For Independent Bookstore Day on April 24th, I wanted to celebrate lesser known books that many people have never heard of!
Okay, let’s be honest, if you’re a book lover, you’ve probably heard of some of these books. But hopefully in this list of the 50 Best Books You’ve Never Heard Of, there will at least be some that are new to you. Or perhaps there’ll be some books you’ve heard of, but didn’t realize that you should give another glance to.
My purpose in making this list is that I know this blog tends to focus on big, flashy bestsellers, but I wanted to give some attention to lesser known books as well. I guess I probably should have called this “books more people should read” or something like that. Maybe I’ll retitle it, but anyway.
Mostly, I had a hard time finding a list like this, so I figured I needed to compile it myself. A lot of lists I saw were comprised of a ton of classics, which isn’t quite what I was looking for. Others had books that were a bit too obscure that were focused on very niche audiences.
For this list, I focused on great contemporary books that have less than 50K-ish ratings on Goodreads (as of April 2021), with a handful that don’t quite fit that criteria, but which I wanted to recommend anyway. In general, too, I also tried to stick to authors that don’t have another book that’s a huge bestseller to help introduce people to more books and more authors. I was looking for books that were lesser known but intended for a fairly general audience.
To really find books that people love but others haven’t heard of, I cast a wide net for these titles. While most of the books are general fiction, there’s a couple young adult titles, a touch of sci-fi/fantasy, etc. If you have a suggestion for this list, feel free to drop it in the comments!
84, Charing Cross Road is one of my favourites! Loved this post, some lovely book recommendations and I love that it was in support of Independent Bookstore Day :)
I have never heard of most of these but will be putting some on my TBR list. Plainsong is one of my all-time favorite books, and I loved I, Claudius. If the rest of these are that good, I will be very excited. Thanks for the post.
What an awesome list you’ve compiled – thank you! Shades of Grey sounds right up my alley and I have been looking for a cool new “lesser known” science fiction book after finishing one recently. I thought I would share it with you and your readers because I definitely had not heard of it but now I love the author and the series and I even pushed it for my book club to check out. It’s called “Time Plague” by author Kim Megahee, the most recent book in the Marc McKnight Time Travel Adventure series. This is 100% a book that can be read on it’s own but I love a series because it doesn’t feel as final when I finish one of the books (lol). A team of operatives follow the President’s orders in 2036 to kidnap an extremist billionaire (but to kidnap him in the past to avoid current issues) and although the kidnapping is a success it starts a course of events that eventually lead to a world-wide plague. The team must figure out how to stop the plague and a political revolution from happening all while avoiding a KILLER (super cool but also super lethal) female operative. I could not put this book down. It was really unique and a lot of fun to read. I hope you will give it a shot – and if you do – I would love to hear your feedback!
Question 1: Who needs a list of “books you’ve never heard of” that includes a “Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller and Booker Prize Longlisted novel” and other books that are equally “unheard of”? Question 2: How do publishers reimburse you for this advertising masquerading as help for readers? Question 3: Why should I read another Bibiophile.com article after this?
1) people forget about books that briefly appear in top ten lists all the time, I think I explained in the into that these aren’t entirely “unheard of” books, but rather great books that a lot of people haven’t taken the time to read. I explain my criteria for inclusion at the top of the list.
2) I’ve done 2-3 sponsored posts in the past, if something is sponsored it’s very clearly labeled in the post
3) Thanks for checking it out, sorry it didn’t work out for you
Thanks for this list. I may read a few of these books. I would also like to recommend two books from an author that I know. I’m not recommending them because I know him, but rather because I loved both of his books. I had wished that the second one had kept going because I loved it so much. A third book was started but not finished because there were not enough sales for the other two simply because the author is not known. The author is Doug Menning and the first book was Exit Strategy. The second book, which is a sequel but does not require reading the first book, is Natural Forces. If you would like to read them, I could contact Doug to get you copies. Once again, I would not recommend them if I didn’t think that they were great.
Cindy
84, Charing Cross Road is one of my favourites! Loved this post, some lovely book recommendations and I love that it was in support of Independent Bookstore Day :)
So glad to hear it! :) Thanks for dropping by!
I have never heard of most of these but will be putting some on my TBR list. Plainsong is one of my all-time favorite books, and I loved I, Claudius. If the rest of these are that good, I will be very excited. Thanks for the post.
Oh awesome and great to hear from you, Rosi!
I’ve only read three of these but now you have given me great ideas of books to add to my TBR!
What an awesome list you’ve compiled – thank you! Shades of Grey sounds right up my alley and I have been looking for a cool new “lesser known” science fiction book after finishing one recently. I thought I would share it with you and your readers because I definitely had not heard of it but now I love the author and the series and I even pushed it for my book club to check out. It’s called “Time Plague” by author Kim Megahee, the most recent book in the Marc McKnight Time Travel Adventure series. This is 100% a book that can be read on it’s own but I love a series because it doesn’t feel as final when I finish one of the books (lol). A team of operatives follow the President’s orders in 2036 to kidnap an extremist billionaire (but to kidnap him in the past to avoid current issues) and although the kidnapping is a success it starts a course of events that eventually lead to a world-wide plague. The team must figure out how to stop the plague and a political revolution from happening all while avoiding a KILLER (super cool but also super lethal) female operative. I could not put this book down. It was really unique and a lot of fun to read. I hope you will give it a shot – and if you do – I would love to hear your feedback!
Question 1: Who needs a list of “books you’ve never heard of” that includes a “Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller and Booker Prize Longlisted novel” and other books that are equally “unheard of”? Question 2: How do publishers reimburse you for this advertising masquerading as help for readers? Question 3: Why should I read another Bibiophile.com article after this?
1) people forget about books that briefly appear in top ten lists all the time, I think I explained in the into that these aren’t entirely “unheard of” books, but rather great books that a lot of people haven’t taken the time to read. I explain my criteria for inclusion at the top of the list.
2) I’ve done 2-3 sponsored posts in the past, if something is sponsored it’s very clearly labeled in the post
3) Thanks for checking it out, sorry it didn’t work out for you
Thanks for this list. I may read a few of these books. I would also like to recommend two books from an author that I know. I’m not recommending them because I know him, but rather because I loved both of his books. I had wished that the second one had kept going because I loved it so much. A third book was started but not finished because there were not enough sales for the other two simply because the author is not known. The author is Doug Menning and the first book was Exit Strategy. The second book, which is a sequel but does not require reading the first book, is Natural Forces. If you would like to read them, I could contact Doug to get you copies. Once again, I would not recommend them if I didn’t think that they were great.
Cindy