What's the best undiscovered book you've read?

Open thread: What is the best and most obscure book you have read? We want your recommendations


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Middlemarch: read. Nineteen-eighty Four: read. Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl: next on the to-read list.

But, My Elvis Blackout, The Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite or The Land As Viewed From the Sea? Probably not.

A few weeks ago I put out a call on Twitter asking for brilliant but not widely known books, and got a wonderful response, including these lesser known - at least to me - wonders:

@guardianbooks @hannah_freeman The Absence of a Cello by Ira Wallach. Wonderful slice of late 50s US middle-class angst

— errormessage (@errormessage) February 7, 2013

@hannah_freeman @margretgeraghty @samjordison One that bridges both is Narratives of Human Evolution by Misia Landau. (out of print)

— Margret Geraghty (@MargretGeraghty) February 7, 2013

@guardianbooks @hannah_freeman Older titles or newer titles? The Book of Mamie by Duff Brenna (1990) American MASTERPIECE!

— TheBloomsburyReview (@BloomsReviews) February 7, 2013

@hannah_freeman Alfred Chester - The exquisite corpse, Newton Thonrburg, Cutter and Bone, Simon Crump, My Elvis Blackout

— Sam Jordison (@samjordison) February 7, 2013

@hannah_freeman @samjordison Fourth Mansions by RA Lafferty. Bonkersness that should be widely read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Ma…

— David Barnett (@davidmbarnett) February 7, 2013

@guardianbooks @hannah_freeman how about The Land As Viewed From the Sea by Richard Collins? A beautiful book that seemed to pass readers by

— Sarah Noakes (@snoakes7001) February 7, 2013

What lesser-known gems have you come across in the secondhand shop, on a friend's bookshelf or in the depths of your own reading list, that deserve to be more widely read? Fiction or non-fiction, old or just overlooked by most. Tell us your recommendations

Best bookshopsHannah Freeman
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