've been wanting to reread The Deathworld Trilogy.

I wouldn't say it was particularly obscure, Harry Harrison is still popular enough. You could also add the first few Stainless Steel Rat books, although I felt the later ones were fairly poor.

I was going to add my own recommendation of the Wax Fruit trilogy by Guy McCrone (Antimacassar City, The Puritans and The Philistines) but then I heard them being serialised on Radio 4 on Friday night so I'm not sure if they count as obscure any more...

Bikewer · 17th October 2010, 07:44 AM

Fuelair: Glad to see that it's still possible to obtain copies, if only at rather inflated prices...

I found some of the repeating characters (mind, haven't read these in many years) to be quite clever...The poor investigator who seemed to loose some body part or other with each encounter...

bookitty · 17th October 2010, 12:40 PM

The adventure novels of H. Ride Haggard, Allen Quartermain especially. I've been waiting for the popularity of steampunk to influence a revival in Victorian fiction, possibly with a few new illustrated editions showcasing the talents of this new crop of illustrators. So far, it hasn't happened. Not even for the amazing bindings of the Victorian editions.

Alferd_Packer · 18th October 2010, 08:54 AM

Originally Posted by Guybrush Threepwood

I wouldn't say it was particularly obscure, Harry Harrison is still popular enough. You could also add the first few Stainless Steel Rat books, although I felt the later ones were fairly poor.

I was going to add my own recommendation of the Wax Fruit trilogy by Guy McCrone (Antimacassar City, The Puritans and The Philistines) but then I heard them being serialised on Radio 4 on Friday night so I'm not sure if they count as obscure any more...

My local library has only a few of the SSR books, and absolutely none of the Bil the Galatic Hero books.

TraneWreck · 18th October 2010, 08:58 AM

Anything by Par Lagerkvist. He's one of my all time favorite authors, but I don't think he's very well known, even though he won a Nobel for literature.

I will also add the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell.

Aitch · 18th October 2010, 09:09 AM

Not seen any of their stuff around for a while (still in print though), but what I read of the works of Sjöwall and Wahlöö^WP were definitely recommendable.

Guybrush Threepwood · 18th October 2010, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Alferd_Packer

My local library has only a few of the SSR books, and absolutely none of the Bill the Galatic Hero books.

Two 'L's in the book title bowb, he's an officer by the end.

I had no idea there were sequels to it until I read this post, and, judging by Harrisons own opinion of the sequels reported on Wikipedia, I was probably better off that way.

TexasJack · 18th October 2010, 02:50 PM

Thomas Tryon's Lady was one of my favorites when I was young; I would love to read it again to see how it holds up.

Bikewer · 19th October 2010, 06:15 AM

Just found out that a "new" McAuliff Augustus Mandrell book is available.
It's being put out by a small crime-fiction outfit and is available from Amazon, "Shoot the President, Are You Mad?"
http://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Presiden...7494081&sr=8-1

14th October 2010, 12:19 PM	#1
Alferd_Packer Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 7,222	Favorite "forgotten" books? OK, what are your favorite, but obscure books that you would like to reread? 1) Anything by Clifford D Simak, especially the Goblin reservation (but not Mastodonia because I still have my original 1979 eddition) 2) The Swallows and Amazons series 3) The Ken Holt Mystery Series. I read all of these as a kid and would enjoy rereading them if I can find copies.
	__________________ No laws of physics were broken in the writing of this post

14th October 2010, 12:34 PM	#2
patchbunny Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Right about... here. Posts: 1,553	I'd name one, but I've forgotten it. There. I've gotten that joke out of the way. The thread may now continue.
	__________________ "So, they laugh at my boner, will they? I'll show them! I'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!" -- The Joker, Batman #66

14th October 2010, 05:07 PM	#4
patchbunny Graduate Poster Join Date: May 2004 Location: Right about... here. Posts: 1,553	Actually, to be honest about this thread, I rather enjoyed the Moomin' books as a kid, and I've not seen those in decades. I wouldn't mind giving those a read again.
	__________________ "So, they laugh at my boner, will they? I'll show them! I'll show them how many boners the Joker can make!" -- The Joker, Batman #66

14th October 2010, 05:19 PM	#5
Belgian thought Muse Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 664	Alfred Hitchcock "Mysteries" series - circa 1973
Belgian thought Muse Join Date: May 2004 Posts: 664

14th October 2010, 05:56 PM	#6
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	I miss somehow Simak's books qualifying as obscure - and I have most of them (though not in immediate access.
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	__________________ There is no problem so great that it cannot be fixed by small explosives carefully placed. Wash this space! We fight for the Lady Babylon!!!

14th October 2010, 12:44 PM	#3
Giggywig Master Poster Join Date: May 2007 Location: North Carolina Posts: 2,853	When I was growing up I read plenty of Emilio Salgari's works. Apparently they are not even available in English, so I'd probably be hard pressed to find them here.

14th October 2010, 05:57 PM	#7
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss...mintroll+books Regular books and the comic strip collection
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	__________________ There is no problem so great that it cannot be fixed by small explosives carefully placed. Wash this space! We fight for the Lady Babylon!!!

14th October 2010, 06:55 PM	#8
JerryGarcia Muse Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Montpelier, VT Posts: 785	Two by Nathanael West : Miss Lonleyhearts and Day of the Locust

14th October 2010, 07:09 PM	#9
jakesteele Graduate Poster Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 1,224	One of my favorites is a little know book by Robert Silverberg called "The Book of Skulls". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Skulls Four college kids stumble on to a secret monastery that can grant immortality. The catch is is that two must die. One must be sacrificed and one must be sacrificed. Also, I don't know if you could consider this obscure or unknown, but "The Magus" by John Fowles is one of the most mind *********** books I've ever read.
	__________________ Occam’s Beard – The simplest solution isn’t always the best

14th October 2010, 07:23 PM	#10
dasmiller Just the right amount of cowbell Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Well past Hither, looking for Yon Posts: 3,465	Originally Posted by jakesteele One of my favorites is a little know book by Robert Silverberg called "The Book of Skulls". Good catch, and it's not the sort of book I'd have expected Silverberg to write. I'd list: "The Dragon Never Sleeps" by Glen Cook, "Misplaced Persons" by Lee Harding "Rainbow's End" by Vernor Vinge. And pretty much everything else by Vernor Vinge. "Fables For Our Time" by James Thurber (collection of short stories) "Memoirs of a Space Traveller" by Stanislaw Lem (also a collection of short stories) and the whole Black Company series by Glen Cook. I'm considering "To Reign In Hell" by Steven Brust, "Blood Music" by Greg Bear, Timescape" by Gregory Benford, and "Why Call Them Back From Heaven" by Clifford Simak to be non-obscure. I don't have any consistent rationale for which books I think are obscure vs. non-obscure.
	__________________ "In times of war, we need warriors. But this isn't a war." - Phil Plaitt

14th October 2010, 08:10 PM	#11
wasapi Master Poster Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2,384	The Night Visitor, by B. Traven. It seems many people only know of Traven from The Treasure of Seirra Madre. The Night Visitor is a collection of short stories, and probably my favorite of many, many short story collections I've read. Julia
wasapi Master Poster Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2,384

14th October 2010, 08:11 PM	#12
Marquis de Carabas Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: vuori Posts: 27,106	Deadeye Dick - A Vonnegut tome that doesn't get much love, it seems, but is still one of my favorites.
	__________________ Jesus ... wasn't he the bloke who turned fish into wine and made the lepers multiply? -KateHL Violence is more acceptable than incest. I have been told to keep this in mind.

15th October 2010, 05:28 AM	#13
Oystein Philosopher Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Germany Posts: 9,826	Oh, I have forgotten what it was........ Ok, here is one: I wasn't out of school very long, where I hated my German and Literature classes. I never read the novels we were supposed to read. I got into reading real books only after it wasn't mandatory any longer. (Before that, adventure books for leasure, of course). So I had the Karamasoffs and Notre Dame already behind me when my sister recommended "Dancing with the Wolves", the novel that the Costner movie was based on. My was that a bad book, with an even worse German translation!! I needed a quick antidote, so I picked up the slimmest book in our "serious literature" shelf, and it was: Roßhalde - by Hermann Hesse, written 1914. Hesse is well known and much loved for his Steppenwolf and Siddhartha and The Glass Bead Game, but I didn't know him then. I read Roßhalde. A book that even many Hesse fans have never read, and most have forgotten. To me then the boring story of the fading of an artist's wedding - nothing that rang a bell in my life. But boy, what a superb language! How finely crafted every sentence, how well designed the overall effort! While the content didn't interest me, just reading such fine language was an immense joy! Hesse himself said, 28 years later: "Back then, with this book, I had reached the full height of artisanship and technique that is possible to me, and I never progressed any further". I never went back to trivial literature and mediocre autors.

15th October 2010, 05:34 AM	#14
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 30,112	Well, I haven't forgotten it, but most other people have. It used to be considered a great classic, and there's even a statue of one of the characters in a public park somewhere, but it's been out of fashion for decades. WH Hudson's "Green Mansions". It's so little known that people don't recall it even after Audrey Hepburn was in a movie adaptation, which flopped.
	__________________ One cannot expect wisdom to flow from a pumpkin.

15th October 2010, 05:50 AM	#15
Alferd_Packer Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 7,222	Originally Posted by fuelair I miss somehow Simak's books qualifying as obscure - and I have most of them (though not in immediate access. My local library has four Simak titles, three of them in Russian.
	__________________ No laws of physics were broken in the writing of this post

15th October 2010, 05:56 AM	#16
Bikewer Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: St. Louis, Mo. Posts: 9,539	Back when I first started my police career, in the late 60s, I read a series (three, as I recall) of books called "The Commissions of Augustus Mandrell". These were enormously clever books about a thoroughly-amoral assassin and his "commissions". In one, Hitler is smuggled out of Germany post-war masquerading as one of his own doubles, and ends up becoming the Baseball Commissioner.... That sort of thing. Very droll and literate... Evidently out of print and unobtainable now....At least as of the last time I looked.

15th October 2010, 06:02 AM	#17
Mojo Mostly harmless Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Nor Flanden Posts: 22,102	Colin Watson's Flaxborough novels.
	__________________ "You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield "The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky

15th October 2010, 07:28 AM	#18
TragicMonkey Poisoned Waffles Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Monkey Posts: 30,112	Oh, and I don't know if anybody else reads Chaim Potok any more. They used to have great library book sales in my city, so I have lots of books but many of them aren't sitting on the shelves in regular bookstores. I've quite a few authors and books I'd never have read if it hadn't been for library sales. James Melville's Superintendent Otani mysteries, and the Miss Melville books spring to mind. I think you can still find Shizuko Natsuki in bookstores, but I wouldn't have encountered her books otherwise. I have no idea whether she's hugely popular in Japan, but over here I've yet to encounter anybody else who's even heard of her. Also Pearl Buck. Practically everybody's heard of "The Good Earth" even if they haven't read it, but her other (and much better) books are pretty much forgotten. "Pavilion of Women" and "Mandala", and the ones she wrote under a man's name.
	__________________ One cannot expect wisdom to flow from a pumpkin.

15th October 2010, 10:27 AM	#19
Piscivore Smelling fishy Join Date: May 2004 Location: Home is wherever I'm with you Posts: 26,484	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey Well, I haven't forgotten it, but most other people have. It used to be considered a great classic, and there's even a statue of one of the characters in a public park somewhere, but it's been out of fashion for decades. WH Hudson's "Green Mansions". It's so little known that people don't recall it even after Audrey Hepburn was in a movie adaptation, which flopped. I have a very nice old copy of that, it's about time for a re-read.
	__________________ Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Take his fish away and tell him he's lucky just to be alive, and he'll figure out how to catch another one for you to take tomorrow. "...untrustworthy obnoxious twerp." - CFLarsen

15th October 2010, 03:37 PM	#20
W.D.Clinger Master Poster Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 2,442	Originally Posted by Alferd_Packer OK, what are your favorite, but obscure books that you would like to reread? I'm looking forward to re-reading the first volume of an autobiography by Negley Farson^WP, The Way of a Transgressor, 1936. (I don't own the second volume, written 21 years later, and haven't read it.) Farson is full of himself, but he knows that and keeps it in check. As a foreign correspondent, he witnessed some remarkable events of the early 20th century, writes well, and tells us enough but not too much of his private life.

15th October 2010, 03:38 PM	#21
Swagomatic Homer Simpson Analogue Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,848	When I was in my early twenties, I was reading a lot of Russian authors, and a friend let me read his copy of "Oblomov," by Ivan Goncharov. It was a weird, kind of funny book about this semi-wealthy Russian layabout.
	__________________ I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man. - The Dude

15th October 2010, 03:43 PM	#22
applecorped Rotten to the Core Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 10,689	The Bible. I forgot how it ends.
	__________________ All You Need Is Love.

15th October 2010, 06:07 PM	#23
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	Originally Posted by Bikewer Back when I first started my police career, in the late 60s, I read a series (three, as I recall) of books called "The Commissions of Augustus Mandrell". These were enormously clever books about a thoroughly-amoral assassin and his "commissions". In one, Hitler is smuggled out of Germany post-war masquerading as one of his own doubles, and ends up becoming the Baseball Commissioner.... That sort of thing. Very droll and literate... Evidently out of print and unobtainable now....At least as of the last time I looked. Thoroughly fun books - but all the stories were a bit too much intertwined (lots of repeating characters given the secrecy and secret nature of the main character)!! http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...rell&x=13&y=22
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	__________________ There is no problem so great that it cannot be fixed by small explosives carefully placed. Wash this space! We fight for the Lady Babylon!!!

15th October 2010, 06:42 PM	#24
Loss Leader Opinionated Jerk Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: New York Posts: 11,885	Is Of Human Bondage obscure? I loved that book and nobody else seems to have read it.
	__________________ Follow me on Twitter! @LossLeader This force is receiving all the right to vote through the use of magic. - Miernik Wieslaw <NEW> VOTE FOR ME JUST BECAUSE <NEW>

15th October 2010, 06:57 PM	#25
Damien Evans Up The Irons Tagger Join Date: May 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Posts: 25,310	Originally Posted by applecorped The Bible. I forgot how it ends. The author describing a really bad acid trip.
	__________________ WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN? - Death "Racism is a disease in society. We're all equal. I don't care what their colour is, or religion. Just as long as they're human beings they're my buddies." - Mandawuy Yunupingu, lead singer of Yothu Yindi

15th October 2010, 07:14 PM	#26
FattyCatty Picky V. Nitty Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Southern California Posts: 2,441	Originally Posted by TragicMonkey <snip> I've quite a few authors and books I'd never have read if it hadn't been for library sales. James Melville's Superintendent Otani mysteries, and the Miss Melville books spring to mind. I think you can still find Shizuko Natsuki in bookstores, but I wouldn't have encountered her books otherwise. I have no idea whether she's hugely popular in Japan, but over here I've yet to encounter anybody else who's even heard of her. <snip> I've got the Miss Melville books, if you mean the ones by Evelyn Smith. I also like the Jocelyn O'Roarke series by Jane Dentinger; the first book in the series is Murder on Cue.
	__________________ You can't teach an old dogma new tricks -- Dorothy Parker The sceptics continued to look sceptical and the believers believing -- Catherine Aird _{[/grammar nazi][/Dept of Grammar Security] ftfy -- Wudang Proud member of SCOFF (SoCal Opposing Feline Filleting)}

15th October 2010, 07:28 PM	#27
RSLancastr www.StopSylvia.com Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: Salem, Oregon Posts: 15,548	I don't know how obscure it is, but I've been wanting to reread The Deathworld Trilogy. Similarly, there was a three-or-four volume set of pulpy science fiction novels titled The Expendables about a rag-tag group of mercenaries and scientists sent to check out earth-like planets to determine if they were colonizable. The recent film of the same name is apparently unrelated.
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15th October 2010, 08:52 PM	#28
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	Originally Posted by Loss Leader Is Of Human Bondage obscure? I loved that book and nobody else seems to have read it. No, not obscure at all - but in all fairness there are gigantic multiples of thousands of novels out there, And a goodly number of classics have not appeared on any of the best/worst/least understandable/most overrated (etc.) lists in this forum.
fuelair Cythraul Enfys Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 28,961	__________________ There is no problem so great that it cannot be fixed by small explosives carefully placed. Wash this space! We fight for the Lady Babylon!!!

15th October 2010, 09:40 PM	#29
FattyCatty Picky V. Nitty Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Southern California Posts: 2,441	I really like the Steven Brust Vlad Taltos books, starting with Jhereg. The world he created is interesting, with sorcery and gods (maybe not so much fun for an atheist?), and I like most of his characters.
	__________________ You can't teach an old dogma new tricks -- Dorothy Parker The sceptics continued to look sceptical and the believers believing -- Catherine Aird _{[/grammar nazi][/Dept of Grammar Security] ftfy -- Wudang Proud member of SCOFF (SoCal Opposing Feline Filleting)}

15th October 2010, 11:46 PM	#30
Helen Implicitly explicit Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Here. Or very nearly getting there, at least. Posts: 2,141	Katherine Mansfield's short stories. And perhaps Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin and Mr Norris Changes Trains . I don't know if they really are forgotten, but it seems to me that they have disappeared behind Cabaret.

16th October 2010, 01:07 AM	#31
Aitch Guest Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: StAines Posts: 2,731	Originally Posted by Mojo Colin Watson's Flaxborough novels. Got most of them - superb books. They also made a pretty good TV series out of (some of) them. Starred Anton Rodgers as Purbright and Moray Watson as the Chief Constable. Of course that was the young, slim, not-bald Anton Rodgers. ETA: And it's out on DVD!
	Last edited by Aitch; 16th October 2010 at 01:44 AM.

17th October 2010, 07:38 AM	#32
Guybrush Threepwood Trainee Pirate Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: An Uaimh Posts: 1,564	Originally Posted by RSLancastr I don't know how obscure it is, but I've been wanting to reread The Deathworld Trilogy. I wouldn't say it was particularly obscure, Harry Harrison is still popular enough. You could also add the first few Stainless Steel Rat books, although I felt the later ones were fairly poor. I was going to add my own recommendation of the Wax Fruit trilogy by Guy McCrone (Antimacassar City, The Puritans and The Philistines) but then I heard them being serialised on Radio 4 on Friday night so I'm not sure if they count as obscure any more...

17th October 2010, 07:44 AM	#33
Bikewer Philosopher Join Date: Sep 2003 Location: St. Louis, Mo. Posts: 9,539	Fuelair: Glad to see that it's still possible to obtain copies, if only at rather inflated prices... I found some of the repeating characters (mind, haven't read these in many years) to be quite clever...The poor investigator who seemed to loose some body part or other with each encounter...

17th October 2010, 12:40 PM	#34
bookitty Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 5,532	The adventure novels of H. Ride Haggard, Allen Quartermain especially. I've been waiting for the popularity of steampunk to influence a revival in Victorian fiction, possibly with a few new illustrated editions showcasing the talents of this new crop of illustrators. So far, it hasn't happened. Not even for the amazing bindings of the Victorian editions.
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18th October 2010, 08:54 AM	#35
Alferd_Packer Philosopher Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 7,222	Originally Posted by Guybrush Threepwood I wouldn't say it was particularly obscure, Harry Harrison is still popular enough. You could also add the first few Stainless Steel Rat books, although I felt the later ones were fairly poor. I was going to add my own recommendation of the Wax Fruit trilogy by Guy McCrone (Antimacassar City, The Puritans and The Philistines) but then I heard them being serialised on Radio 4 on Friday night so I'm not sure if they count as obscure any more... My local library has only a few of the SSR books, and absolutely none of the Bil the Galatic Hero books.
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