I am so glad the LBH (hosted by The Blue Bookcase) is back this week! I love the opportunity to have some good discussion on the blog. This week's question is:
What literary title (fiction or nonfiction) that you love has been underappreciated? We all know about the latest Dan Brown, and James Patterson isn't hurting for publicity. What quiet masterpiece do you want more readers to know?
Honestly, there are probably quite a few books that I could list here, but there are two in particular that are popping into my head. The first is The Bean Trees, which I actually reviewed a few days ago. It is by Barbara Kingsolver, and while I know that she is a very popular writer, I'd never heard of this book until I picked it up for the Birth Year Challenge. It is one of my favorite books that I have read this year - the writing is beautiful, the plot is engaging, and by the end I felt like the characters were my best friends. I definitely think more people should be reading this book.
Another book that I think is underappreciated is my favorite, Kartography by Kamila Shamsie. (I have also blogged about this one before, in the very first literary blog hop!) I read this book for the first time in high school and it completely won me over. I think what I loved the most about it were the relationships. In high school I always wished that I had that "boy next door" best friend that I would eventually fall in love with and we would know everything about each other, blah blah blah (there were no boys in my neighborhood, just little kids and retired people). Anyway, this story displays the best and also the weirdest version of that relationship I've ever read about. And the other friendships surrounding the central pair were also so amazing - they were both typical of high school friendships and also different due to the strange dynamics of the political situation in Karachi. Anyway, I could go on about this book all day. Now that I look back on it after several rereads, I realize it is not a perfect book - but I am still in love with it. The only people I know that have read it are people I lent it to, so I think more people should try it out. Shamsie's other works are also fantastic - her most recent and publicized, Burnt Shadows, is the most well known but is my least favorite. Her writing is beautiful and engaging and her stories are unique. Anyway, enough ranting.
What are some of your unsung favorites? I have a feeling this hop is going to do disastrous things to the good ol' TBR.
