Top 5 Wednesday: Favourite Underrated Books

Another Wednesday, another Top 5! 🙂 I found out about Top 5 Wednesday on Goodreads, so click HERE if you want to join the fun!

This time, we were supposed to pick some underrated books –  books that aren’t as widely talked about. Now, I’m not sure if the books I picked fall into that category, but I think they do. Also, I think there are some underrated books mentioned in My Top 10 Books of 2016 post, for example Alice, but I decided not to mention it again.

Let’s begin!

1. Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

A Victorian drama meets dragons. And not in a way you’d expect. All the characters are dragons! But they act like people, they have the aristocrats and the poor, they ride in carriages but sleep on their pile of treasure. XD This book is so fun, and I recommend it to everyone who can look past a little bit of silliness.

2. The Unusual Possession of Alastair Stubb

This book is crazy, but in a good way. I loved the strange atmosphere, dark family secrets, and deranged characters. It’s creepy, but not too much. And it’s very, very fun.

3. The Last Man by Mary Shelley

People know Mary Shelley as the writer of Frankenstein, and forget that she wrote some other books, too. Though I liked Frankenstein more, The Last Man is also very interesting, mostly because Shelley used the people she knew (Pery Shelley and Lord Byron) to create her characters. She took some of their ideas and put them in a pre-apocalyptic world. As everything falls apart in the novel, we can also perceive some of Mary Shelley’s feelings once she was left alone, the last of the Romantics. I wrote a post about this book quite some time ago, so CLICK HERE if you’re interested.

4. Evelina by Frances (Fanny) Bourney

This epistolary novel from the 18th century has a lot in common with the works of Jane Austen, but since it was written before it deals with a different society with different manners. Now, I’m not a big fan of Austen (sorry!) but I really did enjoy this novel.

5. The druid books by Ellen Evert Hopman

I don’t think this trilogy has a name, probably because each book has its own story (the third one could almost be read on its own but it would be better to start from the beginning). If you’re interested in the life of the Celts, you just have to read these! Besides enjoying the stories, I also learned a lot.

Aaaand, an honourable mention: The Vampyre by John William Polidori. The first aristocratic vampire tale, before Dracula and even before Carmilla. If you are a vampire afficionado (as I am) this is a must-read. This is where it all started! Not the best book ever, but still. 😉

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

In Familiar Attire

People fear the unknown. They fear what they don’t understand. Unless it appears in nice attire.

I’ve seen them many times riding horses, ordering the dogs around, and hunting unarmed prey with their guns. That’s all they have against the nature, their guns and houses, dividing them from what they truly are. People are weak -their teeth are blunt, their skin bare. They cannot kill their prey with their hands nor can they survive the winter without their clothes to protect them.

But people can be smart. They are aware of their weaknesses and they think of ways to erase them. It makes them feel superior, not only to other animals but to nature as a whole. It the end, their biggest strength will make them weak. It is never wise to feel too safe.

I see a man on a horse, and a young woman riding behind him, his daughter. Confident they seem. He was not as confident that time when I showed up in front of his horse, only for a glimpse. The horse saw me, but the man couldn’t, blinded by his conceit. The horse decided to run away, as any wise animal would. The man couldn’t control him anymore. He pulled the reins but it only made the horse wilder. The man was lucky. He fell right away and the horse galloped away into the forest. The man broke his arm, but that was better than being trampled with steely hooves.

He feels safe again. He even lets his daughter ride. It was just an accident, and those don’t happen often. People trust horses. Animals are not as treacherous as they are.

So I appear to them as a horse. I am beautiful, white, with silky mane. I come out of the chilly, fresh river and offer them a ride. They are bewitched by me and the nature which is now more and more escaping their reach. They trust me. I carry them to the water and they feel happy. Then I drag them down, and they realize the mistake they have made, but they realize it far too late.

People trust a lovely horse. They think they possess it and that it exists just to serve them. They feel that the nature belongs to them. They are the ones who have the right to swim in lakes, eat their fish, and rest among the green trees. They fought for it with their intellect. But they are still weak.

People trust their possessions and believe they know all about them. They fear the unknown. They fear what they can’t understand. But the unknown sometimes appears in beautiful, familiar attire.

The Kelpies*, a sculpture in Scotland http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10478591/The-Kelpies-two-horse-head-sculptures-unveiled-in-Scotland.html

*A kelpie is a water spirit from Scottish mythology, though similar creatures exists elsewhere as well.