There is a fantasy book that was very overlooked called Shardik. It's written by Richard Adams of Watership Down fame. The book follows a hunter who is part of a tribe who lives on an island in...
There is a fantasy book that was very overlooked called Shardik. It's written by Richard Adams of Watership Down fame.
The book follows a hunter who is part of a tribe who lives on an island in the middle of a river. One day he discovers a bear washed up on the shore. He takes it as the reincarnation of their god Shardik. He then overthrows the tribe's leadership and leads them to take over an entire empire.
The book is epic in scope, covering before, during, and after they occupy the capital. It's got such a big world that it is a shame that there aren't any more books set in it. Richard Adams is such a talented writer that it feels like you have been transported there.
(There is another book, actually, it's just terrible)
The best part of the book is how it handles the titular bear. He never does anything strictly supernatural but the things he does do can be interpreted as devine. It is handled in such a way that can be interpreted multiple ways depending on weather or not you believe in Shardik being the reincarnation of a god. It offers a layer of respect and understanding for the motivations of the actors that drive the plot.
Hard to believe that Richard Adams' Shardik gets overlooked when Stephen King references it in his Dark Tower novels. Roland and his crew end up killing a massive cyborg bear codenamed "SHARDIK"...
Hard to believe that Richard Adams' Shardik gets overlooked when Stephen King references it in his Dark Tower novels. Roland and his crew end up killing a massive cyborg bear codenamed "SHARDIK" in the third novel, The Waste Lands.
Maia takes place before the events of Shardik, which makes the events somewhat inconsequential. Its 800 pages or so; as much as I desperately wanted to read it, it took me about a year and a half...
Maia takes place before the events of Shardik, which makes the events somewhat inconsequential. Its 800 pages or so; as much as I desperately wanted to read it, it took me about a year and a half to finish it, and I only actually finished it because I was hospitalized and had nothing else to do. It is long because it is filled with fluff.
Maia is not an interesting character and the book is sullied with the addition of rather creepy sex scenes (did I mention Maia is a slave girl? Let's just say it's not always concentual).
One of my favorite "obscure" authors, mainly because he writes literature in the genre ghetto of science fiction, is Ian McDonald. His even more obscure book, The Dervish House, is a marvelously...
One of my favorite "obscure" authors, mainly because he writes literature in the genre ghetto of science fiction, is Ian McDonald. His even more obscure book, The Dervish House, is a marvelously intricate future noir thriller.
I have only read his Luna series books (New Moon and Wolf Moon), which I really enjoyed for his interesting take on near future sci-fi. I'm definitely looking forward to the third book in the...
I have only read his Luna series books (New Moon and Wolf Moon), which I really enjoyed for his interesting take on near future sci-fi. I'm definitely looking forward to the third book in the series. I'd definitely recommend the series if you haven't read it already.
I'll keep his other books in mind next time I'm looking for something to read!
I'm not sure how obscure it is, but If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino is one of my favourite books, and I've never met anyone else who's read/heard of it. I actually discovered...
I'm not sure how obscure it is, but If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino is one of my favourite books, and I've never met anyone else who's read/heard of it.
I actually discovered it from a video game. The Stanley Parable is one of my favourite games (I love weird/humorous/meta/fourth-wall breaking stuff), and the creator (Davey Wreden) created another game called The Beginner's Guide, which is narrated by Wreden himself, and has the player play a variety of small games, while the narrator leads the player through/dissects the games. The game is very open in interpretation, but I think I can safely say that it's about game development.
Anyways he said the game was inspired by If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, so I read the book.
It's difficult to explain without spoiling anything, but the Amazon description might help a bit:
Calvino's masterpiece opens with a scene that's reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it's taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous on this most bewitching switch-back ride to the heart of storytelling.
Just like The Beginner's Guide, which was inspired by it, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is a fairly meta story about reading itself. It made me fall in love with postmodern literature, and it's one of the funnest, but at the same time most.. complex (deep, heavy, intricate?) books I've read.
That was a lot of words.
TLDR; read If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, play The Stanley Parable, play The Beginner's Guide.
I just took a look at Invisible Cities, sounds very interesting, definitely going to try to read that one when I get a chance. Thanks for the recommendation :)
I just took a look at Invisible Cities, sounds very interesting, definitely going to try to read that one when I get a chance. Thanks for the recommendation :)
When I was a teenager / early 20's I read quite a bit of fantasy, and I found this one book in a used bookstore that I loved, but then I realized the rest of the series was almost impossible to...
When I was a teenager / early 20's I read quite a bit of fantasy, and I found this one book in a used bookstore that I loved, but then I realized the rest of the series was almost impossible to find. Eventually I found them online somehow (pre-Amazon), they were out of print though now I'm not sure.
Christopher Rowley was the author, the series was about a fantasy world where dragons were small and couldn't fly, and partnered with humans to fight... enemies. Don't remember the details, ha. First book was called Bazil Broketail I believe, they are great.
The most obscure book I've probably read is Goethe's Theory of Colours. It's overshadowed by Newton's work in optics (which to be fair is more correct than Goethe's), but I still love it because...
The most obscure book I've probably read is Goethe's Theory of Colours. It's overshadowed by Newton's work in optics (which to be fair is more correct than Goethe's), but I still love it because it focuses on the perception of color rather than it's physical properties (which are irrelevant for most human experiences).
I’ve read the entire series, multiple times, and it does really affect your world view. I was obsessed with the books in my younger years, but not so much now. I can confirm some of the practices...
I’ve read the entire series, multiple times, and it does really affect your world view. I was obsessed with the books in my younger years, but not so much now. I can confirm some of the practices do work though, and even though I would argue its mostly fictional, there is some bits of truth amongst the crazy. My personal favorites are Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power and The Art of Dreaming.
There is also a great site that compiles the “teachings” from his books, if you’re interested in that aspect of it. It saves you from having to read all 12 books!
I read the Three Investigators too! And around the same time as you, late 90s, early 2000s likely. Growing up I inhaled these sorts of adventure/mystery stories; Hardy Boys is of course well...
I read the Three Investigators too! And around the same time as you, late 90s, early 2000s likely. Growing up I inhaled these sorts of adventure/mystery stories; Hardy Boys is of course well known, but I vaguely recall some others, likely British.
I still have one on my bookshelf, and several of the Crimebusters spinoffs.
Loved that series as a kid (they were new at the time!). They were my gateway into reading Sherlock Holmes. I so wanted to grow up and be a detective :-)
Loved that series as a kid (they were new at the time!). They were my gateway into reading Sherlock Holmes. I so wanted to grow up and be a detective :-)
Let me give a two part answer: a) It's a academic book. Many know it, but where I am, it took me nearly two years to actually get my hands on one very warn copy. Lisp In Small Pieces. Teaches you...
Let me give a two part answer:
a) It's a academic book. Many know it, but where I am, it took me nearly two years to actually get my hands on one very warn copy. Lisp In Small Pieces. Teaches you Lisp, Interpreters and Compilers. It is probably one of the best sources I could go to for learning those concepts. The book contains, IIRC, 11 interpreters and 5 compilers, that you learn to write from scratch.
b) ... Self-promotion? I'm a pretty obscure authour... Is this allowed?
I published Heart of Madness in December, 2014. I sold maybe 50 copies. Exactly one of those was in physical form, rather than digital.
This year, feeling a bit disenfranchised with most of the world, and unable to find a storyline that managed to captivate me as much as Heart of Madness did (also known as writer's block), I've made all my books available for free, in digital form.
A grizzled old dragon hunter adopts a young girl from an orphanage, whilst trying to protect the world from the last dragon. Things are stirring in the world, and the dragon hunter may not be the hero everyone thinks he is - the Fae are preparing for invasion, and no one seems quite sure whose side he is on.
That Lisp book sounds awesome! Thank you for mentioning it. It looks like it's available on Amazon Kindle now, but at a fairly steep price. I am going to hunt around and see if I can find it...
That Lisp book sounds awesome! Thank you for mentioning it. It looks like it's available on Amazon Kindle now, but at a fairly steep price. I am going to hunt around and see if I can find it elsewhere.
Heart of Madness sounds intriguing too. There's a writer on Reddit that I follow, that you may enjoy (or be inspired by), since the genres sound similar. Her Chosen and Silvertongue series are my favorites at the moment.
For compilers, the "Dragon book" (Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Aho, Lam, Sethi and Ullman) is always going to be the canonical resource. For very good reason. However, it isn't...
For compilers, the "Dragon book" (Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Aho, Lam, Sethi and Ullman) is always going to be the canonical resource. For very good reason. However, it isn't that great for a newbie, it's a math-heavy book that assumes you already have a basic understanding of the Lambda Calculus.
LISP on the other hand, assumes you know some programming, and nothing else. It teaches you Scheme, (happens to be my favourite LISP language), and then teaches you how to implement it over and over in different ways to show the tradeoffs. I tend to learn better through that kind of practical exploration - but again, Lisp In Small Pieces is also pretty heavy. Don't try and implement multiple interpreters in a day.
Programming language design is one of my favourite things, and a pet hobby, so that book is one of my most loved - even if it took me quite a while to track down a copy I could actually use.
Some of my books are self-published, some aren't... The process isn't a lot different. Supply a manuscript in the correct format, and you may need to send it through a company editor, or bring...
Some of my books are self-published, some aren't... The process isn't a lot different. Supply a manuscript in the correct format, and you may need to send it through a company editor, or bring your own.
Heart of Madness is a self-publish, as the only publisher who liked it, demanded a trilogy... And well... No. It's the first time I wrote a 600+ page novel.
Writing is something I've always done for enjoyment. I repeatedly try new ideas, but not many lead to a full-blown novel. Some take off, then fizzle and die. Others bring such a complicated world with them, it becomes too difficult to explain the characters within that world to the everyday person, because exactly nothing is alike between their world and our own.
Heart of Madness managed to hit a happy middle.
A world that is incredibly complicated, with a pantheon of gods, various nations, guilds and cultures. All of it tied into a shared history.
However, the world is vaguely familiar, especially to fantasy enthusiasts. And for the most part, that history is actually important to the tale being told, and can slowly be revealed.
You don't need to know about the Madness and the Other on page one, but you'll know both, and have formed an opinion about them, by the last page... Even though you never meet them. They're just backdrop.
It took me 415 days to write Heart of Madness, and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.
The book is only 611 pages, so ignoring how I actually wrote in large chunks that I then came back to, that's only about 1.5 pages a day.
I'm not satisfied with the editing, but I never have been, and probably won't be unless I can afford to hire a team of editors, especially for a book the size of Heart of Madness.
But... It is the only book of mine that I can sit down with and just read, rather than get caught up criticising and rethinking.
All things short fiction are criminally underrepresented, so the theme of my recommendations is short story collections: Anything George Saunders. 10th of December is my favorite. Ben Marcus'...
All things short fiction are criminally underrepresented, so the theme of my recommendations is short story collections:
Anything George Saunders. 10th of December is my favorite.
Ben Marcus' Leaving the Sea is fantastic, but you might wanna stop after the first few sections if you don't want to wade too deep in the experimental literary waters.
Claire Vaye Watkins' Battleborne
Anything Alice Munro obviously, though citing a Nobel laureate is probably cheating ...
My favorite local writer: Sam Allingham's Great American Songbook. Best reading I ever went to.
Some of my favorite anthologies:
Sudden Fiction continued
Black Water: The Book of Fanastic Literature - It can be a bit dated and high-brow what with authors like Borges, Kafka, and Tennessee Williams, but it's quirky as far as literary editing choices are concerned
There's a book of poetry I've been looking for, I haven't read it but it was one of the works being discussed in a lit theory book I was using for one of my classes, and it's called "Mad Science...
There's a book of poetry I've been looking for, I haven't read it but it was one of the works being discussed in a lit theory book I was using for one of my classes, and it's called "Mad Science in Imperial City." The poet, Shanxing Wang, is a PhD in mechanical engineering who came to the US in 1991, and the poetry is a mix of his technical background with the political upheaval of the 1980s (leading up to Tienanmen Square).
It's no longer available through his publisher (who still advertise the book at $14), but there are copies on Amazon for over a hundred dollars. None of my professors could find copies in circulation when I asked.
I tried some PDF searches for you and didn't come up with anything, but it looks like there are 4 used, paperback copies still available on Amazon for between $8 - $23 + shipping....
I tried some PDF searches for you and didn't come up with anything, but it looks like there are 4 used, paperback copies still available on Amazon for between $8 - $23 + shipping.
Unfortunately I'm Canadian, so the prices there are a lot lower than what I'd have to pay for the .ca offerings. I was able to find Shenxing Wang's blogspot page though; maybe if I can find some...
Unfortunately I'm Canadian, so the prices there are a lot lower than what I'd have to pay for the .ca offerings. I was able to find Shenxing Wang's blogspot page though; maybe if I can find some way to contact him directly, I'll be able to get my hands on a copy.
If you’re okay with some random internet stranger having your address then feel free to private message me. I will buy you one of the $8 copies and have it shipped to your address, no charge. It’s...
If you’re okay with some random internet stranger having your address then feel free to private message me. I will buy you one of the $8 copies and have it shipped to your address, no charge. It’s not much, and I would be glad to give someone something they’d enjoy and are having a hard time finding.
I think I'm going to pass since I'm moving to a new apartment next week before classes start and I don't have a delivery address yet. I appreciate the generosity though 😘
I think I'm going to pass since I'm moving to a new apartment next week before classes start and I don't have a delivery address yet. I appreciate the generosity though 😘
Probably not 'obscure' in the strictest definition but definitely not mainstream, I read Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew a few months ago and it honestly blew me away. It's...
Probably not 'obscure' in the strictest definition but definitely not mainstream, I read Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew a few months ago and it honestly blew me away. It's a non-fiction accounting of submarine espionage by the US and Soviets during the Cold War with stories told nowhere else. These guys went all around America and even to Russia to interview submariners and got these stories that would have otherwise been lost forever (actually the story of how they got these stories is pretty interesting in itself), and I frankly never knew just how crazy the entire program was. These guys were like astronauts of the sea with their bravery and cunning. Really good objective accounting of a very much ignored but incredibly important aspect of that time
Ooh that looks interesting, these non-fiction espionage books have always been my thing but so far it's all been US and Russia stuff, I'll definitely have to add that to my list
Ooh that looks interesting, these non-fiction espionage books have always been my thing but so far it's all been US and Russia stuff, I'll definitely have to add that to my list
The most obscure book I've read was a tattered, cloth-bound copy of Dagnija Zigmonte's Children and Trees Reach for the Sun, translated from Latvian into English by Tamara Zalite. It was a Soviet...
The most obscure book I've read was a tattered, cloth-bound copy of Dagnija Zigmonte's Children and Trees Reach for the Sun, translated from Latvian into English by Tamara Zalite. It was a Soviet YA novel with quite a dose of ideological injection.
It was too long ago and I can't remember much. It was rather insidious in its pro-Soviet Russian indoctrination, but I don't know enough background about this author to judge whether she was a...
It was too long ago and I can't remember much. It was rather insidious in its pro-Soviet Russian indoctrination, but I don't know enough background about this author to judge whether she was a true believer or just a writer caving to the authorities.
The Devil's Dictionary: It was published around the turn of the 20th century, so you can get it for free from either archive.org or Project Gutenburg. It's one of the wittiest, hilarious books...
The Devil's Dictionary: It was published around the turn of the 20th century, so you can get it for free from either archive.org or Project Gutenburg. It's one of the wittiest, hilarious books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. My bonus point is that I found a copy in a second hand bookshop a couple of years back, with the most beautiful marbled cover in a box-case. Absolutely wonderful!
Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell - George Simmons: This book is ridiculously enlightening. If there was any part of geometry, trigonometry, or algebra that you looked at and went "eh? how did they get from A to B" then this book is absolutely for you. The introduction points out how astounded the teacher (a calculus teacher is) to find so many people incapable of understanding these topics who have studied them for under/over a year, when he is able to cover the important points in one 50 minute lecture, at normal talking speed, and have a high accuracy of understanding by the people in the lecture. Most of it relies on visual proofs, that you can easily model in your head.
There is a fantasy book that was very overlooked called Shardik. It's written by Richard Adams of Watership Down fame.
The book follows a hunter who is part of a tribe who lives on an island in the middle of a river. One day he discovers a bear washed up on the shore. He takes it as the reincarnation of their god Shardik. He then overthrows the tribe's leadership and leads them to take over an entire empire.
The book is epic in scope, covering before, during, and after they occupy the capital. It's got such a big world that it is a shame that there aren't any more books set in it. Richard Adams is such a talented writer that it feels like you have been transported there.
(There is another book, actually, it's just terrible)
The best part of the book is how it handles the titular bear. He never does anything strictly supernatural but the things he does do can be interpreted as devine. It is handled in such a way that can be interpreted multiple ways depending on weather or not you believe in Shardik being the reincarnation of a god. It offers a layer of respect and understanding for the motivations of the actors that drive the plot.
Hard to believe that Richard Adams' Shardik gets overlooked when Stephen King references it in his Dark Tower novels. Roland and his crew end up killing a massive cyborg bear codenamed "SHARDIK" in the third novel, The Waste Lands.
Maia takes place before the events of Shardik, which makes the events somewhat inconsequential. Its 800 pages or so; as much as I desperately wanted to read it, it took me about a year and a half to finish it, and I only actually finished it because I was hospitalized and had nothing else to do. It is long because it is filled with fluff.
Maia is not an interesting character and the book is sullied with the addition of rather creepy sex scenes (did I mention Maia is a slave girl? Let's just say it's not always concentual).
One of my favorite "obscure" authors, mainly because he writes literature in the genre ghetto of science fiction, is Ian McDonald. His even more obscure book, The Dervish House, is a marvelously intricate future noir thriller.
I read Doorways in the Sand long enough ago that I'll have to revisit it.
I have only read his Luna series books (New Moon and Wolf Moon), which I really enjoyed for his interesting take on near future sci-fi. I'm definitely looking forward to the third book in the series. I'd definitely recommend the series if you haven't read it already.
I'll keep his other books in mind next time I'm looking for something to read!
I'm not sure how obscure it is, but If on a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino is one of my favourite books, and I've never met anyone else who's read/heard of it.
I actually discovered it from a video game. The Stanley Parable is one of my favourite games (I love weird/humorous/meta/fourth-wall breaking stuff), and the creator (Davey Wreden) created another game called The Beginner's Guide, which is narrated by Wreden himself, and has the player play a variety of small games, while the narrator leads the player through/dissects the games. The game is very open in interpretation, but I think I can safely say that it's about game development.
Anyways he said the game was inspired by If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, so I read the book.
It's difficult to explain without spoiling anything, but the Amazon description might help a bit:
Calvino's masterpiece opens with a scene that's reassuringly commonplace: apparently. Indeed, it's taking place now. A reader goes into a bookshop to buy a book: not any book, but the latest Calvino, the book you are holding in your hands. Or is it? Are you the reader? Is this the book? Beware. All assumptions are dangerous on this most bewitching switch-back ride to the heart of storytelling.Just like The Beginner's Guide, which was inspired by it, If on a Winter's Night a Traveller is a fairly meta story about reading itself. It made me fall in love with postmodern literature, and it's one of the funnest, but at the same time most.. complex (deep, heavy, intricate?) books I've read.
That was a lot of words.
TLDR; read If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, play The Stanley Parable, play The Beginner's Guide.
I've read Invisible Cities from Calvino, that one's a pretty wild trip down the Surrealism rabbit-hole... gotta keep an eye out for Winter's Night
I just took a look at Invisible Cities, sounds very interesting, definitely going to try to read that one when I get a chance. Thanks for the recommendation :)
When I was a teenager / early 20's I read quite a bit of fantasy, and I found this one book in a used bookstore that I loved, but then I realized the rest of the series was almost impossible to find. Eventually I found them online somehow (pre-Amazon), they were out of print though now I'm not sure.
Christopher Rowley was the author, the series was about a fantasy world where dragons were small and couldn't fly, and partnered with humans to fight... enemies. Don't remember the details, ha. First book was called Bazil Broketail I believe, they are great.
The most obscure book I've probably read is Goethe's Theory of Colours. It's overshadowed by Newton's work in optics (which to be fair is more correct than Goethe's), but I still love it because it focuses on the perception of color rather than it's physical properties (which are irrelevant for most human experiences).
I’ve read the entire series, multiple times, and it does really affect your world view. I was obsessed with the books in my younger years, but not so much now. I can confirm some of the practices do work though, and even though I would argue its mostly fictional, there is some bits of truth amongst the crazy. My personal favorites are Journey to Ixtlan, Tales of Power and The Art of Dreaming.
There is also a great site that compiles the “teachings” from his books, if you’re interested in that aspect of it. It saves you from having to read all 12 books!
http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/
I read the Three Investigators too! And around the same time as you, late 90s, early 2000s likely. Growing up I inhaled these sorts of adventure/mystery stories; Hardy Boys is of course well known, but I vaguely recall some others, likely British.
I still have one on my bookshelf, and several of the Crimebusters spinoffs.
Loved that series as a kid (they were new at the time!). They were my gateway into reading Sherlock Holmes. I so wanted to grow up and be a detective :-)
Let me give a two part answer:
a) It's a academic book. Many know it, but where I am, it took me nearly two years to actually get my hands on one very warn copy. Lisp In Small Pieces. Teaches you Lisp, Interpreters and Compilers. It is probably one of the best sources I could go to for learning those concepts. The book contains, IIRC, 11 interpreters and 5 compilers, that you learn to write from scratch.
b) ... Self-promotion? I'm a pretty obscure authour... Is this allowed?
I published Heart of Madness in December, 2014. I sold maybe 50 copies. Exactly one of those was in physical form, rather than digital.
Here be proof that ye can buy it in a store.
This year, feeling a bit disenfranchised with most of the world, and unable to find a storyline that managed to captivate me as much as Heart of Madness did (also known as writer's block), I've made all my books available for free, in digital form.
Here be Heart of Madness.
And as for what the book is about...
A grizzled old dragon hunter adopts a young girl from an orphanage, whilst trying to protect the world from the last dragon. Things are stirring in the world, and the dragon hunter may not be the hero everyone thinks he is - the Fae are preparing for invasion, and no one seems quite sure whose side he is on.
That Lisp book sounds awesome! Thank you for mentioning it. It looks like it's available on Amazon Kindle now, but at a fairly steep price. I am going to hunt around and see if I can find it elsewhere.
Heart of Madness sounds intriguing too. There's a writer on Reddit that I follow, that you may enjoy (or be inspired by), since the genres sound similar. Her Chosen and Silvertongue series are my favorites at the moment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/
For compilers, the "Dragon book" (Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools by Aho, Lam, Sethi and Ullman) is always going to be the canonical resource. For very good reason. However, it isn't that great for a newbie, it's a math-heavy book that assumes you already have a basic understanding of the Lambda Calculus.
LISP on the other hand, assumes you know some programming, and nothing else. It teaches you Scheme, (happens to be my favourite LISP language), and then teaches you how to implement it over and over in different ways to show the tradeoffs. I tend to learn better through that kind of practical exploration - but again, Lisp In Small Pieces is also pretty heavy. Don't try and implement multiple interpreters in a day.
Programming language design is one of my favourite things, and a pet hobby, so that book is one of my most loved - even if it took me quite a while to track down a copy I could actually use.
Some of my books are self-published, some aren't... The process isn't a lot different. Supply a manuscript in the correct format, and you may need to send it through a company editor, or bring your own.
Heart of Madness is a self-publish, as the only publisher who liked it, demanded a trilogy... And well... No. It's the first time I wrote a 600+ page novel.
Writing is something I've always done for enjoyment. I repeatedly try new ideas, but not many lead to a full-blown novel. Some take off, then fizzle and die. Others bring such a complicated world with them, it becomes too difficult to explain the characters within that world to the everyday person, because exactly nothing is alike between their world and our own.
Heart of Madness managed to hit a happy middle.
A world that is incredibly complicated, with a pantheon of gods, various nations, guilds and cultures. All of it tied into a shared history.
However, the world is vaguely familiar, especially to fantasy enthusiasts. And for the most part, that history is actually important to the tale being told, and can slowly be revealed.
You don't need to know about the Madness and the Other on page one, but you'll know both, and have formed an opinion about them, by the last page... Even though you never meet them. They're just backdrop.
It took me 415 days to write Heart of Madness, and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.
The book is only 611 pages, so ignoring how I actually wrote in large chunks that I then came back to, that's only about 1.5 pages a day.
I'm not satisfied with the editing, but I never have been, and probably won't be unless I can afford to hire a team of editors, especially for a book the size of Heart of Madness.
But... It is the only book of mine that I can sit down with and just read, rather than get caught up criticising and rethinking.
All things short fiction are criminally underrepresented, so the theme of my recommendations is short story collections:
Anything George Saunders. 10th of December is my favorite.
Ben Marcus' Leaving the Sea is fantastic, but you might wanna stop after the first few sections if you don't want to wade too deep in the experimental literary waters.
Claire Vaye Watkins' Battleborne
Anything Alice Munro obviously, though citing a Nobel laureate is probably cheating ...
My favorite local writer: Sam Allingham's Great American Songbook. Best reading I ever went to.
Some of my favorite anthologies:
There's a book of poetry I've been looking for, I haven't read it but it was one of the works being discussed in a lit theory book I was using for one of my classes, and it's called "Mad Science in Imperial City." The poet, Shanxing Wang, is a PhD in mechanical engineering who came to the US in 1991, and the poetry is a mix of his technical background with the political upheaval of the 1980s (leading up to Tienanmen Square).
It's no longer available through his publisher (who still advertise the book at $14), but there are copies on Amazon for over a hundred dollars. None of my professors could find copies in circulation when I asked.
I tried some PDF searches for you and didn't come up with anything, but it looks like there are 4 used, paperback copies still available on Amazon for between $8 - $23 + shipping.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0971680051/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used
Unfortunately I'm Canadian, so the prices there are a lot lower than what I'd have to pay for the .ca offerings. I was able to find Shenxing Wang's blogspot page though; maybe if I can find some way to contact him directly, I'll be able to get my hands on a copy.
If you’re okay with some random internet stranger having your address then feel free to private message me. I will buy you one of the $8 copies and have it shipped to your address, no charge. It’s not much, and I would be glad to give someone something they’d enjoy and are having a hard time finding.
Otherwise, best of luck with the author :)
I think I'm going to pass since I'm moving to a new apartment next week before classes start and I don't have a delivery address yet. I appreciate the generosity though 😘
Probably not 'obscure' in the strictest definition but definitely not mainstream, I read Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew a few months ago and it honestly blew me away. It's a non-fiction accounting of submarine espionage by the US and Soviets during the Cold War with stories told nowhere else. These guys went all around America and even to Russia to interview submariners and got these stories that would have otherwise been lost forever (actually the story of how they got these stories is pretty interesting in itself), and I frankly never knew just how crazy the entire program was. These guys were like astronauts of the sea with their bravery and cunning. Really good objective accounting of a very much ignored but incredibly important aspect of that time
Ooh that looks interesting, these non-fiction espionage books have always been my thing but so far it's all been US and Russia stuff, I'll definitely have to add that to my list
The most obscure book I've read was a tattered, cloth-bound copy of Dagnija Zigmonte's Children and Trees Reach for the Sun, translated from Latvian into English by Tamara Zalite. It was a Soviet YA novel with quite a dose of ideological injection.
It was too long ago and I can't remember much. It was rather insidious in its pro-Soviet Russian indoctrination, but I don't know enough background about this author to judge whether she was a true believer or just a writer caving to the authorities.
The Devil's Dictionary: It was published around the turn of the 20th century, so you can get it for free from either archive.org or Project Gutenburg. It's one of the wittiest, hilarious books I've ever had the pleasure of reading. My bonus point is that I found a copy in a second hand bookshop a couple of years back, with the most beautiful marbled cover in a box-case. Absolutely wonderful!
Precalculus Mathematics in a Nutshell - George Simmons: This book is ridiculously enlightening. If there was any part of geometry, trigonometry, or algebra that you looked at and went "eh? how did they get from A to B" then this book is absolutely for you. The introduction points out how astounded the teacher (a calculus teacher is) to find so many people incapable of understanding these topics who have studied them for under/over a year, when he is able to cover the important points in one 50 minute lecture, at normal talking speed, and have a high accuracy of understanding by the people in the lecture. Most of it relies on visual proofs, that you can easily model in your head.