BS: Books that should be better known

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:17 PM

The books of Oliver Rackham should be better known and read by everyone who has the slightest interest in the world around them.

The History of the Countryside

Trees and Woodlands in the British Landscape

Woodlands

The Ash Tree (his last book)

etc., etc.

Rackham was an interesting combination of a scientist and a historian. His books illuminate the relationship between man and the natural world - particularly in Britain.

Sadly, Prof. Rackham died in February of this year. I'm still distraught. RIP

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Mark Ross
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:04 PM

Don Firth; Scaramouche has one of the greatest opening lines in lterature;

"He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad."


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 May 15 - 03:42 PM

Also for the politically minded--or anyone in an allegedly Democratic system who votes: First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea, by Paul Woodruff. A real eye-opener.

For a good read, a couple of random selections:

Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. Set in and around the French Revolution, one heck of an adventure story. The movie with Stewart Granger doesn't come anywhere close to doing it justice.

Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. None of the movies do it justice. The novel (written by an eighteen year old girl!) raises the question of "who is the real monster here, the 'Creature' or Dr. Frankenstein?" Dr. Frankenstein creates, then forsakes his creation, leaving "Adam 2" to fend for himself....

Science fiction writer Brian Aldiss credits Frankenstein with being the real first science fiction novel ever written. Mary Shelley was extrapolation from known science at the time ("Galvanism").

The movies don't come close to the story that Mary Shelley really wrote.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:55 PM

Por the politically minded:
Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge - one of the finest, non-hysterical accounts of political persecution under Stalin
Steinbecks, 'In Dubious Battle (just pipped at the post by Grapes of Wrath.
The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek - hilarious account of an idiot who survives World War One because of his idiocy - a/the European Classic - read it 4 times so far.
Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis - a white, middle-class American tracing his family tree finds he is decended from a black slave and ends up defending his family from outraged neighbours.
Mornings in Jenin, - Susan Abulhawa - magic description of life in a Palestinian refugee camp - extremely moving and relevant.
Peekskil U.S.A. - Howard Fast - short account of the anti Union Labor Day Riots in New York State, 1949 (Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson were present)
Where do you stop? - lots of great books out there to be read - so little time.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:52 PM

Peter Currell Brown: Smallcreep's Day.

It's a sort of fantastic voyage through a surreally enormous factory in the English Midlands: English magic realism influenced by Kafka and Calvino, but more political. Brown never wrote another book and nobody else has ever written anything like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:11 PM

Elijah Wald's biography of Josh White.
nice to see Joyce Porter getting a mention - very funny lady.
Jack in the Green by Clo Chapman

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Thompson
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:06 PM

Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson - a history of swimming in literature, fascinating and faintly seedy, with trips into ancient Rome, the Romantics, Japan, etc
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady - truly hilarious book about growing up the 1950s Deep South
Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens - wonderful versions of the stories of the Fianna retold in English, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham
The Pursuit of Love - very funny story of English aristocratic life by Nancy Mitford - a thinly-disguised version of her own upbringing
On Broadway, a collection of Damon Runyon's stories of people doing the best they can during the Depression

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:48 PM

Nice question, Michael! I think I'd have to search for the original...

I have to boast a little and say that I read them - many, many years ago, when you could buy the French editions from London bookshops - in the original French. By sheer chance, I had a 19th century French/English dictionary which helped me out as some of the argot and word usage could not be found in a modern one.

Vive Le Chat Noir! Vive Rodolphe Salis! Vive Aristide Bruant! Vive Erik Satie!

Etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:32 PM

Just as I pressed enter I remembered the girl who had a black and white pattern, harlequin-esque I think, because she had mixed race parents and the man who's never ending job was to sweep the equator - a steel rail which ran around the world. Unless that was either a different book or a result of my fevered imagination :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:31 PM

Ah, yes, Will -- Alphonse Allais —
Once exhibited a blank piece of paper in a frame in an exhibition titled "Anæmic Girls Walking To First Communion In Snow". My metaphysical speculation on this has always been, if one wanted to put it in an exhibition, would any sheet of white paper do, or would one have to track down and exhibit the original one?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:28 PM

One of my favourites as a youngster was the 35th of May. Got it from the library at least 3 or 4 times. Never been able to get it since. I am sure I did not realise it was satire then but I would like to read it again now to see if it gives me the same amount of enjoyment.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:04 PM

Wilt by Tom Sharpe
Trapp's War by Brian Callison
73 North by Dudley Pope
Dover goes to Pot by Joyce Porter
Looking for Dilmun by Geoffrey Bibbey
Down to the Sea by Shalimar

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 May 15 - 12:01 PM

Blimey, HiLo - I haven't even heard of any of those, much less read them.

Food for thought.

If you can get them in translation, I recommend the collections of short, witty and whimsical, off-the-wall pieces by the late 19th century French writer Alphone Allais. Very tart and often dark humour. Miles Kington, the (deceased) English humorous writer and musician, translated some of Allais' pieces into idiomatic English as The World of Alphonse Allais, in the United States.

Well worth a read.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:55 AM

'Beyond Pulditch Gates' by Henry Hudson - a hidden masterpiece about 1960/70s Dublin and the building of the Poolbeg power-station
Both humourous and tragic
Found it in a discount shop last year
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:17 AM

I might, Tell me a bit about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,DaveRo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:14 AM

Looks like you might enjoy Life_and_Fate by Vasily Grossman

Subject: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:05 AM

I read a lot of books, a hundred or so a year. Every once in a while I come across a book that I feel has been overlooked and under appreciated. I am sure that many avid readers have that experience. Here are a few Fiction books that I feel are true classics.

The Story Of An African Farm by Olive Schreiner (!883) Amazing book, the author is a fascinating character as well.

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (1947) One of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read, not an easy read but a good look into Berlin during The Last War.

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, very good book. I always felt that Davies was far more worthy of a Nobel Prize than many of those who won one.

To The End of The Land by David Grossman. May help in gaining a better understanding of Modern Israel.

The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin (known as The Line in America. Great book , tells us a lot about ordinary people in Soviet Russia

Perhaps you could share some of your choices for little known, but great books