In January of this year, I was at the very very beginning of getting back into reading and I picked up Secret History. It had been on my shelf for years and I had gotten it out of a neighborhood free library/exchange. Having not been in bookish communities much, I’d never heard of it–I just liked the blurb on the back. I was blown away and when I was telling my friend, an avid reader and lit major, about it, she told me about how it was very well-known as a really good book lol. Now that I’ve built out my own reading habits and book-loving community, I hear about it so often and it makes me chuckle every time.

Have you ever had an experience like this? Picked up a book blind or without knowing much about it, and then found out that it was really popular or loved?

  • ken_mcgowan@alien.topB
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    10 months ago

    For me this was Don DeLillo’s “White Noise”. Not sure how big the following is compared to these other titles, but it definitely found a devoted audience.

    • Somebody_or_other_@alien.topB
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      10 months ago

      I borrowed this from a library in Japan that had a single shelf of English language literature to choose from. War & Peace was on the same shelf, I eventually read it too out of sheer desperation.