Written by Remember that off-the-beaten-path, Mom and Pop restaurant that a friend of a friend told you about? Chances are it was the best meal of your life.
In support of life’s little known treasures, Fang Duff Kahn Publishers created the newest addition of their City Secrets series, Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide, a book to help you find those unsung books you might otherwise never discover.
Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide features book 
recommendations from an all-star lineup of authors, editors, and humorists, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Oscar Hijuelos and Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter. These fabulous in-the-know contributors present to you a list of underappreciated books from every genre imaginable: fiction, memoirs, and yes, even crime—writing. No more book store bumbling! No more bestseller boredom! A whole world of literary magic awaits you…
And now . . . (drumroll, please) . . . the best part! For every copy of Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide sold, Fang Duff Kahn will donate 2% of the purchase price to First Book, and help put a book directly in the hands of a child in need.
Okay, so I just might have drumrolled too early, because I forgot to mention the other best part: our Books for Books Blog Contest! By participating in our blog contest, you can help get even more books to kids and inspire little readers everywhere. Here’s how it works:
- Respond to this blog post between November 12th and December 1st by answering “What is your favorite overlooked book?”
- Then, link this blog to Twitter, Facebook, send it over listservs, tell your friends (and maybe even your enemies too) because . . . if we can reach 250 comments, then Fang Duff Kahn Publishers will donate 500 BOOKS, to the kids that need them most.
- Still not convinced? The person who posts the most overlooked book will win their very own copy of Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide. On December 1st we will announce the lucky winner right here on the First Book Blog.
“But,” you say, “I don’t have a favorite almost forgotten, underappreciated book!” Well, that’s okay (although if that is true you should highly consider buying Books: The Essential Insider’s Guide)! You can feel free to talk about your favorite, better known book as well.
So don’t even think about clicking that back button on your browser! Help children in need experience the magic of their very first book!
Dinotopia by James Gurney
The kissing hand by audrey penn
Green Eggs and Ham was one of my favorites!
Wally Lamb is one of my favorites
The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, The Play of the Eyes
Anything by Eric Carle!!!
three cups of tea
LIGHTS OUT IN THE REPTILE HOUSE by Jim Shepard
Reading Lolita in Tehran
gregory the terrible eater!
I am Charlotte Simons by Tom Wolfe
The Great Gatsby
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck
Eleanor Perenyi (about whose book “Green Thoughts” I wrote in “Books”) has a fabulous memoir about her life in Hungary before World War II: “More Was Lost.” A masterpiece of the genre.
My ultimate favorite book is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen!!
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept, by Elizabeth Smart
House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Giving Tree was my favorite by far!!!
The Giving Tree was my favorite by far!!!!
The Leopard by Guisseppe de Lampadusa
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg
- The Napping House by Don & Audrey Wood
- 17 Kings and 42 Elephants by Margaret Mahy
The Way of All Flesh, Samuel Butler. (Despite the title, it is, in fact, safe for work.)
Oooh, just missed the cutoff!
Ulysses by James Joyce is bizarre, yet wonderful
Yes Man – Danny Wallace
I don’t care if I missed the cutoff!
The Gift of Fear – Gaven DeBecker
The forgotten Island by Sasha Troyan
Save Me the Waltz, by Zelda Fitzgerald, in my opinion demonstrates a narrative brillance that could have taught Scott a thing or two about writing novels, had he been paying attention, which he apparently wasn’t.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne.
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Summer Sisters by Judy Blume
An oldie-but-goodie: The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. The illustrated edition by Linda Griffith published by Chariot Books is particular beautiful.
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein – My parents had planted a tree when I was born and I always imagined the book was about my tree. Great book!
Empire of Women, by Karen Shepard
When Madeline was Young by Jane Hamilton.
one of her best,
Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne (loved it as a child, my daughter loves it now)
John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.