Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by JackFr on Monday January 20, 2020 @12:03AM
(#22096446)
I read “The Way We Live Now” at the height of the first dot com bubble. Amazing. There is truly nothing new under the sun.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by sramsay on Sunday January 19, 2020 @03:45PM
(#22093928)
A thousand times yes to Trollope, and I think there are a lot of nineteenth-century novelists who are like that (not quite as well known as the biggest names, but absolutely superb). Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone, The Woman in White) is another good example from that category.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by JackFr on Monday January 20, 2020 @12:12AM
(#22096473)
Dan Simmons’ novel “Drood”, a very fictional account of the relationship between Willkie Collins and Charles Dickens. A fascinating true item I learned from the novel was that Willkie Collins was addicted to laudanum and for many years hallucinated his doppelgänger whom he called ‘ghost Willkie’.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by mindcrime on Monday January 20, 2020 @01:21AM
(#22096721)
Drood was a fascinating read, and was my first exposure to Wilkie Collins. Reading Drood is the reason I have a copy of The Moonstone on my shelf waiting to be read at this very moment.
Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by UzhasKakoi on Monday January 20, 2020 @10:47AM
(#22099608)
Wilkie Collins was well known and quite popular in the Soviet Union as we’re some other American authors: o’Henry, .... Dreiser, as I discovered not well known in America.
Could you through in a few more names please? Would be interested to check what I’ve been missing. Thanks!
Re:Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?
by FrobeniusTwist on Monday January 20, 2020 @03:48PM
(#22101979)
Amazed to see Trollope mentioned here.
I read Dr. Thorne probably twenty years ago, and liked it OK. I recently found, and have been completely blown away by, the Timothy West recordings of Trollope on Audible. They are hands down the most consistently enjoyable audiobooks I've ever come across (and I've been listening to audiobooks since the 90s). West's readings add so much to the experience. I really cannot recommend them strongly enough.
Trollope isn't as well known as Dickens or Austen. I think the emotional intelligence of this book makes up for the fact that nothing much happens.
There's a vicar who is old friends with the Bishop. He's made Warden of an Almshouse for old men in the community. The amount of money he's going to get to do basically nothing is embarrassingly large.
It's an extremely gentle book about controversy, conspiracy, and people taking a moral stand.
It got me hooked on Trollope. His other books are far more intricate, worldly, and entertaining. But I like this short novel very much.