Huffington Post Readers' Picks: 13 Great Overlooked Books By Famous Authors (PHOTOS, POLL)

Last week, we posted a list of 12 great books by famous authors that are often overlooked by popular culture, and we were happy to see that HuffPost readers had a lot of suggestions of their own. From the comments section and our "Participate" tool, the following are your picks for great books by popular authors that haven't necessarily gotten their due. Let us know if you agree with these choices, and add to the list with the Participate button below!

 

Have any overlooked books by famous authors to add to the list? Send them in here!

Overlooked Books

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"The General in His Labyrinth," Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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Pixel8Ted: Garcia Marquez' The General in His Labyrith about Simon Bolivar.

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Garcia Marquez' The General in His Labyrith about Simon Bolivar.

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Comments

[J Walker Rugino]

01:40 AM on 06/06/2010

When I was a kid, 'way back in the last millenium, I read Jo's Boys, and thought that was the most moving book I'd read, except maybe for Bradbury's Dandelion Wine, which is hardly overlooked or forgotten.
I bought A Long Fatal Love Chase when it was first published, and thought it was terrific. I thought it opened a window onto the early work of one of the greatest of American writers of the 19th c.

[J Walker Rugino]

01:34 AM on 06/06/2010

To which I would add another Huxley masterpiece - Time Must Have a Stop. Problem is, the humor is intellectual, maybe too profound for the masses(?); the plot struck me when I read it (maybe not the first time, I was 24!) as a novelization, if you will, of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. When Uncle Eustace tries to communicate through the medium, everything he says gets misinterpreted by a numbskull.
I always found that scene very funny.

[white mende man]

10:32 AM on 06/04/2010

Foucault's Pendulum, by Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco
try to get thru the first couple of pages and you'll not regret it... was it overlooked? Not sure but a great book non the less

[Tulka2]

03:45 PM on 06/03/2010

If you want an inside book about the 1960s gestalt in America, just read a self-published memoir by one Dr. John Petersen, called _The True-life Adventures of Doctor Wawa_. If anybody reads anymore...? It's funny and well written. Google the name. Doctor Wa sells it online.

[JonathanTroy]

12:13 PM on 06/03/2010

I've seen some mention of Edward Abbey on this thread. I would suggest his penultimate book, The Fool's Progress: An Honest Novel. Tragicomic, beautifully written, epic in scope, it is his true masterpiece.

[pigeonca]

07:29 AM on 06/03/2010

Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose." Couldn't put it down.

[Tulka2]

03:37 PM on 06/03/2010

About a year ago i asked the woman who runs my closest second-hand bookstore if she might suggest a novel that wasn't well enough appreciated. She put _Angle of Repose_ in my hands. Yes. Great story, beautifully written.

[bblueskye]

07:16 AM on 06/03/2010

I read Tolstoy's "Resurrection" a few years ago after someone gave it to me as a gift. It's a great book, and I couldn't put it down. That's a first for any book that I've read that's considered "classical literature."

[lisa010]

06:59 AM on 06/03/2010

How can some of these books be "overlooked" when they are required reading in schools, and often more than once?

"Tender is the NIght" - OH NO , not again!!!!

[BunkerBoy]

06:32 AM on 06/03/2010

"Sometimes A Great Notion" was assigned to me in college by a professor who called it the finest work of fiction published since WWII. Years later, I call it the finest work of fiction I have ever read.

[Tulka2]

03:40 PM on 06/03/2010

(I saw Oregon when i was a child. It looked just like that. You would not recognize it today. Every hill is bald. My husband says they must cut down every old tree because if they left even one it would be evidence of what they have done.)

[Al Bondigas]

11:32 PM on 06/03/2010

Sometimes a Great Notion moved me more than any other book I've ever read. I was pleasantly surprised to see it made this list. I'm sure many people think they've done Kesey after they've read Cuckoo's Nest. But, not so. I think anyone who bothers to read Sometimes a Great Notion would agree that it is the better book. Or more substantial and satisfying anyway.

[augiemarch]

05:26 AM on 06/03/2010

I'll put in a word for an old friend, Willie Gaddis and cite his book Recognitions. There is also, somewhat more fuzzily, a splendid madcap postwar book entitled Limbo (Dodge the steamroller ! if anybody remembers that).

[Al Bondigas]

11:34 PM on 06/03/2010

I've only read A Frolic of His Own. Didn't dig it. And have never been moved to give him another shot.

[Phreejazz]

03:32 AM on 06/03/2010

I like the premise, but can you really call "The general in his labyrinth" or "tender is the night" anything close to overlooked?

In any case, my vote would be for Melville's "Pierre: Or, the Ambiguities" Disturbing, bizarre, nihilistic and utterly brilliant.

[SolarArray]

02:12 AM on 06/03/2010

CJ Sansom! History Mystery Master.

[c-tom]

01:06 AM on 06/03/2010

Faye Weldon and Anne Tyler could both be on this list with any number of their books.

[iamjones]

12:34 AM on 06/03/2010

The Baron in the Trees, by Italo Calvino

[Mannock]

11:52 PM on 06/02/2010

Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Written in the 1850s, it reads like it was written in the mid twentieth century. Also, if you want to read about the origins of the present tea party, read his American Notes. Frightening.

[J Walker Rugino]

01:37 AM on 06/06/2010

This was another one of those that I read in high school as assigned reading, but it has stuck with me. But then again, once I started, I couldn't stop reading Dickens - much like his readership in the newspapers when he was serializing his work for the public.
Love Dickens forever!

[Mannock]

10:58 AM on 06/06/2010

I really like the reply. Fanned and faved!