Ask HN: What are some great books that are relatively unknown in the US? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some great books that are relatively unknown in the US?

165 pointswhitepoplar173 comments

From novels, to nonfiction, to the art of leisure.

If by "great" you mean influential, then definitely India's epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata would fit the bill IMO.

Wikipedia has this to say about Mahabharata:

> The Mahābhārata is the longest epic poem known and has been described as "the longest poem ever written".[7][8] Its longest version consists of over 100,000 śloka or over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose passages. At about 1.8 million words in total, the Mahābhārata is roughly ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the length of the Rāmāyaṇa.[9][10] W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahābhārata in the context of world civilization to that of the Bible, the works of William Shakespeare, the works of Homer, Greek drama, or the Quran.[11] Within the Indian tradition it is sometimes called the Fifth Veda.

But if by “great” you mean a lot of fun to read, then I’m skeptical. I grew up with these stories since my mother and grandmother told them as bedtime stories. As I learned to read I picked up the comic book versions (known as Amar Chitra Katha) and later the novels.

As far as the stories themselves go, they’re pretty drab. The plot is predictable, dialogue is meh, characters (apart from 2) are more like caricatures than real people, the morals are as subtle as bludgeons, they drag on for no reason. I would not recommend them to anyone.

That’s not to say they’re not important books. They were and are influential. Today’s books might be better but they owe a debt of gratitude to the classics. So in some ways reading the Mahabharata today and complaining it isn’t great is similar to complaining that Seinfeld Isn’t Funny. Plus I will say, at least half a billion people love these stories and worship the characters as Gods. If that makes you curious, pick them up.

You should definitely check out different versions. The story they usually use in tv-series and 'parents' tell is the same version which is as you said boring, and plain good guy vs bad guy plot. But many ancient versions excellent[1][2] and they not dragged like the original!, even better if you are into prosody(kavya)[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urubhanga

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikramarjuna_Vijaya

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_prosody

Mahabharata has some fiction and plot twists. However I have to say George R R Martin ruined it for me with Game of Thrones. Nothing beats his plot twists and story telling.

The Weiss brothers and HBO did a decent job with the series as well. It kind of connects and entire generation of viewers and book readers.

On top of that, there are hundreds of versions of Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata with different themes and story[1]. Excluding retellings in different languages with a different style and changes story depending on languages, region & religion. My mother tongue (Kannada) alone has more than 10 ancient version or so which I heard of.

It seems that old writers had a different idea of storytelling. They were focused more on the theme & prosody[2] than the story. I think it set the bar very high since everyone know the base story. No wonder they had this complex structure and ideas for prosody[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama_in_Jainism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_prosody

Giving my 2 cents here: Mahabharat was the first epic which I fell in love with. It is fair to draw parallels with the Trojan War in terms of scale & sheer amount of narrative. It's ultimately about a war, there are gods & demigods involved, and it's tragic. Many complex storylines, plot twists, motives are intertwined. The centrestage is set to 5 demigod brothers who fight a war for their birthright, to rule their kingdom. There's Krishna involved; if you ever wanted to know the context of Dharma and Karma (Bhagvat Gita) this is where you'll find it. Characters act out of greed, lust, power, pride; you won't be so sure about who are the good guys (which IMO is the best kind of story). My favorite character is Karna, the 6th brother who was separated at birth and has to fight against his brothers for his friendship. 10/10 would recommend.

Both the books are quite famous in the US. Thanks to our H1-B/Green Card and US passport diaspora brethren.

I wouldn't call them less famous or less known.

This is a staple of any high school or college world literature class.

From where I stand, Hispanic and Slavic literature is fairly unknown and underrated on the other side of the pond.

Ramón del Valle Inclán's "Lights of Bohemia": A great portrait of Madrid and the dirty guts of the Spain from 100 years ago, written in a gorgeously precise, dark and multifaceted range of vocabulary.

Ortega y Gasset's "Rebellion of the Masses". It is centered in the individual "I am me and my circumstances" and its evolution since the enlightenment.

Sapkowski's "Witcher". Look for a good translation, lots of Slavic mythology tidbits and wonderfully juicy curse words.

Stanislaw Lem's "The Star Diaries". Nice if you like to fantasize about buying pieces for your spaceship in a shopping centre or think about chair-like aliens with 11 different sexes (in the book).

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "A hundred years of solitude". The book is all about "realismo fantástico", joining the real and imaginary words in an unforgettable blend.

I guess it boils down to the lack of accurate translations. As a certain Jarosław Grzędowicz put answering a question why his works haven't been translated yet(paraphrased):

English native speakers in general are not too fond of translations not done by other English native speakers. Unfortunately there aren't many English native speakers who happen to be experts in Polish literature. On top of that all four of them are lumberjacks.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work is very famous in the U.S. Marquez happens to be one of the few Hispanic authors that most Americans have read.

Isabel Allende also enjoyed a period of brief popularity in the U.S. (for House of Spirits).

Can you please provide more examples of Slavic literature? I am only aware of Russian authors. Any idea if the english translation of Witcher by Danusia Stok is good? I am very curious about Slavic culture and recently blogged about "Slavs"[1], I would love to add a literature section to my post.

[1] https://raviramanujam.com/post/blog/slavs.html

> Any idea if the english translation of Witcher by Danusia Stok is good?

I've just doublechecked that the official English translation is good indeed, I haven't got first hand knowledge though https://www.quora.com/I-intend-to-read-the-Witcher-books-but...

My knowledge of Slavic literature limits mostly to the Polish and some Russian authors, despite that I can recommend a Czech satire book that I liked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk

Other than that, Czeslaw Milosz for the poetry, Henryk Sienkiewicz has some great novels about the history of Poland (The Trilogy and The Teutonic Knights are damn hooking and intense), Zofia Kossak Szczucka (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zofia_Kossak-Szczucka) is another solid historical writer. I am aware however that my tastes in literature are somewhat eclectic.

Russian Lit: Nikolai Gogol for the stories, Solzhenitsyn for the Gulag Archipelago, and of course War and Peace (Tolstoy) and Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky). Reserve some weeks for the last two though, heh ;)

Any help you need, just shoot me an email (in the profile), but I'm not an expert by any means :P

Thank you! I will definitely check those out :)

All pleasure is mine! Also, glad that you like the Life of Boris :D (in the blog post)!

Oh man, Boris is awesome, I watch his stuff almost every other day! Are you from Poland?

Yep. I was born there (in Silesia) but I'm living in Spain since I was ten.

Awesome

I think Leo Tolstoy might be fairly well known in the US due to "War and Peace" and, possibly, "Anna Karenina". But his nonfiction or autobiographical works deserve attention as well. I would highlight two of these:

"The Kingdom of God is Within you" -- I think Mahatma Gandhi considered this to be one of the three most influential books for his philofophy of "nonviolent resistence". Even though Tolstoy was already considered a literary genius in his country, the Russian czar initially banned this book due to negative imagery of the Russian church. So I think it was first published in Germany or elsewhere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_Y...

"A Confession" -- a short book that is somewhat related to the previous one; depicts young Tolstoy's "search for the meaning of life" (or, God). It had a huge impact on me (even though I read it first being 30+). This would be among my first recommendations for books to read when you're 20. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession

Also, this might give some more context to understand Tolstoy's nonfiction: https://libertarianchristians.com/2010/07/09/leo-tolstoy-aga...

Don't miss _A Hero of Our Time_ by Lermontov. Plus, it's short!

Thank you, will do!

I would recommend Boris Akunin (I suggest to start with Erast Fandorin series), I don't know whether he is known in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Akunin

The Nobel prize winner W Szymborska wrote some beautiful poems.

I usually find poetry self-adoring and usually completely unreadable by what I read of Szymborska was feeric.

Thanks for the suggestion, I will check out her work.

The "Four Great Classic Novels" from 14th-18th century China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels

Specifically:

Water Margin

Romance of the Three Kingdoms

Journey to the West

Dream of the Red Chamber

They are referenced in everything in asian media and there a bajillion tv/movie adaptations of them but they are relatively unknown in the west.

Seconded. They are excellent. I must re-read them.

Water Margin[0] came to UK on TV in the early 80s from Japanese TV. Gained quite a following.

Journey to the West came to the UK as Monkey[1] (again a Japanese adaptation) around the same time. It was the most ridiculous, weird thing on TV. Most people at school were addicted to it. It became a cult classic. Sadly Saiyuki 2 never made it to the UK.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Water_Margin_(1973_TV_seri... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(TV_series)

Damon Alburn (musician from Blur and Gorillaz) also co-created a stage adaptation as Monkey: Journey to the West:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey:_Journey_to_the_West

I think it’s interesting because even when a person outside of China is exposed to them, they might not realise the influence. Close to a million people a day play Dota 2 but I doubt they know that the Monkey King (https://youtube.com/watch?v=guGFT27SavM) is the main character of Journey to the West.

About these 4 books, are there any translations or Kindle versions you recommend?

I'm currently reading Water Margin which was translated to English by the Foreign Language Press[0]. Although very simplified in tone and diction, the translation is still amazing and it comes in four volumes as well so it's around 2000 pages of text.

[0]http://www.flp.com.cn/en/

There is a recent Journey to the West Movie, which is very well made!

Russian schools of science fiction, "established" by Ivan Efremov and Strugatskie brothers, produced many great pieces of literature.

One of my favorites is "A billion years before the end of the world" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitely_Maybe_(novel) .

Agreed. Monday Begins on Saturday is amazing - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_Begins_on_Saturday

Let me add

Karel Čapek "War with the Newts"

Not sure how well these are known in the US..

Mans search for meaning by Victor Frankl.

Anything by Dostoyevsky.

José Saramago's the double. They made a film based on this with jake gyllenhall but not sure how well known the book and saramego is in the US, both book and film are excellent.

A girl is a half formed thing by Elmer mcbride is the best thing I've read in years with a really unique writing style. It's an incredible tragic book though... Check out first chapter online here to see if you like the style.

http://www.flare.com/celebrity/must-read-the-first-chapter-o...

> Mans search for meaning by Victor Frankl.

> Anything by Dostoyevsky.

These are extremely well-known in the U.S.

Dostoevsky is considered heavy literature however. It's well known but not often read.

I didn't like the one book by Dostoyevsky that we had in English literature class in high school. I think it was the one about Raskolnikov. Found it heavy / morbid / not much interesting. But I've read some novels by other Russian authors (a while ago), and IIRC found some by Chekhov good. Some novels I read about life on farms during the Soviet times were interesting too, cannot remember the authors or book titles right now.

Dostoyevsky is an icon of serious literature in the US. I wouldn’t call him unknown.

Some great comics/graphic novels that are relatively unknown in the US

Asterix comics [1]

Tintin comics [2]

Yes, I know Spielberg's Tintin animated movie is well known but I doubt most people in the US have heard of the entire series of Tintin comics.

I couldn't devour these fast enough when I was growing up.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3...

The drawings / illustrations in Asterix and Tintin comics are just great. I like them almost more than the stories or characters, especially for the Asterix ones. The drawings of scenery are very evocative, and expressions on the faces of the people in the comics seem very realistic, despite being drawn with just a few lines, relatively speaking.

Another great point about Asterix comics (so I read), is that they were initially written in French, and later translated into English (I've only read them in English) - and still there are many puns and word plays in the English versions. I don't know how they managed to do it, or whether they created different puns for the English versions. Likely the latter, because I guess the puns would not translate well across languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix

I've never seen Asterix in English and just checked the Wikipedia page you linked.

I was wondering how they translated the characters' names. Since the chief is Vitalstatistix, then it must be good. Nothing to do with the French name but still funny.

Right :) Some other names I like are Bacteria (wife of the fishmonger, Unhygienix), Cacophonix, the bard, Getafix, the druid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asterix_characters

Idefix to Dogmatix is a gem.

Ha ha, just googled that. A gem indeed. Idée fixe (fixed idea, obsession) to Dogmatix (Dog / Dogmatic).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogmatix

I grew up on Tin Tin comics. They were available in my school library in Nairobi. That stuff was crack. Such adventures! Really made it fun to read.

Yes, crazy kinds of adventures. Things or issues that seem impossible to solve, yet they (Tintin, Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus) come out of them successfully most of the time, not to mention Thomson and Thompson :)

Most of Moebius's work is relatively unknown as well, although his designs are very recognizable in film.

>Moebius

You mean the Moebius of the Moebius strip?

No, Moebius as in Jean Giraud

Great primer

http://www.tcj.com/jean-moebius-giraud-1938-2012/

Great collection of his awe inspiring art and a short film

https://www.rabbleboy.com/the-amazing-art-of-moebius-jean-gi...

And if you're looking for something outrageously creative and courageously insane go buy a copy of "the incal" which is his graphic novel collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky

Thanks, will check those out.

It's not just those two. Most French/Belgian comics [1] are unknown in the US. There have been tons of talented newcomers since the 1990s, and some cursory Googling suggests me that most are not translated to English yet. (Some are available in German.)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Belgian_comics

I really enjoyed as a kid the Gaston Lagaffe and Spirou written and drawn by Andren Franquin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Franquin

He also authored a black humor series for adults really worth reading.

I would say European and south American comics are mostly unknown in the US. L'incal, Corto Maltese, Mafalda, El Eternauta... There is a whole world which is distinctly different from the mainstream American style and manga/manwa, and very interesting.

The recently released film Valerian is based on a 70's french comics Valerian & Laureline that is/was totally unknown in the US.

Even more interesting is how much inspiration a certain George Lucas seem to have drawn from them:

http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/07/30/are-the-valrian-and-l...

There was magazine, called Heavy Metal, that published in the US european comics from the french Metal Hurlant magazine (Moebius, Enki Bilal, Corben, Milo Manara...).

I personally enjoyed Pif et Hercule when I was a kid. The comics were fun and each magazine came with a toy.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pif+and+hercule

Americans don't have moomins. Moomins are awesome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moomins / https://www.moomin.com/en/blog/friendship-love-central-messa...

I grew up in the UK and watched the (Japanese) cartoon series. Nowadays I find myself living in Finland, and Moomins are everywhere (no surprise I guess!)

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome (1889, London).

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/308/308-h/308-h.htm

The first half of the opening chapter is the best intro to any work of comic fiction I've read.

At face value it's a simple road trip story (by boat), but the episodes of hypochondria and camaraderie still feel contemporary and fun — it is written and to be read for the pure joy of it, and you need look for no deeper meaning.

My mom used to read these to me and my brothers when we were little, we all really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun.

If you like Jerome K. Jerome, you should also check out Saturnin: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1724928.Saturnin It has a great poetic and funny style of classical Czech works. There's a movie too. Just in case someone is interested, a movie with a similar funny and poetic style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_It_Short (Postřižiny) and I'd also recommend checking out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_and_Her_Week_of_Wonder... - a surrealistic horror film...I love the soundtrack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPyPEraG74c ...and to make it relevant to the original request, there's a book of the same name by Vitezslav Nezval (I haven't read it though)

This is one of my absolute favorites. I've since searched for a book that would make me laugh as hard, without success. Not even JKJ's other works come close.

+1. Works pretty well as an audiobook as well. "Three Men on the Bummel" is amusing too, although not as good.

Robert Musil's "The Man Without Qualities" [1] is by far the most outstanding novel i have read, as it stretches the limits of what language can express past anything i tought possible. The protagonist is a mathematician whose scientific mind applies allegorical dissections over a wide range of existential themes concerning humanity and feelings. The polarity makes it for an extraordinary read.

Hermann Broch "The Death of Virgil". The novel creates out of a dying poet a rich, profound vision both of civilization and of primal concerns of all mankind.

Austrian authors where on another level in the late 30s and 40s of the 20th century.

Finally, Victor Pelevin's "Empire V: The Prince of Hamlet" [3] You gain instruction into the vampire life and by extension the humans which vampires feed and the nature of god and existence itself, with interesting meditations on existence, theology, matter, illusion and withering attacks on fashion, advertising, politics, the Davos elite, literature and particularly the nature of money.

===

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Without_Qualities

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Virgil

[3] https://www.amazon.de/Empire-Prince-Hamlet-Victor-Pelevin/dp...

I can vouch for "The Man Without Qualities", the book is really extraordinary. I read it when I was 18 and I still remember not quite knowing why I liked it so much.

Usually not into fantasy, but La Horde du Contrevent is a French fantasy classic, written by Alain Damasio, which was published in 2004. He went later on to collaborate on a few games that might be more known in the US (Life Is Strange, Remember Me). Damasio has a creative use of the language, but which must then make it hellish to translate into any other language. According to Wikipedia, it has only been translated in Italian.

Foreign:

* Life: a users manual by George s Perec.

* Too Loud a Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal

* Auto-da-fe by Elias Canetti

Domestic:

These are harder because I feel like they’re all pretty well known, but maybe they’re not actually read. Like, known bc people have heard the name, but are not read as much anymore.

* Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

* Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

* Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Actually unknown (but super good) domestic:

* Stuff by Larry McMurtry (only famous for lonesome dove)

Also noteworthy, from Georges Perec: A Void (La Disparition), which was written entirely without using the letter "e" (and which the translation reproduces brilliantly well).

Mason & Dixon by Pynchon is also very, very good.

That book is incredible and made me feel uneducated. There are so many references and jokes in that book to historical events, other books, etc. I knew enough to realize how much of that book was going right over my head.

How about Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse novels (fiction)? Asking, not saying (whether they are relatively unknown in the US). They are very popular in India, and of course must be so in the UK, since both authors were from there.

A lot of subtle humor (British-style, mainly about the aristocracy's ways, but fun to read) in the Wodehouse books. And Christie has many good novels in the detective genre. I actually don't find many detective novels good in the literal sense of being good stories about detection of crime, I like them more for the descriptions, conversation and atmosphere.

These stats for Christie from Wikipedia are impressive:

[ Guinness World Records lists Christie as the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 2 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works come third in the rankings of the world's most-widely published books,[5] behind only Shakespeare's works and the Bible. According to Index Translationum, she remains the most-translated individual author – having been translated into at least 103 languages.[6] And Then There Were None is Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. ]

Anecdotal, but Agatha Christie popped up in the required reading more than a few times for me from grades 6 through 10 (ages 12 though 16). I went to an average public school in the Midwestern U.S.

Wodehouse is new to me; I appreciate the recommendation.

Interesting that you had it as early as grade 6.

You're welcome.

In terms of nonfiction books, Understanding Power by Noam Chomsky has been eye-opening. I would strongly recommend reading the footnotes alongside it, though they double the length of the book.

Even if you don't agree with Chomsky's politics or all of his conclusions, his analysis of American foreign and domestic policy is worth hearing.

"Epitaph Of A Small Winner" and "Dom Casmurro" by Machado de Assis. He's written a great many other books besides those, but they're the best of the bunch. In Brazil he's a national hero, but while much of his work is available in English it's astoundingly under-appreciated.

I love some foreign authors like Murakami, but I always wonder what I'm losing in the translation and how much is the translator impacting the writing.

For what it’s worth, I have a friend who is a native speaker of Japanese and a fluent English speaker of 40 years, who loves Murakami and has read a number of his books in both English and Japanese. She says the translations are spot on and extremely well done.

Haruki murakami is also fluent in English (he lived in Boston area for years) and is very involved in his books ranslations into English. I have no idea about his translations into other languages.

I’ve read all his books in English. I’m a big fan of his fiction but not crazy about his non fiction.

Agreed. There are multiple translations of de Assis's major works into English, and they are remarkably dissimilar, so that is a hint right there as to how the translation process is itself an art form. (My tastes guide me to the earlier translations, which are slightly less forensically precise but far more readable and musical to the ear.)

"The translation process is itself an art form."

Without question. I have also read books in several different translations and it is remarkable how different they can be from each other. In his notes, one translator said there is no such thing as "translating" a book from one language to another, what you are really doing is rewriting the book in another language.

Vachana Sahitya[1] is less known outside I guess.

Vachana Sahitya is a form of rhythmic writing in Kannada that evolved in the 11th century CE as a part of the Sharana movement, a revolt against all the social evils of the traditionalistic society that time. Subject varying from their revolutionary ideas regarding human rights, society, democracy, god, and life.

It's not actually a book, more like Haiku maybe.

[1] http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=kLs3AAAAIAAJ&oi...

http://www.manushi-india.org/pdfs_issues/articles/Talking%20...

http://vsnanc.org/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/AllamaP...

Good choice, but if you don't know Kannada then you have read it in English. And the charm goes away in translation.

The Master and Margarita.

I loved this book. Everyone has a different opinion on what the best translation is, so it’s worth briefly scanning a few different ones to see which you like best. I had a really hard time getting into the Ginsburg translation, but really enjoyed the Pevear/Volokhonsky one.

Also, this site: http://masterandmargarita.eu/en/ is a great resource if you’re not familiar with 1930s Soviet history and the Gospels (both canonical and apocryphal). Without knowledge of those things you won’t get nearly as much out of the book as you could.

I like the Burgin and O'Connor translation, personally.

They have a postscript per chapter about "all the references you probably missed", but don't add distracting markup to the text itself to call them out. It's a nice balance, and the language is pretty good.

If you haven't, the 2008 Hugh Aplin translation is worth checking out. I found it made for a bit easier/more casual reading than the sometimes stuffy P/V, which lets the situational humor and the playfulness of the language come through a lot more naturally.

Anything by Bulgakov really. Heart of a Dog is fantastic too. If you like your Russian literature surrealist then Daniil Kharms is worth seeking out, and of course you can go back to the master: Gogol, and his Nose (quick plug, I produced a PD collection of Gogol shorts for SE: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/nikolai-gogol/short-fictio... )

Agreed. A worthy read[1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita

Yes. This book is fantastic.

Alamut by Vladimir Bartol

Written in 1030's by a Slovenian, it's a historical fiction novel set in the in 11th century what is now Iran. It tells the story of how a radical leader of an Islamic faction, based in the impenetrable mountain fortress "Alamut", manipulates young men into perfect obedience and turns them against his enemies through the use of drugs and a fake paradise full of women purporting to be heaven.

It is also one of the major inspirations for the Assassin's Creed series of games.

I believe it inspired much more than the videogames: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins

Erskine Childers' "The Riddle of the Sands", an analysis of German naval ambitions pre-WWI masquerading as a tense work of fiction.

Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World". Slocum does that.

George Ade, any of his works: he was the logical successor as a humorist to Mark Twain, yet his work doesn't wear all that well since he was in love with turn-of-the-20th-century slang. With some effort his portrayals of character turn surprisingly deep and sympathetic.

Confession by Leo Tolstoy. (About the meaning of life :) http://www.arvindguptatoys.com/arvindgupta/confessions-tolst...

I recommend The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It's a short but thought provoking book, for me anyway.

What self-respecting literature enthusiast hasn't heard of Tolstoy?

I've read some of Tolstoy's stuff, but I'd not heard of this particular work. Wasn't that the question, about works, not authors?

Heard if him, impossible. Any Seinfeld fan has heard of him.

Read him? The numbers start to thin out.

Books by P. G. Wodehouse. English author, an outstanding humorist.

Yes. Despite having a shared language, many U.K. books are not widely read in the U.S. Authors like P.G. Wodehouse and Georgette Heyer are considered a bit niche in the U.S.

Others:

- Enid Blyton's children books - Five Find Outers, Secret Seven, Malory Towers etc.

- C.S. Forester - Horatio Hornblower series

Non-English authors:

- Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret series (French detective genre)

- Sigrid Undset - Kristin Lavransdatter (Scandinavian)

Some foreign authors whose popularity is rising in the U.S. at the moment

- Elena Ferrante (Italian)

- Karl Ove Knausgaard (Norwegian)

On a related note, Wikipedia has a more comprehensive list of best-selling world authors [1]. Ironically many of top writers in the English language aren't widely read in America.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_a...

The children's books:- Just William series by Richmal Cromption. Fun of boyhood days immortalized.

My favorite collection is the "The Golf Omnibus" aside from all the Bertie Wooster books themselves.

Even years after reading the story, reminiscing "The Great Sermon Handicap" lightens my day.

The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Set in pre WWI Vienna. It’s a three volume unfinished novel full of brilliant writing, much of which should appeal to the crowd here.

And Heimito von Doderer. His stories, novellas. The Last Adventure.

But, as introduction or a summary of a Fin de siecle Vienna that was a progenitor of XXth century and "proving ground for the destruction of the world", start with Allan Janik, Wittgenstein: Vienna Revisited. Wonderfully succint and comprehensive overview.

I came here to post this!

And of course the (sort-of) French equivalent about life in modern times: In search of lost time.

"I am a cat" by Natsume Sōseki 1905. like Murakami, but the first Japanese author to write like that (?) All the other novels he wrote are great too.

His "Kokoro" is my second-favorite novel of all time.

In 1935-36, two Soviet humorists took a coast-to-coast road trip across the US and gathered their experiences in a book called "Single-Story America" (or "Little Golden America" in English). The translation by Charles Malamuth seems rather wooden compared to the hilarious, witty tone of the original Russian, but I think it's still very much worth reading: an uncanny number of their observations about American life and culture are still completely relevant today.

(Some choice quotes in my Goodreads review: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6708623)

The same two authors also have a duology of satyrical novels about a conman in the 30s Soviet Russia: The Twelve Chairs [1] and The Little Golden Calf [2]. The novels are incredibly witty and their quotes/references are still part of the common Russian vernacular.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Chairs

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf

The Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse. It's supposedly about the author himself in 1920s Germany, also about depression, existentialism, and recovery, in a surreal context.

(hence, my user name)

The Egyptian[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Egyptian

That was an surprising thing to see listed here. A couple of years ago my Finnish wife gave me a copy, and she later followed up with "The Adventurer", & "The Wanderer" (each in their English translations).

They were fascinating reads, although I was a little disappointed at how hapless the main character was. He bumbles around while stuff keeps happening "nearby", I guess that's kinda the point. It is all about the journey.

Tirukkural

Excerpt from the Wikipedia page, "Considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality, chiefly secular ethics, it is known for its universality and non-denominational nature."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tirukkuṛaḷ

There is a whole lot of excellent regional books that are unknown to Indians of recent generations. They would definitely be unknown in USA imho.

Tirukkural is quite famous. Thanks to the massive Tamil and South Indian diaspora living in foreign lands.

Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O. Mitchell is a novel that was required reading in Canada for generations, but it is almost completely unknown in the United States. I don't know if it is a "great" book (I have not read it myself), but many Canadians consider it a classic of Canadian literature.

"De Avonden"/"The Evenings" by Gerard Reve. It is a small masterpiece set in the period after WWII in The Netherlands. It deals with themes like the post-war boredom, but also more general themes like emptiness of personal relations and how life can seem pointless in your early twenties.

I always think of it as the Dutch version of The Catcher in the Rye, which deals with similar themes. But the main character in The Evenings is decidedly less of a prick than Holden Caulfield hahaha.

By some great mistake of the book's editors in its time, this masterpiece did not get translated in Enlish until last year or so. If it would have been translated in the years after it was written, it would surely have been a major hit in the Enlish speaking world like it was over here.

Novels and stories by Victor Pelevin. Only a few of his works are available in English but these are also the best ones:

Buddha's Little Finger – https://www.amazon.com/Buddhas-Little-Finger-Victor-Pelevin/...

The Yellow Arrow – https://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Arrow-New-Directions-Paperbook...

Hermit and Sixfinger (free) – http://pelevin.nov.ru/pov/en-hermit/1.html

The Deptford Trilogy, has a bit of a Kurt Vonnegut feel but much darker, start with Fifth Business.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Deptford_Trilogy

Candide by Voltairre , really short drama, funny with a really unique point of view of pestilence. Confessions by Rousseau, superb biography of an amazing life. Zeno's conscience, a psycho analysts novel with a different point of view.

Amatka by Karin Tidbeck. This short book had the strangest vibe. I guess I would describe the book as if the lovechild of P.K. Dick and Margaret Atwood went to a Nordic country, stayed for 20 years, all the while doing weird stuff with fish and a dictionary.

Despite my colorful synopsis, seriously, the book delved into language, its use, meaning, permanence, delivery, and evolution. Perfect for these crazy days in US politics.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716GNTTG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

JG Farrell's Empire Trilogy are my favorite fiction books, but as an American I've rarely ran into them except through foreign media, like the BBC World Service and RTÉ.

They were republished by New York Review Books Classics, and I second this collection in general.

Jean-Claude Izzo's Mediterranean noir fiction, especially his Marseilles Trilogy and The Lost Sailors also qualify. They are published in translation in the US by Europa Editions.

Many of Europa Editions' books would fit (except their few US hits, like Elena Ferrante's works, which are better-known).

Some books by George Mikes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Mikes

[ George Mikes ['mikeʃ] (15 February 1912 – 30 August 1987) was a Hungarian-born British journalist, humourist and writer, best known for his humorous commentaries on various countries. ]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_be_an_Alien - his most famous one.

"Long John Silver" by Larsson (https://www.amazon.com/Long-John-Silver-Bjorn-Larsson/dp/186...).

I have read some other books by Larsson, but this is definitely the one I liked more. It is sort of a retelling of "Treasure Island" as narrated by the eponymous character (including how he became a pirate, and what happened to him after the event in the novel).

I suggest "The Tartar Steppe by Dino Buzzati". A great book about the meaningless of everyman planning about leaving a successful life. Mr. Paolomar by Italo Calvino is another last century Italian masterpiece with the reflection of a math teacher about the world and life in general.

wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe

If someone asked me to recommend a single XX century novel in Russian, I would certainly point to this one: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1060818.It_s_Me_Eddie

Provokes very strong emotions (both positive and negative :). I cannot vouch for the quality of English translation though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tartar_Steppe

Also, on the technical side (sorry I couldn't resist), CTM https://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html is really underrated.

Basically everything by Buzzati is awesome and virtually unknown to foreigners. I would suggest a short story collection though, like "sessanta racconti".

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessanta_racconti

It's up there with the best Asimov or Calvino or Borges: simple brilliant ideas, perfect execution.

And yes, CTM is awesome too!

Il deserto dei tartari is one of my favorites!

Nassim Taleb swears by this one too.

I think it’s fair to say that even great books allegedly “known” in the US aren’t widely known in the sense of having actually been read.

With that in mind, I would just go through the list of Nobel Prize winners (or Penn or another major award).

If the popular winners are too well known for your tastes (Ishiguro, Morrison) I am sure the less famous ones will be sufficiently unknown (Pamuk, Mahfouz).

Francis Spufford is a brilliant English author who should be more widely known.

For the HN crowd I would heartily recommend "Red Plenty" (2010). It's a semi-fictional novel about that brief moment in time around 1959 when the Soviets really thought that the dream of Communism was within reach.

The characters (most of them real people) include mathematicians, biologists, party officials, computer designers... There's probably no other novel that could afford to spend so many pages on discussing linear optimization and centralized economic planning without sacrificing the emotional narrative. I can't recommend it enough.

His "Operation Backfire" https://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n21/francis-spufford/operation-bac... should be interesting for us on HN, it puts in perspective modern British aerospace works. He has a great way describing past events.

Extremely recommended!!!

Is Michael Marshall Smith well known in the US?

Intruders was made into a BBC America series, but his earlier works are much more interesting.

Only Forward, One of Us, What You Make It, or Spares from the nineties are all well written, and all beat any of the suspense he's written as Michael Marshall. He simply seems much better writing near future dystopian sci-fi.

anything by Jack London.

I had read translations of his works in russian and after immigrating to Canada, was surprised to know that nobody had ever heard of him here.

A real gem if you enjoy the likes of 'of mice and men'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_London

His autobiography "John Barleycorn". Even exploring a lifetime drinking alcohol, it ends up as a book to cherish.

Some US history books that are relatively unknown in the US:

-Ann Douglas "Terrible Honesty" (Study of artists, Black and nonblack in New York/Manhattan in the 20s)

-James W. Douglass "JFK & the Unspeakable"

-Walter Johnson "River of Dark Dreams"

-Gerald Horne "The Counterrevolution of 1776"

-J. Sakai, Settlers (readsettlers.org)

-Ida Wells "Lynch Law in America"

You’re close to another good point: historical conversation tends to start around 1776 in the US in a manner not too different from 1776 being the start of time. I read a fuller historical account from a perspective including what’s known about America before the Spanish found it, through Spanish colonization, and through to the modern era. I’ve known my fellow citizens to fall prey to the idea that “our history” refers to a telling solely from the view that started in 1776. But that’s inconsistent with the view that the US is the home of people with family from all over.

The Knight in the Panther's Skin is a Georgian medieval epic poem, written in the 12th century by Shota Rustaveli:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knight_in_the_Panther%27s_...

Mayyazhippuzhayude Theerangalil by M. Mukundan (Malayalam. English translation: On the Banks of the Mayyazhi)

The Eight Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson. It was popular in the 80's, but I haven't met anyone who has read it or even heard of it.

It is a brilliant account of the discovery of DNA. Simply astounding. It should have been made into a movie, or more appropriately, in a TV series.

I've started reading French books again recently, and found some great ones:

Les Choses, Georges Perec

Alcools, Guillaume Appolinaire (poetry)

Francois Mitterrand, l'Abeille et l'Architecte (essay/diary)*

Bernard Henri Levy, La Pureté Dangereuse (essay)*

*AFAIK The last two don't have an English translation.

I recommend Un Homme qui dort by Perec. Really interesting use of 2nd person narration.

There's also an interesting film adaptation available on Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPhaT-zjIFA

This is more a question, in terms of Sci-Fi are people familiar with China Miéville? Perdido Street Station, Embassytown, and The City and the City are classics, Perdido Street Station might be the best fiction I have ever read. Dark stuff

Perdido Street Station was one of the best sci-fi novels I've read. I haven't read much - if any - of Miéville's other material, but it's on my list.

FWIW, his work seems to be at least relatively well known in the US. As one example, I'm sitting at a random Barnes & Noble store in Durham NC as I write this, and they have several Miéville titles on the shelf.

I think he's decently well known. I've seen him mentioned a few times on HN at least, all favorably.

Because predictions are an important part of all planning: Superforecasters by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardener, accompanied by the good judgement project at goodjudgement.com and gjopen.com.

The gods are athirst from Anatole France: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24010

Alternate (probably American title) I remember from high school is The Gods Will Have Blood

The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen. Superbly written treatise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peig_Sayers#Peig

The Three Body Problem trilogy of books by Cixin Liu

Although awareness in the west is very quickly rising.

I believe it is also slated to become a movie/TV series on Amazon in the future.

The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Fei (2016). Chinese author and setting (contemporary Beijing).

Following the theme of the solitary male antihero...a la Murakami.

I read that and liked it. Plus it's short, so it's a good intro for people to see whether they'd be interested in other contemporary Chinese fiction.

The Revolt of the Masses by Ortega Y Gasset

Everybody's Right by Paolo Sorrentino. He's better known for directing movies.

Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere by Lev Gumilev http://gumilevica.kulichki.net/English/ebe.htm

Surprisingly, not only ethnoses have an age, but their growth, development and aging follows a fairly common trajectory.

This has been a great list. Now off for a shopping spree on Amazon books

Is this thread full of standard literary cannon works because of an engineering bias against non-instruction manuals?

I hope we've moved past the engineering cliche of "I don't read fiction, why would I read something someone just made up?"

19th Century Russian literature is almost unknown to US.

- Dostoevsky

- Bulgakov

- Sorokin

- Tolstoy

- Chekhov

Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita are all renowned in the US. They pop up in this thread and in pop culture references like in Tron and Seinfeld.

Henry George: Progress and Poverty.

Explains how taxing land instead of labour is the path to a far better world. Versus now where progress means higher land prices which means poverty for those excluded from land.

Once nearly got to be mayor of New York. Sold 6 million copies (at the time only the bible outsold it).

https://www.aier.org/article/amazing-influence-henry-george-...

As recommended by Albert Einstein and many others.

"The Long Ships" by Frans G. Bengtsson. It's a wonderful, humorous adventure tale about the life of a viking.

I'd also just suggest you browse the New York Review Books collection. They put a lot of effort into reviving this kind of literature in translation, as well as digging up forgotten American gems.

https://www.nyrb.com/

Upvoted for NYRB. They're like the Criterion Collection of litfic at this point -- they find good stuff that's been out of print for too long, reissue it, bring it back to an audience that deserves to know about it. They recently reissued another long-out-of-print favorite, "Berlin Alexanderplatz", in a new translation.

All men are mortal - Simone de Beauvoir

1984

2001

not really unknown.

The question was "What are some great books that are relatively unknown in the United States?"

Although certain 1984 memes (like "Big Brother") are well-known, the book itself is not. Most Americans, if they've read any Orwell, have only read Animal Farm; and other concepts from 1984 (the memory hole, two minutes hate) are completely unheard of... again, because the book is not actually well-known.

Unfortunately, you could argue that it's well known because it's so easy to believe that it's being used as an instruction manual.

I think it's probably best to avoid snarky political commentary. The question under discussion is merely whether the book is well-known.

1984 is required reading in many highschools. It's well known.

Though arguably not well understood.

Space Rogues is a fun space adventure story by an indy author, John Wilker.

https://www.amazon.com/Space-Rogues-Adventure-Adventures-Smu...

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