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Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I: Childhood, Through a Glass Darkly -- 1 A Girl of the Limberlost (Gene Stratton- Porter) -- 2 The Young Visiters (Daisy Ashford) -- 3 The Diary of “Helena Morley” (Elizabeth Bishop, trans.) -- 4 Brown Girl, Brownstones (Paule Marshall: In Memoriam) -- 5 An American Childhood (Annie Dillard) -- 6 The Last Samurai (Helen DeWitt) -- Part II: Other Worlds -- 7 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight -- 8 The House on the Borderland (William Hope Hodgson) -- 9 Lolly Willowes (Sylvia Townsend Warner) -- 10 Mythology (Edith Hamilton) -- 11 Other Leopards (Denis Williams) -- 12 Solaris (Stanislaw Lem) -- 13 Riddley Walker (Russell Hoban) -- Part III: Comedy -- 14 The Beggar’s Opera ( John Gay) -- 15 Lady Into Fox (David Garnett) -- 16 Prater Violet (Christopher Isherwood) -- 17 “Rogue’s Gallery” (Mary McCarthy) -- 18 Gringos (Charles Portis) -- Part IV: Battle and Strife -- 19 The Road to Calvary (Alexei Tolstoy) -- 20 The Forbidden Zone (Mary Borden) -- 21 Nikola the Outlaw (Ivan Olbracht) -- 22 The House of Hunger (Dambudzo Marechera) -- 23 The Short- Timers (Gustav Hasford) -- 24 A Flag for Sunrise (Robert Stone) -- 25 The Vehement Passions (Philip Fisher) -- Part V: Home Fires -- 26 Annals of the Parish ( John Galt) -- 27 The Dry Heart (Natalia Ginzburg) -- 28 Life Among the Savages; Raising Demons (Shirley Jackson) -- 29 My Uncle Napoleon (Iraj Pezeshkzad) -- 30 We Think the World of You ( J. R. Ackerley) -- 31 All Aunt Hagar’s Children (Edward P. Jones) -- Part VI: Mysteries and Trials -- 32 The Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford -- 33 The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers) -- 34 Stamboul Train (Graham Greene) -- 35 The Hours Before Dawn (Celia Fremlin) -- Part VII: Journeys of the Spirit -- 36 A Life of One’s Own (Marion Milner) -- 37 Butcher’s Crossing ( John Williams) -- 38 Journey in Search of the Way (Satomi Myōdō) -- 39 I Remember (Joe Brainard) -- 40 Transformatrix (Patience Agbabi) -- Contributors There are the acknowledged classics of world literature: the canonical works assigned in schools, topping every must-read list . . . and then there are the B-Sides. These are the books that slipped through the cracks, went unread, missed their rightful appointment with posterity. They were ahead of their times or behind their times or on a whole different schedule than the rest of the universe.What do you do when a book that you love has been neglected or dismissed by everyone else? In B-Side Books, leading writers, critics, and scholars show why their favorite forgotten books deserve a new audience. From dusty westerns and far-out science fiction to obscure Czech novelists and romance-novel precursors, the contributors advocate for the unsung virtues of overlooked books. They write about unheralded novels, poetry collections, memoirs, and more with understanding, respect, passion, and love.In these thoughtful, often personal essays, contributors—including Stephanie Burt, Caleb Crain, Merve Emre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carlo Rotella, and Namwali Serpell—read books by writers such as Helen DeWitt, Shirley Jackson, Stanislaw Lem, Dambudzo Marechera, Paule Marshall, and Charles Portis
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