In January of this year, I was at the very very beginning of getting back into reading and I picked up Secret History. It had been on my shelf for years and I had gotten it out of a neighborhood free library/exchange. Having not been in bookish communities much, I’d never heard of it–I just liked the blurb on the back. I was blown away and when I was telling my friend, an avid reader and lit major, about it, she told me about how it was very well-known as a really good book lol. Now that I’ve built out my own reading habits and book-loving community, I hear about it so often and it makes me chuckle every time.
Have you ever had an experience like this? Picked up a book blind or without knowing much about it, and then found out that it was really popular or loved?
It was Never Let Me Go when it first came out. I was randomly buying titles off a blog post. Didn’t even know who Kazuo Ishiguro was, but now he’s my all-time favourite.
All the time. I usually shop by “similar books” and stash them for later reading. When I finally read it, I’ve usually forgotten what it was supposed to be about and am always pleasantly surprised when it’s super great. And even more surprised when I check other reviews after I’ve read it 💖
Snow Crash
Ran out of books on a deployment. Buddy let me borrow it. Loved it. Had ZERO clue how popular it actually is.
I was rushing to get something to read on the train in Wales in 1987 and grabbed something called The Sanctuary Sparrow. Sure, sounds good. It was one of the Brother Cadfael books! I was happy to find that it was part of a series and that there was a BBC series too. They weren’t as well known in America so I had a hard time finding them for a few years until the BBC series made it to PBS.
Les Misérables. I read it in 7th grade and I picked it because I read the back and thought Jean Valjean was a really funny name.
I was in middle school and checked out a book based on its cool cover art of a spaceship, I very much enjoyed Enders Game.
Little elderly librarian picked out The Fault in Our Stars for me when I was 14. I had no idea who John Green was or how huge it would be!
Picked up the first Harry Potter in the library before I heard the hype.
I did the same thing with Twilight. It blew up about a year after I started getting into it but was already quite popular, I just had no idea. I just picked it up while browsing the young adult section.