What books do you have marked as favorites that less than 100 people have in their libraries?

Let's give some of our favorites some publicity.

I guess I like some odd ball stuff, I had more than I thought.

Mine are:

Fiction:

The Piper's Sons by Bruce Chandler Ferguson (mystery)

Choiring of the Trees by Donald Harrington (mystery, beautifully written)

The Love Hunter by Jon Hassler

Entering Normal by Anne Leclaire (chick-lit about women's relationships)

True Crime:

Before He Wakes a True Story of Money, Marriage, Sex and Murder by Jerry Bledsoe

Murder in Little Egypt by Darcy O'Brien An award winning book--facinating story

Non-Fiction:

The Day Donny Herbert Woke Up by Rich Blake an inspiring story about a family with a great faith

Sam: The Boy Behind the Mask by Tok Hallman another inspiring story of what this boy went through

I don't use the "Favorites" collection, but of the books I've given 5 stars (the top The Shutter of Snow by Emily Holmes Coleman
The Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers: Volume Two: 1928-1938 by Robinson Jeffers
Iphigenia: the diary of a young lady who wrote because she was bored by Teresa de la Parra
Women in the Wall by Julia O'Faolain

4 of the 5 books that I've put in there (haven't really gone through my library thoroughly yet) are under 100... and that 5th one is only in 102 libraries.

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski -102
JTHM: Director's Cut by Jhonen Vasquez -7
The Pilo Family Circus by Will Elliot -6
The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks -19
You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore -64

I have nearly 40. Most are history textbooks, and some are down are quirks of the combining system (Paradise Regained, for example, which is published with various combinations of Milton's work in different editions but only racks up 56 copies by itself).

Some that I think deserve to be better known are:
The Dairy Book of Home Cooking
From death into life - William Haslam (4 copies)
Good grammar in one hour (4 copies)
Bacon Sandwiches and Salvation - Adrian Plass (19 copies)
Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages - C C Dyer
The Absentee - Maria Edgeworth (97 copies, although that goes up to 135 if you count the multiple-story volumes that include it).

(Now if we were setting the boundary at 200 copies, I have several PG Wodehouse novels which come in at 150-170 copies and which I think ought to be more widely read.)

Of the 47 books I've marked as 'Favourite', 9 are below 100. More than I would've thought. It's mainly the eastern european ones.

The Cowards by Josef Skvorecky
The Faculty of Useless Knowledge by Yuri Dombrovsky
Forever Flowing by Vasili Grossman
The Galosh by Zoshchenko
Homage to Czerny by Gert Jonke
Scenes from the bathhouse by Zoschenko
Sophia Petrovna by Lydia Chukovskaya
Today I wrote nothing by Danil Kharms
The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin

More than 1000 of my books are owned by 100 or fewer LT members, including 99 that I alone own. Most of these are textbooks, old travel books, nature guides, old cookbooks, etc., but some are books of general interest. I don't mark favorites, but here are some that are well worth reading.

The Hunters by James Salter (100 copies)
The Cave Painters: Probing the Mysteries of the World's First Artists by Gregory Curtis (66 copies)
The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition by Susan Solomon (65 copies)
Sunflower by Gyula Krudy (63 copies)
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer (61 copies0
Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge (60 copies)
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Philip Shenon (58)
If This be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents by Gregory Rabassa (55)
The Drinker by Hans Fallada (55)
Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant (53)
What's For Dinner by James Schuyler (50)
The Snows of Yesteryear by Gregor von Rezzori (49)
You Must Know Everything by Isaac Babel (33)
Her First American by Lore Segal (25)
The five books of The Beulah Quintet by Mary Lee Settle (range in the 20s)
The Straight and Narrow Path by Honor Tracy (19)

I only have 19 books marked as "favorite" and of those only two manga are owned by less than 100 others, Her Majesty's Dog volumes 1 and 8.

edited to add:

I took a closer look at my library and discovered that many I'd consider faves aren't actually included on the list so now I'm going through and adding them to my favorites catagory. So many ways LT can keep me occupied :-)

While I haven't set up a "Favorites" section, anything that I give 5 stars to that has under 100 readers, shame on the outsiders not reading this stuff!

Here's my list of 5-star books with Terminal by Brian Keene (83)
Death Instinct by Bentley Little (93)
Perfect Poison by M. William Phelps (18)

(NOTE: I left off the tag for "Perfect Poision" because the tag links to Amanda Quick's book, which happens to have the same title with "The" in front of it. Do a search on the Author to find the book.)

"Terminal" is about a low-income family where the father has terminal cancer, and because he doesn't want to have his family suffer with no money, he gets involved in a bank robbery/hostage situation.

"Death Instinct" is about an idiot savant (9 years old) whose sole skill is murder.

"Perfect Poison" is a true story about a nurse (serial murderer) at a Veterans Hospital who OD's patients on Epinephrine until their heart gives out, and she calls codes each time. She does this to impress the security guard and have more time with him in the room during a relationship. It is believed that she probably killed nearly 40 before being convicted.

This shows that one of my favorite type of books are Naval fiction and history, followed by sci-fi;

Naval fiction/history/humor;
The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench by Richard McKenna (7)
Away All Boats by Kenneth Dodson ( 47)
Away Boarders by Daniel V. Gallery (6)
Now, Hear This! by Daniel V. Gallery (20)
Cap'n Fatso by Daniel V Gallery (13)
Mister Roberts by Heggen Thomas (89)
Man-Of-War Life: A Boy's Experience in the United States Navy, During a Voyage Around the World, in a Ship of the Line by Charles Nordhoff (9)
The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Crichton Robert (98)
Over the Top by Arthur Guy Empey (28)
Bluejacket: An Autobiography by Fred J. Buenzle (5)
Delilahby Marcus Goodrich (60)
Doctor Dogbody's Leg by James N. Hall (48)
Great Mutiny by James Dugan (24)
Fix Bayonets! by John W. Thomason (30)
The Left-Handed Monkey Wrench by Richard McKenna (7)
Seaspray and whisky: Reminiscences of a tramp ship voyage by Norman Freeman (12)
The Wreck of the Memphis by Edward Latimer Beach (10)

Science Fiction;
MR. ADAM by PAT FRANK (32)
This Island Earth by Raymond F. Jones (34)
Infinite jests;: The lighter side of science fiction by Robert Silverberg (14)
Casey Agonistes by Richard McKenna (51)
The Old Man and Mr. Smith: A Fable
by Peter Ustinov (115)

Misc;
The Hustler by Walter Tevis (75)

Perfect Poison by M. William Phelps

I think you're looking at the wrong column, katelisim; I thought "That can't be right" for House of Leaves, checked it, and it was in 4940 libraries. Then I kept checking, and they were all much more common than the numbers you give; I think you're looking at reviews. Only The Pilo Family Circus (87) is actually under 100.

I don't use Favorites much (I only have six in there in total), and only one (The Fortunate Fall) is below 100.

Mine are mostly in the "chick lit, but just a little deeper than average" genre. (What? That's not an official genre?)

Another Mother's Life by Rowan Coleman
His Mothers Son by Cai Emmons
In the Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde
Windless Summer by Heather Sharfeddin

Mario T. Garcia, Memories of Chicano History : The Life and Narrative of Bert Corona (5)
C. Wright Mills, The New Men of Power: America's Labor Leaders (6)
Kim Moody, An Injury to All: The Decline of American Unionism (11)
Tōson Shimazaki, Before the dawn (14)
Judith M. Brown, Gandhi : prisoner of hope (15)
Kim Moody, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy (20)
Alex De Waal, Famine crimes : politics & the disaster relief industry in Africa (23)
Melvyn Dubofsky, We Shall Be All: A History of the IWW (31)
David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor : The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925 (45)
Ellen Schrecker, Many are the crimes : McCarthyism in America (54)
John Dittmer, Local people : the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi (58)
Robin Blackburn, The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern 1492-1800 (58)
Ward Churchill, The COINTELPRO papers : documents from the FBI's secret wars against dissent in the United States (61)

You will notice an interest in labor history. The only novel is Before the Dawn, an epic tale of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate and the coming of the Meiji period seen from a rural stopping point on the old road from Edo to Kyoto.

*edited for final paragraph and then to clean up touchstones*

>10 usnmm2::

I have all of Daniel V. Gallery's books (haven't finished putting them all in my catalogue, however). All of them worth reading, with the exception of The Brink.

My Favorites are the books that some time during my lifelong reading history I just couldn't get enough of and some have been sub-categorized as Favorites - Childhood and Favorites - Classics. The only books that fall in my Favorites categories that I share with less than 100 people on LT are the books I read by British novelist and journalist Noel Barber:

Tanamera: A Novel of Singapore (74)
A Farewell to France (48)
A Woman of Cairo (34)
The Weeping and the Laughter (26)

I donʻt have particular books marked as favorites, only authors.

Among those, "wildly popular" among the
not-so-popular would be the great George V. Higginsʻs greatest (?), The Diggerʻs Game, which has a whopping score of 59. American poet Gregory Corso (1930-2000) has 43.

On the other hand, Spanish poet Luis Gongora, and Spanish-French playwright Pablo Picasso ( who penned Le Desir Attrape par la Queue) have NO other members (if Iʻm reading the author page right.) (Anyway, wasnʻt that Picasso, better known in some other field than writing?)

I haven't set up "favorites", but my 4-star-or-betters include:

Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart (36) by M. Glenn Taylor
The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked (30) by David Benjamin
Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America (48) by Tina Rosenberg
Led by Faith: Rising From the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide (20) by Immaculee Ilibagiza
A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Sports (51) by Brad Snyder

I just noticed.......they all have such long titles?

So Your Husband's Gone to War by Ethel Gorham.

15: MsMixte

"The Brink" was the book that introduced me to Gallery, who is now one of my favorite authors. But I'll agree his books about the exploits of Boatswains Mate First Class "Fatso" Gioninni are among my favorites. They still make me laugh out load everytime I read them.

I just recently got a copy of his book The Pueblo Incident which is on my short list of TBRs.

It's nice to see there are other Gallery fans' out there.

Spirit of the Rainforest by Mark Andrew Ritchie (43 members)
Through Alien Eyes by Amy Thomson (99 members)
Africa Bible Commentary by Tokunboh Adeyemo (45 members)

Favorites from my library … with originality and widespread appeal … that have been out for years … and that merit more readers:

The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (stories, poems, essays about wellness and illness from NYU’s School of Medicine)

Alex MacLean’s books of aerial photography, eg Designs on the Land (landscapes) and The Playbook (playgrounds, amusement parks)

The Satanic Nurses by J. B. Miller (short parodies of famous writers’ works)

The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes (more book/writer fun)

War in Val d'Orcia by Iris Origo is a really well written memoir of a short time in Italian history during WWII.

Petain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History by Charles Williams is a comprehensive biography of the hero of WWI who became the president of Vichy France.

I currently only have 7 books in My Favourite's collection (it's a work in progress) and all of those are wildly popular. But I have 26 books tagged as Childhood Favourite (another work in progress) and 13 of those are owned by less than a hundred people. I suspect this is more a reflection of the fact that many people do not catalogue the books they read as a child rather than of the book's obscurity.
3 of the 13 are by Canadian children's writer Jean Little so I would say if you're interested in Children's Fiction you should check her books out.
Oh and I have to mention one of my all time favourites A Hundred Million Francs by Paul Berna.

I haven't decided whether and how I will use the "favo(u)rites" collection yet. If I sort my books by rating down and no. of members up, the ones at the top of the list are mostly railway books that are considered to be classics by those in the know, but of very limited appeal to anyone outside the field.

A few things that pop up, that might be of wider appeal:

September Castle — a romance by the eccentric/outrageous English writer Simon Raven. Not for the easily-shocked. (7)

Eleven — a wonderfully creepy short-story collection by Patricia Highsmith (68)

Flaws in the glass — a memoir by the great Aussie writer Patrick White (91)

Sir Walter Scott — John Buchan's very engaging and surprisingly unhagiographic 1930s biography of his great compatriot (24)

Boswell in Holland — what I did in my gap year, 1730s-style. (79)

I haven't put anything in my Favorites yet (just started this thing two days ago :) ) but here's a list of some that I really like that not many others seem to have:

Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (only 12 others!)
Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy

I enjoy Chinese philosophy, especially Confucius.

The Complete Book of Cheese - I like cheese. :)
Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot - Great book about a quadriplegic cartoonist.
A Journey of the Imagination - on the art of James Christensen. Great artwork.

Great idea for a thread! Here's a few -

Candlemoth by R J Ellory. A truly gripping crime story. (42)

Desdemona, If You Had Only Spoken Christine Bruckner (in fact, I'm the only person who has this one!). A set of dialogues that defy description. (1)

The English Harem Anthony McCarten. A lovely novel about love and race in England. (40)

The Gorse Trilogy Patrick Hamilton (It says only 34 of us have his, which I find hard to believe, but maybe that's just in one volume) (34)

Inmost Heart: 800 Years of Women's Letters (92)

The Last Family in England Matt Haig. A must for dog lovers and a rare 'doggy' book that is actually well-written and entertaining. (89)

Little Infamies Panos Karnezis. Absolutely fantastic short stories set in a slightly odd Greek village. (68)

Misogynies Joan Smith. One of the best books ever written on gender issues. (95)

The Penguin Book of 20th C Essays (35)

Personality Andrew O'Hagan. The story of a child prodigy, based in truth. (91)

Primo Levy: Tragedy of an Optimist Myriam Anissimov. Immensely touching biography of a truly great man. (65)

The Rendezvous and Other Stories Daphne du Maurier (83)

Say I'm Sorry to Mother Carol Dix. What it was really like to be a girl growing up in the sixties and seventies. (3)

Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf John Bennett. Immense fun, slightly rude and ultimately touching. (44)

Ten Rillington Place Ludovic Kennedy. A true crime story that set the standard and made a massive contribution to the abolition of the death penalty in the UK. (22)

The Thief of Time John Boyne. An almost perfect novel of love and history from the author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. (67)

Tiny Deaths Robert Shearman. Funny, weird and thought-provoking short stories from one of England's best current sci-fi writers and (she says proudly) an LT author and good friend. (63)

Vanishing Greece Clay Perry. Stunning photos of my favourite place. (4)

The Victorians Jeremy Paxman. The Victorians as seen through the art of the day. (12)

Where Books Fall Open Bascove. Books and art by one of my favourite contemporary artists whose work can also be seen here - http://www.bascove.com/ (58)

(Edited to add numbers)

Not naming any names: about thirty (not counting things like omnibuses and other "doubles"), which is slightly more than a third of my Favourites (not counting non-book entries).

I suppose you'd need to take into account variables like how many Fav.'s you have (and out of how many), whether any of them are rare on LT due to not having been written in or translated into English (or other "big" languages), and perhaps something about fiction vs. nonfiction, before you'd be able to draw any conclusions about relative "taste obscurity".

It would be an interesting use of the Favorites collection. (Yes; if an algorithm was made for that I might just dump my Favourites back into the American spelling collection.)

18: sipthereader - glad to see Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart here, I have a copy on my TBR shelf (actually, one of several shelves)

This was fun to look up. I have 18.

Five are books of poetry by Larry D. Thomas, with 1-4 copies per book on LT.

The other 13 are:
Fiction
Storyteller : Being the Wanderings of Gwernin Kyuarwyd G. R. Grove (39)
Peace Richard Bausch (86)
Possessed by Shadows Donigan Merritt (2 - one's on a wishlist)
The Common Bond Donigan Merritt (22) - an Early Reviewer

Memoir-ish
The Knock at the Door: A Journey Through the Darkness of the Armenian Genocide Margaret Ajemian Ahnert (17)
The Deer Pasture Rick Bass (24)
Running After Antelope Scott Carrier (67)
Love and Exile: An Autobiographical Trilogy Isaac Bashevis Singer (68)

History-ish
Our Parents' Lives: The Americanization of Eastern European Jews Neil M. Cowan (15)
The City of Florence : Historical Vistas and Personal Sightings R.W.B. Lewis (89)
Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Making of Modern China, 1898-1976 Han Suyin (21)
Jedediah Smith and the Opening of the West Dale L. Morgan (52)

Parenting
Child of Mine: Feeding With Love and Good Sense Ellyn Satter (61)

Out of 249 books that have 5 stars (in my library) 69 have been catalogued by fewer than 100 people. I have a large collection of 'Girlsown' stories which accounts for about half of these. Titles that I would recommend are:
Letters from a Fainthearted Feminist and More from Martha and No Bed for Bacon and others by Brahms & Simon. The plot of 'Shakespeare in love' has similarities to this book. Another one that isn't owned by many others is Four-Figure Tables but, useful as it is, I couldn't really recommend it as a Good Read.

>27 Booksloth: Booksloth, at least 41 of us also own the Desdemona book.

>27 Booksloth:, 32

Booksloth, you have Desdemona - If You Had Only Spoken! catalogued as being by Eleanor Bron. Is that a different book than the Christine Brückner version or were you perhaps the innocent victim of some crappy amazon data?

#31 I too have the Fainthearted Feminist books - great stuff!

#32 You're right and that's really weird because I thought I'd checked it several times. I guess I must have been looking at the reviews or something. Oops.

#33 Neither. The book is a collection of monologues by Bruckner but the English translation is by Eleanor Bron. Naturally, that means Bron should be catalogued as the translator and not the author but it's not exactly the world's greatest cock-up. I think Amazon can be forgiven (or me, if it's something I did).

>34 Booksloth: You're right and that's really weird because I thought I'd checked it several times. I guess I must have been looking at the reviews or something. Oops.

Don't worry, no weirdness or misreading on your part. The copy in your catalogue is a singleton. It didn't get combined with the others because of the author difference.

I only have one favorite title that fewer than 100 people have listed in their libraries here - The Seventh Princess, by Nick Sullivan. I loved it when I was younger. Of course, it helps that I share a first name with the heroine. :)

I have a few other faves that fewer than 200 people share:
Stepping On The Cracks - YA, amazing. Makes me cry every time. It's set in WWII.
Lost Laysen - the only other thing Margaret Mitchell has published.
The Last Vampire - I loved this whole series before the vampire craze of today!
Heckedy Peg - classic.

I have a few that are in the 20s, but they are books that were never translated into English, so that would explain that...

In English, I have:

Neil Bartlett - Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall
Yael Hedaya - Accidents
Jack Higgins - A Prayer for the Dying
Etgar Keret - The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God
Hanif Kureishi - My Beautiful Laundrette
Ron Leshem - Beaufort
Edeet Ravel - Ten Thousand Lovers
Helen Zahavi - Dirty Weekend

#37 My Beautiful Launderette came as a surprise (though, when I checked it it does say there are 107 copies, but even so!) I always assume that anything that has been filmed will be a popular book. Then again, having several books myself by Kureishi, it suddenly dawned on me that I don't have that one either. Now, looking at the touchstone, I see it is in the form of a screenplay - is it really not available as a novel? Amazing, the things you learn on this site.

>37 -Eva-:,38
Wow: Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall is the first one listed on this page that I share, apart from my own...

I have the Dutch translation of the My beautiful laundrette screenplay (bound together with Sammy and Rosie get laid), which I bought by accident in a secondhand shop once. The translator was too lazy to translate the title into Dutch as well as the text - very misleading. :-)

Kureishi wrote the screenplay in the early 80s, before he got started as a novelist.

#38

I was surprised too! But, yes, it is a script (I don't think it was ever a novel) and I know a lot of people don't like reading in that format, so it makes sense that the numbers are low.

#39

I love Bartlett! So much so (evidently) that I own not one, but two copies of Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall. :)

Funny tidbit: I actually bought my copy of My beautiful laundrette on a visit to Amsterdam! It's in English, but still...

I haven't actually marked any of my books favorites, but I have 143 that are shared by fewer than 100 people. Here are some favorites:

"Solutions Beginning with A" Lola Haskins - for the beautiful, magical artwork of Maggie Taylor. (1)

Applicant (No. 20) Jesse Reklaw - Absolutely hilarious. An explanation of what this is would take too long, but look it up. (7)

"Jack the Ripper: Light-Hearted Friend" Richard Wallace - Not the most well written book, and his arguments are often really, REALLY reaching. He didn't convince me, but I just love the idea of Lewis Carroll having been Jack the Ripper. (7)

The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense Louis Untermeyer - A childhood favorite that's still in print! Includes fun, grim cautionary tales, great verse by Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, etc., and (at least in my edition) really fantastic illustrations. Just as fun to read now as it was then. (8)

Learning to Love You More Harrell Fletcher & Miranda July - Inspiring. The authors post art assignments on their website, and this is a collection of some of the best responses. (9)

Where the Spirits Dwell: An Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea Tobias Schneebaum - About the author's years living with the Asmat people in New Guinea. Fascinating. (30)

Magnificent Corpses Anneli Rufus - The subtitle is "Searching Through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Claire's Heart, St. Stephen's Hand, and Other Saints' Relics". That says it all. (54)

Sowa's Ark: An Enchanted Bestiary - Funny, surreal art from Michael Sowa. (71)

The 1000 Journals Project Someguy - 1000 blank journals were set loose around the world, filled in by random people, and (usualy) sent back to Someguy who compiled some of the most interesting pages here. (87)

Candy and Me: A Girl's Tale of Life, Love and Sugar Hilary Liftin - The whole time I was reading this memoir I kept saying (often out loud) "Me too! I do that too!" (The two books I've most identified with in my life: The Bell Jar and this. That probably says everything anyone needs to know about me. =) (89)

The Girl on the Fridge Etgar Keret - I'm glad this one is close to hitting 100. I'd love for all of his bizarre short stories to be translated into English. (97)

Great thread idea! The only book listed so far that I have is The McSweeney's Joke Book of Book Jokes, but I've found quite a few I now want to read.

100 is of course a somewhat arbitary number but for me highlights include:

darkworld a non-fiction account of martyn Farr's diving exploits in welsh caves.

on of my favourite cookery reference books herb and spice

Some odd SF - the dark imbalance and drachenfels very different but both great fun in their own way,

and a few more recently released titles that are still aquiring fans on LT

Conspirator ( I can't believe this is less than 100)
Stormed fortress ditto
alliance space

Only two at the moment - Knight's Fee and Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff. There should probably be more - I haven't really worked at this feature, just threw a bunch of titles in after Collections went live.

Mr. Durick #11

You picqued my interest and I mooched Perfect Poison.

#45

Actually, dara85, that was myself (message 9) that mentioned Perfect Poison. Mr. Durick just helped get the link there. Your link does the same thing mine did when I put a link in message 9, it goes to Amanda Quick's ficticous book, "The Perfect Poison". I still to this day don't know how to change a link to go to a different book than the default. I just started another of Phelps' books, "Every Move You Make" (17 with a copy of this one), which again, if I put it in brackets, it leads to a different book with the same title.

You'll love Perfect Poison. More people should read his stuff.

46, that explains it. I wondered why I had posted that and couldn't make full sense out of 45 without understanding it. I meant to be helpful and in the meantime forgot that I had.

Robert

Have you ever read Jan de Haartog? He wrote wonderfully about ships.

Does reference non-fiction count?

Becoming Vegetarian
Curses, Inc. (this one is at 99 members!)
Take Ten: New Ten Minute Plays