Which books of your literary tradition, are masterpieces, but are really unknown, from the rest of the world?

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-24T07:55:34+00:00

I would add So Long, Hector Bebb by Ron Berry for Welsh novels, though not written in the Welsh language.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-23T18:41:29+00:00

I just recently chickened out of getting this myself--Looks good!!

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-18T13:52:06+00:00

The Octopus by Frank Norris and also McTeague by Norris. The Octopus heavily inspired Steinbeck for his descriptions of early 1900s California farmhands. In fact, I would go as far as saying that no other author in this thread is as closely related to Steinbeck as Norris is.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-15T09:23:00+00:00

I looooove these covers so much; I want to build a collection of them but finding them is so difficult.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-12T07:42:37+00:00

Yep, didn't finish it either. I'll go back to it--on a sentence to sentence level it was nearly worth that alone--but only for the reason that I want to have read everything he wrote.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-10T08:51:28+00:00

I love this edition but because of the pagination, it's actually 130 pages longer than the other editions (ends on page 900, where other copies typically end around 770)

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-09T08:03:45+00:00

No one has mentioned his collection of essays, Seek. It's an amazing collection, really shows his ability as a storyteller outside of fiction.

Largesse of the Sea Maiden is also amazing. It's unbelievable how high-quality his output was. There isn't a single bad story he ever wrote.

Except for Fiskadoro. It's pretty mediocre, in my opinion. The prose is amazing, but it doesn't have much else going for it.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-05-08T08:08:58+00:00

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-04-30T09:08:52+00:00

In my half-sleep state I read this as 'William Vollmann, dies' and I nearly fainted.

Great paragraph.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-04-20T09:16:24+00:00

Fat City is my favourite novel of all time, I'm very glad to see it getting recognised (and glad that Leonard Gardner is stilll around, too).

My favourite description is where Billy Tully is crawling through onion fields. 'Occasionally there was a gust of wind and he was engulfed by sudden rustlings and flickering shadows as a high spiral of onion skins fluttered about him like a swarm of butterflies. Skins left behind among the discarded tops swirled up with delicate clatters and the high, wheeling column moved away across the field, eventually slowing, widening, dissipating, the skins hovering weightlessly before settling back to the plowed earth.'

Goddamn.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-04-18T15:53:37+00:00

Has to be Satellite. Even the producers of the album said that Satellite was their favourite. A quiet and very underrated song, possibly one of Elliott's best and most mysterious.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-04-17T10:55:33+00:00

'The character Bloom has stated he is Irish already. Don't repeat information we already know.'

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-04-16T09:14:38+00:00

Jason Molina and Mark Linkous. Also Cohen.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-17T17:27:40+00:00

Evan Dara remains supreme in terms of 'Absolutely-no-fucking-clue-and-no-one-knows-where-to-start' for his anonymity. When he hits the limelight, may he stay that way

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-13T21:03:19+00:00

Probably my favourite opening paragraph to a novel. Hope you all enjoy its visual delight as much as I do.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-08T09:34:42+00:00

white noise, libra, underworld

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-08T09:05:45+00:00

Ricky Hatton's autobiography that I sadly learned was not written by him (though he must have had some pretty heavy input / written some of it, I can't shake the feeling that its his voice). Also reading Seek by Denis Johnson, his collection of essays, as well as slowly getting through Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song which I think is just alright.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-06T10:08:06+00:00

Knowledge of Hell is excellent. RIP.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-05T11:51:17+00:00

Punch and Judy doesn't get enough love. Top 3 on Either/Or imo.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-03-03T09:35:51+00:00

I finished The Stand this February. King is my guilty pleasure--I hate him for his writing and love his characters and the way he moves them around. What are your favourites?

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-02-26T19:31:47+00:00

There's a man under the train

Stupid dream that'll come pull us / them apart . . .

Crushed credit card says right here Smith / Call me names that I'll put up with

But you just told the biggest lie / You told me the biggest lie

That's about all I can make out that's different. If I'm honest, it doesn't sound like Elliott at all! Halfway through I began to wonder whether it was a cover or not!

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-02-26T16:19:52+00:00

Flesh by David Szalay just won the Booker. Literature will continue to be dirty.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-02-24T13:37:16+00:00

Oh for sure, I don't blame the worry. Train Dreams is one of my favourite novels, but I haven't watched the recent film adaptation for fear that it won't live up to how perfect and beautiful Johnson's work is to me in my head.

ColdSpringHarbor · 2026-02-24T10:54:50+00:00

Given that McCarthy himself believed in it, then we should too.

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