Underappreciated Literature Gems
- Thread starter TheFacelessOne
- Start date
I quite like The Saga of Seven Suns. Its a great Science-Fiction yarn littered with mystery, betrayel, space battles, ancient races and some excellent characters.
Ender's Game, the original novel, is extremely well known where I'm from. I love the series as well, but the other books are not masterpieces in the same way as the original.
I'm going to put forward everything by Ursula K. Le Guin
I'm going to put forward everything by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Gone-Away world by Nick Harkaway and Scott Sigler Infected and contagious, ridiculously awesome
Oh hey, another person whose read that. I loved that series, and actually for a while tried to play with that art style. It was a good read and I'm rather sad that it doesn't have more of a fan base.Eekaida said:
In like the 23rd century or something, humans have been attacked by aliens (called 'Buggers'), twice. The only thing that saved them from the second attack was a brilliant tactican, Mazer Rackham. But the army knows he will die before they attack again. So they search on Earth for the best, the brighest, the smartest of children, and they find the Wiggin family, particulary, Ender.Kurokami said:
They take Ender and train him to death to...well, fight the buggers. That's all I'm going to say. You just HAVE to read it though.
Underrated literature? Doesn't this apply to MOST literature nowadays?
I would say that Herman Wouk is one of the greatest writers of our time, if not THE greatest, and the fact that his name isn't even as recognizable as Tom Clancy or John Grisham should serve as a powerful indictment of the past two or three generations.
His novel The Caine Mutiny won a Pulitzer, and is one of my favorite books of all time, along with his book The Hope. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award by the Library of Congress, for cryin' out loud! If you have any interest in literature whatsoever, look up some of Wouk's writings. If you want to be one of the Cool Kids, try to find time for War and Remembrance after you read Caine.
I would say that Herman Wouk is one of the greatest writers of our time, if not THE greatest, and the fact that his name isn't even as recognizable as Tom Clancy or John Grisham should serve as a powerful indictment of the past two or three generations.
His novel The Caine Mutiny won a Pulitzer, and is one of my favorite books of all time, along with his book The Hope. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement award by the Library of Congress, for cryin' out loud! If you have any interest in literature whatsoever, look up some of Wouk's writings. If you want to be one of the Cool Kids, try to find time for War and Remembrance after you read Caine.
I'd have to go with Louis-Ferdinand Céline's "Voyage au bout de la nuit (Journey to the End of the Night)" and "Mort à crédit (Death on the Installment Plan)." Probably the only reason he doesn't get nearly as many props as other French writers like Marcel Proust and Émile Zola is because he was an anti-semite and a Nazi collaborator. Nonetheless, I still absolutely adore his books (My English professor, who was Jewish, was actually the one who turned me on to his stuff).
Another book I have to recommend is Lonesome Dove. What Lord of the Rings did for fantasy, Larry McMurtry's epic did for Westerns. The book is an epic saga of a 2,000 mile cattle drive, but describing it like that is like describing J.R.R. Tolkien's masterpiece as two midgets on a cross-country jog. I cannot, in any reasonable length, adequately describe all the great things about Lonesome Dove, so I'll just have to say that it is one of my top five favorite books and it won a Pulitzer Prize.
It's a shallow, terrible book of cheap, unimpressive sci-fi pulp and hollow author-insert power fantasy painted with specious middle-school philosophy and I am baffled and disappointed by its success.
Shōgun however, is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read and I would recommend it to anyone. The plot is a non-stop thrillride, and the quality of the writing itself is astounding, and it flawlessly conveys Clavell's immense insight into the culture of the era.
I want very badly to read the rest of the series, but I want to read them in order, and I cannot find the second book anywhere.
The story is this: Ender, a one-note Marty Stu, becomes humanity's only hope against the aliens from Starship Troopers. Despite being the world's foremost supergenius and his military school's most favoritest and bestest student who shows the bullies who's boss, THE MAN trolls him into blowing up their planet via a videogame. Ender is massively butthurt at having accomplished exactly what he was training to do, and decides to spare the Rachni Queen for the lulz. Also his brother becomes the Earthican President for some reason.Kurokami said:
It's a shallow, terrible book of cheap, unimpressive sci-fi pulp and hollow author-insert power fantasy painted with specious middle-school philosophy and I am baffled and disappointed by its success.
Shōgun however, is one of the most entertaining books I have ever read and I would recommend it to anyone. The plot is a non-stop thrillride, and the quality of the writing itself is astounding, and it flawlessly conveys Clavell's immense insight into the culture of the era.
I want very badly to read the rest of the series, but I want to read them in order, and I cannot find the second book anywhere.
Really? You are the first person that has mentioned so, In fact I have never encounted a high school that has required people to read 1984, I should know I work as a TA.un533n said:
Thank goodness, I hate running into people who seriously believe it has any artistic merit... I'm not a fan of Jane Austen, but teenage girls should be reading her books because Meyer is essentially a young woman's novel in the same vein of Austen but significantly lagging in merit.AngloDoom said:
I mean, I study literature and Austen isn't my cup of tea, but I can't deny her value to the literary world.
You can one other person to that list, my good man. Damn good series that was.Khaiseri said:
The books in the Chaos Walking books by Patrick Ness are really good, and I haven't read the last one yet.
Oh, and they're really well known, but the books written by Douglass Adams or Terry Pratchett are incredible. The Discworld series is particularly surprising in that there seems to be hundreds of the little buggers, but they all are good in their own way. I keep expecting them to get repetitive or stale but they don't.
For those that suggested The Man in the High Castle, 1984, and Catcher in the Rye, I would suggest the under-appreciated To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Rings, Ulysses, Catch 22 and Slaughterhouse 5.
I don't know that I read much under-appreciated literature.
I'd recommend everyone read What is the What though, it is an important book while remaining an engaging read.
My favorites? Everyone knows Pynchon for Gravity's Rainbow, but Mason and Dixon is probably my favorite of his novels. Peter Temple's The Fatal Shore, and Truth are like detective novels written by an Australian Bukowski. Phillip K. Dick can be a clunky writer but he makes up for it with a wealth of ideas, my favorite being The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
Cream usually rises to the top and good writing is always appreciated, and if you can't write sometimes you can get by on imagination alone.
I don't know that I read much under-appreciated literature.
I'd recommend everyone read What is the What though, it is an important book while remaining an engaging read.
My favorites? Everyone knows Pynchon for Gravity's Rainbow, but Mason and Dixon is probably my favorite of his novels. Peter Temple's The Fatal Shore, and Truth are like detective novels written by an Australian Bukowski. Phillip K. Dick can be a clunky writer but he makes up for it with a wealth of ideas, my favorite being The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.
Cream usually rises to the top and good writing is always appreciated, and if you can't write sometimes you can get by on imagination alone.
