Neglected Books
@neglectedbooks
Followers
9,459
Following
1,260
Media
5,711
Statuses
19,596
: Articles on hundreds of long-forgotten books and authors. Brad Bigelow, evangelist. Editor, the Recovered Books series @bhousepress
Missoula, MT
Joined October 2011
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
namjoon
• 329630 Tweets
Linkin Park
• 149707 Tweets
Adalet
• 120089 Tweets
For Asia
• 101222 Tweets
Chester
• 77529 Tweets
علي النبي
• 73352 Tweets
BTS PAVED THE WAY
• 67997 Tweets
Hayırlı Cumalar
• 46808 Tweets
Engin Polat
• 46126 Tweets
サブスク解禁
• 44824 Tweets
#BAEKHYUN_PINEAPPLESLICE
• 38235 Tweets
エイリアン
• 31169 Tweets
#يوم_الجمعه
• 29095 Tweets
資さんうどん
• 26808 Tweets
知的レベル
• 25435 Tweets
すかいらーく
• 24195 Tweets
アストロボット
• 20031 Tweets
ちいかわ寿司
• 19926 Tweets
ベイマックス
• 14946 Tweets
大阪府警
• 12985 Tweets
MEW LOVE IN THE AIR
• 12234 Tweets
フリーランスの田中
• 10962 Tweets
TILFF X UPPOOM
• 10927 Tweets
ロムルス
• 10418 Tweets
神ちゃん
• 10044 Tweets
Just a reminder that book shopping is probably the quietest, slowest, and most peaceful activity we undertake in public, aside perhaps for praying in church or sitting alone on a park bench.
Best wishes for 2024.
22
367
2K
Oriana Fallaci, 1960 (R). Little-known fun fact: she and Clarice Lispector (R) were identical twins separated at birth.
5
49
646
82 years ago today, Gertrude Eileen Trevelyan, one of the most remarkable novelists of the generation that followed Virginia Woolf, died at her parents' home in Bath of injuries sustained when her flat was bombed during the Blitz. Died—and was utterly forgotten.
A thread.
10
150
572
In 1999, the LA Times asked 36 writers, from Susan Sontag to Elmore Leonard, to share their neglected classics of the century, books they loved but which failed to find the readers they deserved. You can read their responses here:
10
118
491
I am embarking on a project: in search of the source texts of some of the great Pre-Code movies.
26
46
361
Coming in 2024! With the help of
@Unwise_Trousers
, I will be running a monthly online reading group focusing on Wafer-Thin books (under 150 pages). We'll be featuring a particular book each month, plus talking about other slim discoveries we're excited about. Stay tuned for more.
29
60
337
One of the more interesting series of wafer-thin books published in the last decade is the 50-volume Penguin Moderns. Sold mostly in the UK, these are 30-60 pages, in most cases, providing a handy way to package short stories and essays. What are your favorites?
21
19
289
New on Neglected Books: The Vanished Novelist.
Why did Kathleen Sully disappear after writing 17 well-read, well-reviewed novels in the 1950s and 1960s?
23
69
286
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker (1988, 135p.)
Baker shows us an entire world in the space of a CVS bag and an escalator ride. If you've read it, you probably love it. And if you haven't read it, you've missed one of the best books of the last 40 years.
11
47
266
A selection of
#WaferThinBooks
from
@nyrbclassics
, courtesy of booknerd37 on Instagram. All guaranteed under 150 pages.
6
31
229
One last note on Paul Auster. Not many folks know that his first novel was published pseudonymously. Squeeze Play, published as Paul Benjamin, is a baseball/crime novel. A first edition will set you back thousands.
5
33
219
Can you help? Our Recovered Books series from
@bhousepress
is too tiny to get reviewed in newspapers and magazines. US bookstores aren't ordering our books. We will have to bring this endeavor to an end soon if we can't get a few more sales. If you can help, please contact me.
12
127
197
In the heat of work on our next 2 years' worth of releases, I overlooked the 3rd anniversary of the launch of the Recovered Books series from
@bhousepress
. I wish I could say it's been a great success, but we are still struggling to break even. We may not make it to a 4th. Sigh.
I'm delighted to announce that I'm now working with
@bhousepress
on a new series, Recovered Books, which will bring long-forgotten and often hard to find books back to print for both the general reading and academic audience.
10
29
140
5
43
184
New on Neglected Books: Going Under by Lydia Chukovskaya. A survivor of Stalin's purges and her relentless search for the truth about her husband's fate: a lightly fictionalized version of Chukovskaya's own story.
4
50
159
This reminds me of how much I love the Bantam Modern Classics from the early 1970s. Such a remarkable series with such striking covers. (A thread).
Starting another Carson McCullers. Love these old Bantam pb covers.
24
27
427
2
32
184
Impressive. Also, probably the second biggest library in Wyoming.
Our personal library has about 32,000 books. I guess other people bought cars and boats…
2K
4K
50K
4
24
172
Probably the book that's remained in my collection the longest. I bought it off a remainder table about 50 years ago. The astonishing thing is that despite Greene's continued popularity —particularly his own work in film —this collection has been out of print since 1984.
10
21
175
A reader asked me for suggestions of novels about aging women, and I'm afraid my aging brain is struggling this morning. I came up with: The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington; Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont; and Memento Mori (OK, it's men & women).
Other recommendations?
99
30
168
A quartet of Supraphon covers from their Prague International Jazz Festival albums.
2
39
163
Some of the new and old wafer-thin books I hope to read and share during 2024.
7
13
162
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: A Month in the Country (NYRB Classics, 160p.)
A gentle, subtle story about restoration that works on multiple levels. A much-loved novel that's been forgotten and rediscovered several times since first published in 1980.
12
24
162
I'm delighted to announce that I'm now working with
@bhousepress
on a new series, Recovered Books, which will bring long-forgotten and often hard to find books back to print for both the general reading and academic audience.
10
29
140
The final stack from three days of paying calls on Seattle bookstores. Not many neglected, but all certified
#WaferThinBooks
. Feel free to prioritize my TBR list with any recommendations.
10
12
140
@Team_Harbaugh
I dealt with this kind of material every day.
But you know, I never dealt with it alone. Two-person control is part of the basic protection discipline around all highly classified material.
1
4
137
I also wanted to say that Paul Auster wrote what, for me, is the greatest dog novel ever. Timbuktu choked me up more than Old Yeller ever did.
8
15
139
If you could give any writer a volume in the Library of America, who would you choose?
110
10
131
IMHO, one of the best opening paragraphs in American literature.
The Works of Love, by Wright Morris. Rereading again.
12
21
129
So you're thinking about a year-long reading project (a thread).
This year, some of us are doing Dorothy Richardson's 13-volume novel Pilgrimage. It's worked well, with just one month (this one) of doubling up and reading two books. But what are some alternatives?
20
32
126
Leafing through this travel guide to Europe from 1938, I am suddenly chilled to see this.
4
24
125
The 1970s: When Lit Went SF (and Vice Versa). A survey of 25 novels that criss-crossed the boundaries between literary fiction and SF, causing some reviewers to exclaim, "My God, he’s committed science fiction!"
8
26
122
The great Myrna Loy, BOTD in 1905. So many good roles, but with all due respect to the fine Thin Man movies with William Powell, there's a special place in my heart for Millie Stephenson, her character in The Best Years of Our Lives.
10
20
122
A book nerdish question: did Secker & Warburg adopt Günter Grass's illustration for The Tin Drum as a logo for a while in the 1960s? The spine shot is from The Face I Had by Veronica Henriques (1965).
3
21
113
As It Was in the Beginning (1934), her third novel, is her greatest stylistic experiment, taking place entirely in the thoughts of a woman dying of a stroke in a care home. As she nears death, her thoughts take her backward to birth. Coming May 2024 from Boiler House Press.
3
13
115
I've never before seen a first edition of Elizabeth Smart's autobiographical novel, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Wow. Does anyone know the designer responsible?
9
12
112
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Old New York (1924) is a collection of four novellas by Edith Wharton that portrays New York society between the 1840s and 1870s. It was originally published in a beautiful boxed set by D. Appleton & Co. (more)
8
30
113
A visit to the paperback-stuffed basement of the Montana Valley Bookstore in Alberton to pick up some candidates for the
#WaferThinBooks
reading group next year. It's harder and harder to find places where you can browse mass market paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s.
7
9
113
Son, you've been buying books again?
But Dad, I swear they're all wafer-thin!
#WaferThinBooks
9
8
110
I have a public apology to make. I posted this snarky comment about the proliferation of pretty pictures of books, flowers, tea, etc. that we see on social media, taking as an example a photo from
@pearjelly_
's Instagram account. She rightly defended herself. (more)
So, is this the deal? Just posting a book cover or two isn't enough: one has to scatter flowers and perhaps place a tea cup on the periphery? What is the difference between this pretence and one of those "Live, Laugh, Love" signs?
19
7
60
10
3
109
Slowly sorting my books after many years in storage. Mes Simenons réunis enfin.
7
10
107
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Faustine by Emma Tennant (1992, 140p.)
A retelling of the Faust legend, set in 1990s London with a female cast. Doormat Muriel becomes rich, sexy, envied Lisa through the machinations of a Satanic Gran. "An entertaining tract for the times," said the TLS.
1
19
105
Ten
#WaferThinBooks
Set on Trains
Something about traveling by train offers a perennial formula for good fiction. Here's a look at some books of 150 pages or less for your next railway journey.
1
15
102
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Count Luna by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, translated by Jane B. Greene (Penguin, 160p.)
Jessiersky, an Austrian aristocrat, betrays Count Luna, a man he dislikes. Luna is sent to a concentration camp and dies—or does he? A superb tale of revenge and madness.
1
12
100
Three years ago, just before we left the UK, I dashed across the country to Ledbury to scan all 36 volumes of the diary kept by Peter Greave, who contracted leprosy in India and wrote two remarkable memoirs about the experience. I hope someday to get a selection published. +
2
13
102
Book bought for the cover alone, part 37:
Why was the heiress so horribly frightened of fish? And why was the chipmonk (chipmunk?) starry-eyed?
Inquiring minds want to know!
6
36
94
The hands of Joaquina Ballard Howles holding our
@bhousepress
Recovered Books edition of her novel No More Giants, 57 years after it was first published. This makes it all worthwhile.
4
15
95
Someone dumped a coffee table in the alley near my office, so now I have a home for some of my many TBR stacks. (Why waste it on coffee?)
8
6
96
On James Cagney's birthday (1899), a reminder that, growing up on the Upper East Side, he learned Yiddish playing with the kids in his neighborhood. From Taxi (1932).
4
23
97
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns (1959, 133p.)
A unique blend of domestic brutality and escapist fantasy. "One moment I was lying on the floor by Father’s dreadful, shining black boots, and the next I was rising from the ground quite straight above."
4
15
92
This makes me so sad. Not just for the environmental damage, but because it's a demonstration of how people become so fixated on the biggest, the highest, etc.
Want to climb a mountain? There are plenty of them not as high as Everest with no queue that are just as exhilarating.+
The long line to reach the summit of Mount Everest
📹 Mingma D Sherpa
272
399
2K
2
9
90
If you're interested in joining another
#PilgrimageTogether
group read, please reply below to let
@oliviajbarber
, the new editorial director at Virago Modern Classics, know that we want to see the full set of Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage brought back to print in the U.S.
13
13
90
New on Neglected Books: Apalache by Paul Metcalf. A look at a little-known book that's worthy of the title "Great American Novel" -- if the Great American tragedy is the exploitation of this remarkable continent and its native people. For the
#1976Club
.
1
19
86
@andreapitzer
"Fear ... has a political purpose–to interfere with the normal functioning of the human beings who make up the mass of the governed ... to separate them, and sick each one in isolation and paralysis.”
1
27
89
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal, tr. Michael Heim (1990, 112p.)
"For thirty-five years now I’ve been in wastepaper, and it’s my love story." Hrabal's narrator compacts paper and books, surreptitiously amassing a library in a time of censorship. +
6
21
92
It's never been easier to locate and borrow or buy out of print books. Never in the entire history of books.
Yet 99.9999% of all book talk on social media is about books that are in print.
Centuries of gold awaits. But no one wants to take the chance.
I just don't get it.
5
12
90
For me, Paul Auster was first and foremost a great storyteller. His novels have such narrative momentum that I was happy to follow wherever he went. It may be Philistine of me to say, but his New York Trilogy novels were the first nouveaux romans that were also page-turners.
5
16
88
O God, give us the serenity to accept what we're never going to read, the courage to read what we know we should read, and the wisdom to know the difference.
2
23
85
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCullers (1941, 140p.)
"An army post in peacetime is a dull place," McCuller's 2nd novel begins. But the same opening paragraph ends, "There is a fort in the South where a few years ago a murder was committed."
4
12
84
A display of Recovered Books from
@bhousepress
at Phinney Books in Seattle. It's exciting to see our books begin to get noticed by US booksellers. Any stores interested in carrying them should go to
@asterism_books
to get the best prices and service.
5
15
87
Sad to note the passing on 3 March of Christopher Fowler, whose Invisible Ink feature ran for years in The Independent and brought attention to several hundred neglected writers. His many friends and readers will miss him.
6
15
87
One thing I hope next year's
#WaferThinBooks
reading group will discuss are good nonfiction books under 150 pages long. Here are a few from my shelves. Do you have any suggestions to share?
19
9
86
The two books I'm proudest of having helped
@bhousepress
publish. They are powerful, disruptive, perspective-changing and utterly unknown. But because we're a tiny press, not in London or NYC, have no marketeers or champions, they'll go unnoticed. Nonetheless, they exist again.
3
17
85
My mom with her 10 brothers in birth order (L to R) in 1963. She was the only one to get a college degree, at the age of 46. She would have been 96 today. I feel grateful that she passed just before COVID hit. She would have struggled to comprehend why no one could visit her.
7
3
87
So, to
@pearjelly_
and all those who express their joy in books with lovely pictures instead of windy words, my apologies for missing the point. I'm 65 and still have a lot to learn. (End)
6
0
84
The Greatest 19th Century Novelist You've Probably Never Read: Benito Pérez Galdós
If you love 19th C novels, you owe it to yourself to discover this amazing writer. Fortunata and Jacinta is considered his masterpiece, an epic of life in Madrid.
6
11
83
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: On Being Blue by William Gass (1976, 91p.)
On blue the color, blue the language, and a good deal about blue as forbidden sexual matters: "There are a number of difficulties with dirty words, the first of which is that there aren't nearly enough of them."
2
20
83
People who say that cats aren't interested in people have never tried closing a bathroom door in the face of one.
0
19
79
A Neglected Wafer-Thin Book: The Skin of Dreams (Loin de Rueil) by Raymond Queneau
A blend of Walter Mitty, The Purple Rose of Cairo, and Horatio Alger, a short manic burst of chaos ala Zazie dans le Metro. Coming soon in a new translation from NYRB Books.
5
10
78
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Lady Into Fox by David Garnett (1922, 97p.)
The first of Garnett's fable-like novels, about Mr. Tebrick's attempts to maintain a relationship after his wife is suddenly transformed into a fox. Woodcuts by Garnett's first wife, Rachel Alice Garnett.
5
19
79
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark (1970, 180p.)
40-something Lise travels from her unnamed northern European country to an unnamed European country, where her life proceeds to spiral out of control--and we follow along anticipating the inevitable crash.
5
12
79
June's
#WaferThinBook
is my favorite book of my life so far: Sweet Dreams by Michael Frayn (1973, 136 pages). Late for an appointment, Howard Baker finds himself driving into a magical city just at sunset and thinks, "Things will go well here..."
3
7
79
Latest
#WaferThinBook
: These Possible Lives by Fleur Jaeggy (64p.).
Highly recommended by
@Unwise_Trousers
and others, and yes, hypnotic writing. Reminded me of Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World. But [curmudgeon mode on] folks—it's nothing new (cont.)
2
12
74
What gets forgotten never ceases to amaze me. I'm reading a 690-page impressionistic novel from 1929 about an American woman's experiences in the First World War. It was considered for the Pulitzer. It's never been reissued and was unknown to me.
This is why I keep digging.
11
15
76
New American Library's incredible Signet Classics series. A thread with a sample of the hundreds of terrific books published in the 1960s with covers by the likes of Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, Leonard Baskin, and other great designers.
8
20
77
Devoting the year to reading
#WaferThinBooks
turns out to have little effect on my book buying. Indeed, seems to make it worse.
3
7
74
When a publisher doesn't want buyers to think that the novel about African Americans written by an African American author is about African Americans or by an African American author.
(Maud Martha, by the way, is a superb
#WaferThinBook
(128p. in this edition)
3
18
74
I'm delighted to share the news that the work of Gertrude Eileen Trevelyan, who is hands down the most unjustly neglected writer I've featured in the 14+ years of Neglected Books, is coming back in print after over 80 years. My sincere thanks to Scott Pack for his enthusiasm.
4
24
74
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood (Random House, 1945, 128p.)
Based on Isherwood's time working with Berthold Viertel on "Little Friend" (1934), this is both about movie-making and the start of emigration from Hitler's Germany (and Austria).
7
16
75
The Recovered Books from
@boilerhousepress
stack continues to grow! Mortal Leap by MacDonald Harris available for preorder now and Gertrude Trevelyan's masterpiece, As It Was in the Beginning coming out on 31 May. With two more remarkable titles coming in the second half of 2024.
1
15
74
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Finishing Touch by Brigid Brophy (1963, 127p.)
Funniest book I've read in years. Two lesbians run a finishing school for the cast-off daughters of the rich and powerful. The arrival of a new student--an English princess--sets it all in turmoil.
3
16
70
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: Saint Sebastian's Abyss by Mark Haber (2022, 141p.)
Every review I've read of this book focuses on its story of two art critics and their falling out over the title painting, which they consider the greatest-ever work of art and devote their lives to. 🧵
3
6
74
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Ocean by James Hanley (1941, 142p.)
A sailor tries to keep four other survivors of a torpedoed ship from losing hope--and their minds. The shortest of Hanley's novels, a good introduction to his unique style and perspective.
4
11
70
Prejudice (sexism, racism, classism, anti-Semitism) is certainly a factor in why books get forgotten. But the simple fact is that most books will become forgotten, regardless of their merit. Here are Macmillan novels from 1934: all out of print and forgotten now, as far as I know
20
11
73
One reason I write about neglected books is that there are few (or no) people covering the same territory. There is a chance to find something, say something, that no one else has. After over 10,409 reviews, what are the chances of breaking new ground?
But is that the point?-->
6
2
73
Today's
#WaferThinBook
: The Relation of My Imprisonment by Russell Banks (1983, 121p.)
Daniel Defoe meets the experimental novel. A 17th C. carpenter has been in prison for 12 years for the crime of making coffins. More complex than it gets credit for, it tends to split opinions.
1
9
72
Some of Georges Simenon's best novels are his romans Américains, a baker's dozen surgical dissections of the American way of life in the 1950s -- most of them out of print, two of them never translated into English.
2
9
73
"This has never been the case."
Give this context note a featured place in the Social Media Hall of Fame.
0
21
72
@AjaMaybe
Remember Gertrude Stein's response to William James's exam: “Dear Professor James, I am so sorry, but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy to-day." James replied, “Dear Miss Stein, I understand perfectly how you feel. I often feel like that myself."
0
3
71
Gertrude Trevelyan is overdue recognition for her achievements. Bringing her books back to print is just one part of that process. Scholars of 20th century English literature need to begin studying and writing about her novels. And a blue plaque for 107 Lansdowne Rd Kensington?
4
4
68
New on WaferThinBooks: Favorites from The Modern Novel
I invited the wizard behind to recommend some of his favorites from the 1000+ novels featured on his site. An eclectic and wide-ranging selection:
2
10
69
Today's
#WaferThinBook
for
#WITMonth
: The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, tr. Thomas Teal (1972/74, 166p.)
Sophia and her grandmother and their summer on an island in the Gulf of Finland, full of plants, animals, fish, the sea, storms, and conversations about life and death.
2
21
70
The Recovered Books series
@bhousepress
continues its quest to give Gertrude Trevelyan her proper place in literary history. In May, we'll publish her greatest stylistic experiment, As It Was in the Beginning, in which a woman goes back to her birth as she moves closer to death.
5
16
69
I know absolutely nothing about this book — except that it's got a title to die for.
5
7
70
I love the Society section of old newspapers. Here's a bit of what was happening in Big Fork, Montana in September 1910. You almost couldn't cross the street without it getting into the paper. And people noticed the splendid rain on a Sunday night.
9
8
70