Earlier this week, we took to Twitter and asked you, our readers, what one book you loved and thought more people should read using the hashtag #underratedbook. We picked some of our favorite responses below, and have included our PW review where applicable. Be sure to take a look at the hashtag for the complete list of underrated books–you just might find a great book you’d never heard about.
PW Review of In Pharaoh’s Army
PW Review of Waltz of the Asparagus People
PW Review of The End of the Alphabet
PW Review of The Flamenco Academy
PW Review of The Rings of Saturn
PW Review of Pandora in the Congo
Thomas Berger’s Reinhart in Love
John Barth’s The Floating Opera
Peter De Vries’s Let Me Count the Ways
Kingsley Amis’s Stanley and the Women
I vote for “Deep Creek” by Dana Hand. Excellent novel, based on a true event.
I haven’t heard of any of those books! And to be honest (I know it’s judgemental but…) none of the titles interest me – apart from the YA one mentioned. The cover and title are the first thing a person notices about a book, so it has to be catchy & make you want to pick it up. Sorry if these books are amazing, but I haven’t ever even seen them!
Don’t feel bad, Georgie, I haven’t heard of any of these either. And like you, none of them even sound remotely interesting to me. So far this year I’ve read 165 books so it’s not a lack of me reading. That being said, I read for escapism and enjoyment so I doubt many of the books I enjoy would ever be listed as literay masterpieces.
The best book I’ve read in ten years is Guus Kuijer’s brief, original, and moving THE BOOK OF EVERYTHING.
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban one of the great works of imagination ever.
I second your vote for Riddley Walker.
And I third the vote.