Name some of your favorite obscure books...

[First Speaker]

...stuff that's been forgotten, or unjustly overlooked. Here's a few of mine. From the SF/Fantasy field: Fury, by Henry Kuttner; The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber; Time Bomb (aka Tomorrow Plus X), by Wilson Tucker; E Pluribus Unicorn, by Theodore Sturgeon; What Mad Universe, by Fredric Brown. Mystery: The Crooked Hinge, by John Dickson Carr; The Tragedy of X and Calamity Town, by Ellery Queen; Police at the Funeral, by Margery Allingham; The Red Right Hand, by Joel Townsley Rogers. "Straight" novels: From the Terrace, by John O'Hara; Guard of Honor, by James Gould Cozzens; Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter; Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith; Frank Norris, McTeague. Non-Fiction: Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey; The Edwardians, J.B. Priestley; John Lukacs, The End of the Twentieth Cebtury; Politics, Dwight MacDonald; Scapegoat, by Anthony Scaduto.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. "The Wall" by Marlen Haushofer.

Generations by Strauss and Howe.

You should cross post in fiction.

[Aristus]

2. "The Wanting Seed" by Anthony Burgess.

Much better known for "A Clockwork Orange."

"The Wanting Seed" is just as good a novel, just as wrenching a story, as "ACO", for different reasons. Excellent read.

[First Speaker]

3. Ever read *Nothing Like the Sun*...?

...still my favorite fictional portrait of Shakespeare...

[dweller]

6. great book n/t

👍🏻

[dweller]

4. not exactly a favorite

but I've struggled thru it... twice

Eleanor B. Morris Wu
Human Efflorescence: A Study in Mans Evolutionary and Historical Development

✌🏼️

[TEB]

5. Forgotten soldier

Guy sajer

[TwistOneUp]

7. Center Of The Cyclone

By Dr. John Lilly, the guy that tried to communicate with dolphins. Alava Shalom.

[revmclaren]

8. Morning Of The Magicians

by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier,

[bullsnarfle]

9. "Little Fuzzy"

and the sequel "Fuzzy Sapiens", by H. Beam Piper, just love 'em.

[FSogol]

10. Here's mine: (you said forgotten, or unjustly overlooked, I'd add underappreciated)

The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Downtown Diaries by Jim Carroll
Lyonesse Series (Suldrun's Garden, The Green Pearl & Madouc) by Jack Vance (Hell, everything by Jack Vance)
The Moon Moth byJack Vance
The Main by Trevanian
Last Defender of Camelot by Roger Zelazny
PSmith Journalist by PG Wodehouse
Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
Then we came to an end by Joshua Ferris
An Arsonist’s Guide to the Writer’s Homes of New England by Brock Clarke

[HeiressofBickworth]

11. I've got the book around here somewhere

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. Don't remember the author. It describes fads from alchemy to tulip fever. Very entertaining.

[eppur_se_muova]

12. "The Great Guano Rush" by Jimmy Skaggs

Have to recommend that one just for the title. For a few years in the 19th century, there was a strange law that allowed any captain of any American vessel to claim "newfound" islands for the USA. Not surprisingly, this had the potential to lead to war over every disputed claim. It also led to a brief revival of slavery -- under company rule. And it was all in the quest for new supplies of fertilizer.

"The Lost Colony of the Confederacy" by Eugene C. Harter. A largely forgotten episode, in which defeated Confederates so loathed the idea of living under Yankee rule that they emigrated to Brazil, where slavery was still legal. Despite the refusal of the first generation to assimilate into Catholic, multiracial Brazilian culture, their descendants eventually joined the melting pot, leaving only some curiously named towns and Protestant graveyards to show for it.

"The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815-1830" by Paul Johnson. Johnson is such a well-recognized author and historian that this can hardly be called obscure, but it's a long read, so only the dedicated have tackled it.

[jalan48]

13. The Grass-Claude Simon

[IcyPeas]

14. not exactly sure of their obscurity but:

The Fan Man by William Kotzwinkle

The Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake

The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin

[First Speaker]

15. Great choices!

...Tanith Lee is an old favorite of mine, and what can one say about Gormenghast? And "Kilgore Trout", for those who don't know, is a pseudonym for Philip Jose Farmer, taken--of course!--from Vonnegut...

[Cedar_son]

16. Hard to say if it's obscure, but I like Lamb, By christopher moore

[shenmue]

17. Silverlock, John Myers Myers

I don't know why he has the same name twice. It's a fantasy novel.

[red dog 1]

18. The Color Out of Time (1984) by Michael Shea

Not a book, but possibly the best short story I ever read is:
"The Horror on the # 33" (1982), also by Michael Shea

"The Falling Woman" by Pat Murphy

"Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up To Me" by Richard Farina (Not exactly obscure)

"Kinship With All Life" by J. Allen Boone

[jpak]

19. Babi Yar by Anatoly Kuznetsov

I think I got it through Scholastic Book Club at school.

Absolutely riveting and horrifying - read the whole thing the first day I got it.