Books that apparently,you're the only person to read

(thread remix)

Okay, The Devil’s Day by James Blish. It’s an interesting story about magic from the classic Christian perspective (summoning of demons and angels) set in modern times. I lost my copy years ago, but I must’ve read it at least once a month.

Also, I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s read Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth.

“The Faerie Queene.” I think there are only a dozen of us, scattered across the globe, weeping.

Julie

“The Quiet Earth” by Kiwi author Craig Harrison, upon which the bewildering movie of the same name was based.

Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer. It’s a humorous account of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, if that can be believed. The account of the Jesuit priest returning to his hometown to face off with the local Communist lackey in a winner-take-all eating contest has to be the one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.

Heh…hopefully by this summer I shall be among your number. (I’ve read chunks of it, but not the whole thing.)

I have to read it in preparation for my doctoral exams, as one can hardly be a specialist in Renaissance literature and not have read The Faerie Queene. Though I doubt I’ll enjoy it much. I actually don’t mind studying Spenser, but reading him is another matter… :wink:

(I said this to the last prof I studied Spenser with, and he said “You Shakespeareans are all wimps.”)

Hey, I’ve read The Devil’s Day. I also read Black Easter. Blish is one of my favorite sf authors. I may be the only person who has read David Ketterer’s critical biography of Blish, the name of which is escaping me at the moment.

I did not realize that The Quiet Earth was based on a book. That’s kind of an interesting movie.

I’m having a hard time thinking of anything too obscure that I’ve read. Hmmm. Chad Oliver’s sf novels, maybe? (Unearthly Neighbors or Shadows in the Sun.) Drew Mendelson’s Pilgrimage is an interesting sf novel, set in a gigantic moving city, but as far as I can tell it’s the only thing he ever wrote, so I don’t know how many people ever read it.

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson…

Loved the books. I can’t say why, exactly, a lot of the time they were seriously overwritten, heavy prose, etc, but I just loved the series.

And then there’s The Mirror of Her Dreams, and A Man Rides Through, also by Donaldson. Much more readable, and just as phenomenal.

No one else ever seems to have heard of them though which frustrates me.

And when I was a kid… The Teddy Bear Habit. Loved that book, and it’s apparently out of print, because I’d love to get that for my kids.

Jeebus, where do I start?

Far Tortuga by Peter Mattheisson
The Outline of History by H.G. Wells
Jack of Eagles by James Blish
Any Gor novel after #7 (Captive of Gor) (with the caveat that I am apparently the only non-Gorean who will admit to having read them, and to having liked them.)

Both “In His Own Write” and “A Spaniard In The Works” by John Lennon.

I love the way he used gobbledygook as a medium, and he had a wicked sense of humor. The thing is, I understand most of what he was saying through the gobbledygook! I remember reading it at school, and laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Somebody would ask me what was so funny. I’d hand them the book. Without exception, every single one of them handed it back to me, looking at me as if I were from outer space.

Jumble Jim, who shall remain nameless, was slowly asking his way through the underpants…

Biting The Sun by Tanith Lee. My hubby isn’t into sci-fi or fantasy at all and I kind of picked this up by accident.

I’ve read a lot of her short stories in anthologies but I had never read any novels by her before this. I was pleasantly surprised. (It’s actually two novellas, but WTF?).

Letters from the Earth is one of my favorite books. But you’re right. There don’t seem to be many people with whom I can talk about it. You can’t really be such a monster. :slight_smile:

I’ve never met anyone who has read A Cry Of Angels by Jeff Fields. It came out in, I think, the '70s, and I don’t know of any other books by this author. I’m sure it’s out of print, but if you can find it in your local library it’s well worth a read. Lots of great character studies and very sensitive writing.

Kafka’s The Castle took a lot of work to actually finish. Don’t get me started on Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Hobbes’s Leviathan. Boy, was I glad to get through those. (Note, I only read the first two volumes of the Leviathan. Anything more would have surely shattered my mind.) A lot of people begin to read Atlas Shrugged, but what percentage actually finish it?

Charles Dickens’ Hard Times: people aren’t likely to pick it up when they find out that Dickens didn’t get to finish writing it.

Book that was so blood-chillingly awful offal that I couldn’t get past the second or third chapter: Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast.

Books on my someday list (actually feel guilty): Paradise Lost. Orlando Furioso. Something by Kundera.

I have yet to meet anyone else - aside from me eldest brother, who recommended it to me - that has read Arthur C. Clarke’s The Hammer Of God. 'Tis an excellent book, in my opinion… some may hate the near-unnecessary amount of backstory that clogs the first half of the book, but to me it felt like reading an anthology of mini-stories that led up to the big plot.

John Hawkes - Second Skin; I was introduced to this book in an English Lit class on American Gothic. I have never met anyone outside of that class who has read that book.

Frederic Manning - The Middle Parts of Fortune; Set during WWI and, IMHO, a more honest portrait of war than most everything except All Quiet on the Western Front.

Count me as one. Well, actually, don’t. I only got through a couple of chapters, at which point I decided that I could afford to get marked down for participation over the week we discussed it. I think about 3/4 of the class ended up doing the same… It was a pretty lame week in Arthurian Legend :wink:

I read Donaldson several years ago. I understand what you mean. I can’t say I liked them, but some how had to keep reading.

My entry would be The Magus by John Fowles

Day of the Drones, by A. M. LIghtner.

Do you mean The Mystery of Edwin Drood? As far as I know, Hard Times is indeed complete.

Well, I DO know one other person who’s read Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West…an old college buddy who would sit down after dinner with a look of wild glee on his face, shouting “Time to read Spengler!!!”

I don’t doubt at all that there are a lot of people who have read Lulu Wang’s “the Lily theater”, but I haven’t met anybody.