In my opinion, the two most beautiful words in the English language are “book sale.” My local library had a discard sale last month and I came away with about thirty new books (and paid less than ten dollars!)
A lot of them I bought were books by authors I’d never tried. My Amazon budget is usually restricted to the tried-and-true, out of fear of dissapointment. Book sales are a great way to find new authors cheaply.
My two finds this time were The Midwife by Gay Courter and its sequal The Midwife’s Advice. Both are excellent, though I liked the second one a bit better.
The Midwife is about a woman’s struggle in the early 1900s to become recognized by the medical profession, and the problems she faces treating poor and sometimes ignorant women. Each section of the book deals with a different medical case. Honestly, I didn’t expect all that much when I started reading it, thinking I might be able to use some of the midwifery information as reference for my own writing projects, but I was sucked in almost immediately.
The Midwife’s Advice is the story of the main character setting up her own private practice. The private practice starts out of necessity when she is suspended from the hospital at which she works for sharing birth control information. Comstockery, the socialist movement, WWI, and the great influenza epidemic are all things the heroine faces. Along with a doctor, she studies women’s sexuality and new fertility treatments.
Both are well-written. The heroine is a woman of her times. (Some historical novels have characters who think in twentieth-century ways.) She has the common prejudices and misconceptions of the time, as well as very human flaws.
It’s regrettable that this author doesn’t get the kind of attention that writers like Phillipa Gregory or Margaret George get because she’s definitely an equal, if not a superior. The amount of research and period detail that went into these books is astonishing.
Harriette Simpson Arnow – an Appalachian writer from the 40’s who wrote The Dollmaker, The Weedkiller’s Daughter, Hunter’s Horn, and a couple more biographical books, Seedtime on the Cumberland and Flowering on the Cumberland. Absolutely unflinching, un-sentimental stories about real, complex people.
Don Robertson – I pimp him every chance I get, but I don’t know if I’ve convinced anyone to try him. The Ideal Genuine Man is a hard look at getting old, and Paradise Falls (aka The Great American Novel) is a true look at midwest America after the Civil War, the growth of business and the business mentality and the beginning of the end of small towns and “family values” – also unflinching and unsentimental. His Civil War books are good too.
S. Andrew Swann wrote “Forests of the Night”, “Emperors Of The Twilight”, and “Spectres Of The Dawn”. Science fiction about genetic engineering, bigotry, & what happens to society when you make an animal think. Very, very good.
“The Bridge Of Birds” by Barry Hughart is out of print, so go rush & buy a used copy ASAP. Chinese Fantasy.
Finally, “The Book Of Weird”. Oh, how can I describe it? BTW–look at this! Amazon was unable to find anything similar to peddle to me.
Well-known to SF fans (even though he wrote outside the genre), obscure to the general reading public.
Try The Adventures of Doctor Eszterhazy, a collection of short stories set in the 19th Century, in the mythical southeastern European state, the Triune Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania (modeled, clearly, on the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The hero is Dr. Engelbert Eszterhazy, a brilliant and largely autodidact polymath of the minor nobility – urbane, broad-minded, gentle, philosophical yet practical, endlessly resourceful. He works (when he is working at all, and not alone studying) as a kind of detective, but unlike Sherlock Holmes he has no fear that his mind is like an attic, of limited storage capacity; he studies everything. Even magic. (Most of the stories include supernatural elements.) From “The Autogondola Invention”:
Harry Crews. He has a fascination with (and an affection for) societal outcasts, and he writes in stark, unflowery terms about their lives. In the introduction to the book Classic Crews (which contains an autobiographical account of his childhood, as well as a couple of essays and short stories), he talks about how that came about.
These are both from my Wife’s collection of books. The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float (Paperback) by Farley Mowat Mowat is an exceptionally skilled writer and this is his masterpiece. I am willing to bet that few have heard of it.
Even more obscure and out of print. John Medicinewolf by Moon, Michael E.
If you know this book I would like to see the feather that proves it.
Really good and memorable book about one mans fight to make his way in the crazy world of Nowhere Montana. It read like Northern Exposure before the show was even made. The main character is a Dakota Indian.
Two of my favorite mid-century novelists are Christopher Morley (who also wrote lots of great essays and travel pieces) and Olive Higgins Prouty (really good “chick lit”). Both very popular in their day and now pretty much neglected and forgotten.
It’s been some time, but the book Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord is still available at Amazon:
I got swallowed whole by the incredible world of late Nineteenth and Twentieth Century China as told through the story of five generations of the fictitious House of Chang. The focus is on the daughter Spring Moon and the novel begins when she is a child of seven, I believe. Imagine the changes that unfold before her eyes.
It’s been at least twenty years since I read it and now I’ve talked myself into ordering a copy and reading it again.
Fred Chappell - modern southern writer working the tall tale/magical realism mode, just steeped in atmosphere, local color, and kudzu. His stories tend to be humorous and captivating, but they’ll turn on you in a second and deliver devastating, heavily emotional payoffs a la Flannery O’Connor. I am one of you forever is my favorite. When Big Fish came out in the theatres, I was convinced that it was an adaptation of this book. Criminally (but lucky for us!), most of his books are available starting at $.01 on Amazon.
I’ll second that, *Brighten the Corner Where You Are * is my favorite. My contribution is **Loyd Little ** - before I read his Parthian Shot, I wouldn’t have believed that a hilarious comic novel set in the Vietnam War even existed.
There are a lot of authors not really well known to the general public, buty if I list them here, I’m sure a lot of people will know them. I just read the collected novels of eric Frank Russell a couple of months ago. Great SF author whose work seems to be slipping from recognition. Jack Chalker had been championing him (he wrote the intros to the two NESFA Press editions of Russell’s work, and for the Del Rey book “The Best of Eric Frank Russell”). But Russell’s stuff is in quite a few “Grest SF” anthologies.
Another generally forgotten SF writer is Raymond Z. Gallun. His “Seeds of the Dusk” and “Old Faithful” are considered classics, but I never heard of him until I found “The Best of Raymond Z. Gallun”. After that I dug up some of his other books – “The Planet Strappers” and “The Eden Cycle”.
I have to confess that I never even heard of SF writer Charles W. Harness until a couple of years ago. His book “The Rose” is considered a classic. I hate it, and can’t see why Arthur C. Clarke would praise this.
I’ll also say [B[Jules Verne** because, aslthough he’s well known and there are quite a few not-very-faithful movies based on his work, most people have never even heard of most of his works. I’ve finished reading recently Kereban the Inflexable, The Village in the Treetops, The Steam House (taking an elephant-shaped steam powered RV across India!!), and Verne’s two sequels to Swiss Family Robinson, Their Island Home and Castaways of the Flag. Great suff!
Well, if it’s any consolation, I’ve got two copies. One that’s mine, and one for giving to people who need to read it.
Of course, I’ve also yet to read a “dog” book better than his The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be.
Barry B. Longyear’s Saint Mary Blue is an excellent book. It’s also, according to the author, a semi-aubiographical novel. The main character is rather transparently Longyear, himself, dealing with taking his first step at an inpatient detox center. After he’d started getting treated for his addiction, the first thing most people said to him was that if they were writers…
So he finally wrote it.
One of the early readers described it as a great joke with a kick to the groin for a punchline. While not completely accurate, it gives one an idea of how the pain and humor are mixed in the novel.
It’s an excellent book, and a source of some of my favorite quotes. However, because Longyear is an SF writer - none of the mainstream presses wanted to touch the book, and none of the SF presses were interested in a book grounded in reality.
Mark Berent worte some great historical fiction about the Vietnam War. He’s in a similar genre as Tom Clancy but unlike how Clancy knows his stuff because he reads technical manuals, Berent knows his stuff because he was there.
The Ideal Genuine Man is a hard look at getting old, and Paradise Falls (aka The Great American Novel) is a true look at midwest America after the Civil War, the growth of business and the business mentality and the beginning of the end of small towns and “family values” – also unflinching and unsentimental. His Civil War books are good too.