You know. That book you buy everyone for a gift because you’re sure they don’t have it or that novel you love that even your most literate friends don’t know about. Your diamond in the rough, if you will.
Mine is Towing Jehovah. Just a wonderful book about finding God dead and belly up in the middle of the Atlantic.
I’m also always surprised by how few people seem to know Handling Sin, but I actually had this recommended to me via the SDMB, so it doesn’t really fit my OP. Probably my favorite book ever. No joke. Now, who was I supposed to thank for that…
I don’t buy it for people, but I lend them my copy, then I keep having to find and buy a new copy, which is harder and harder to do:
Sam Patch; Ballad of a Jumping Man.
About a real American character who was famous for jumping off of bridges and buildings, and who had a tame black bear who sometimes jumped along with him.
The book is narrated by the bear, who is a real deep thinker.
That’s in my TBR pile. I went on a Morrow binge last year after reading The Last Witchfinder, but haven’t gotten to Jehovah yet. A little Morrow goes a long way.
One book I push on people is The Dollmaker by Harriett Arnow. At least two people bought the damn thing on my rec but neither of them have read it. I don’t know if they have bad memories of the Jane Fonda movie version, or if the dialect turns them off. But nobody except me has read it, and it’s my favoritest book in the whole world!
I’ve bought five or six (remaindered hardcover) copies of Crazy Love by David L. Martin for giving. It’s a love story with an animal rights subplot. Far as I know, none of the people I gave the book to have read it.
AuntiePam: There is nothing more frustrating than giving a book which will never be read. Send those people a paperweight next time. Heathens!
Anyway, I’m a Morrow fanatic and, if you liked Witchfinder, I feel very confident you’ll enjoy Towing Jehovah and the two pseudo-sequels which are equally blasphemous and utterly wonderful.
I used to give Michael Chabon’s first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, to everyone I knew on any gift-giving occasion. This was back when it was his only novel. Now that he is very popular, I feel that my work is done.
Another campaign I was on was for Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. Then JK Rowling mentioned it as one of her favorite books, and it came back into print, and they made it into a movie, and heck, it didn’t need me any more.
Another one I still like to push is Lawrence Block’s Hitman. It’s a great quirky book of interconnected short stories about a killer for hire. It’s a wonderful example of a book that rises above its subject matter.
My favorites are two slim novels by Nancy Mitford, The Pursuit of Love and its companion piece, Love in a Cold Climate. They are nowadays usually issued together in one volume. I love both novels and am always lending or giving them to friends, who usually aren’t as caught up in the stories and characterizations as I am, to my immense disappointment.
I don’t know if no one reads them (not on this board!), but some of the favorites I keep around and have to reread every few years include Joan Crawford’s My Way of Life, Henri Murger’s Bohemians of the Latin Quarter, and of course the collected Variety Obituaries.
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson is one of my favorite novels, and while I’m sure it’s been enjoyed by many of the smart folks on this board, I’ve had a hell of a time getting any of my friends or family members to get beyond the first couple of chapters. Apparently they get lost ofter the first few equations.
It helps that I have a good background in science and history, and a degree in computer science. I can imagine many of Stephenson’s “tangents” causing my eyes to glaze over if I didn’t have the educational foundation to grasp most of the subjects covered in the book.
So you’re responsible! Must have been you, because when I went looking for it (about three years ago?), it wasn’t back in print yet. I found a nice HC though, cheap. Great book, with that intriguing first line: “I’m writing this sitting in the kitchen sink.” (Or something like that.)
Flanders by Patricia Anthony. WWI epistolary novel. Never met anyone who read it except for the person who recommended it to me. Haven’t convinced anyone else to read it to date.
MandaJo, I’d read that. But it’s out of print. There are some used copies at Amazon, but not from sellers I’d buy from. I’ll see if my library can get it.
Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward. It’s set in a fantasy world where the forces of good have closed off the sources of supernatural evil, where “the good guys won”, and this has created an imbalance which will eventually destroy the world. Then that universe, and, perhaps, all universes. It’s up to a band of villains to save the world from destruction by the forces of good. Has one of my favorite quotes; at one point the villains need to complete a Heroic Task which just isn’t within their power. They think and think - until one looks up and says “What are we *thinking *?! We’re villains ! We’ll cheat !”
Wasp by Eric Frank Russell. An old ( 1957 ) sci fi novel about a single man dropped onto an enemy planet, who is supposed to use a combination of cleverness, training and superior Terran technology to destabilize the place. A very good one-man-against-everybody story.
A Logical Magician by Robert Weinberg. A modern mathematician is recruited by Merlin ( yes, the original ) to save the world from evil magic, but Merlin is captured by the bad guys before he can say a thing about how. He has given the hero the means to find other supernaturals, who according to Merlin are created by the collective belief of humanity; when enough people believed in Merlin, he appeared. There’s lots of stuff about how the supernaturals have changed to blend into the modern world, and how certain of their vulnerabilities have changed mysteriously; such as iron no longer hurting fey, and crosses not bothering vampires. The hero has to figure out why, before he gets killed. Oh, and the reason why you don’t see, say, Superman or the critter from Alien wandering around is because of modern disbelief and skepticism.
