10 Most Criminally Underrated Books

''Marbles'' by Ellen Forney, ''Letters to Felice'' by Franz Kafka, more rewarding reads
By EW Staff
March 14, 2014 at 04:00 AM EDT

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Letters to Felice, Franz Kafka

Kafka was a total stalker. His missives here are riveting and inadvertently hilarious.

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Happy All the Time, Laurie Colwin

In this Manhattan comedy of manners, Colwin wrings magic from ordinary lives.

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The Patrick Melrose Novels, Edward St. Aubyn

Sharply serrated portraits of dysfunction in an aristocratic British family so depraved, they make the Lannisters look like the Brady Bunch.

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Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald

An off-the-charts brilliant book that deconstructs the Beatles song by song.

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Catherwood, Marly Youmans

A heart-stopping novel about a mother lost in the woods with her 1-year-old. It’s insanity that no one’s made a movie out of this.

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Actual Air, David Berman

He’s an indie musician — frontman for the Silver Jews — and an indie poet, too, with offbeat verse that snaps and sparks with life.

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Pobby and Dingan, Ben Rice

A seriously moving novel about an Australian girl who can’t find her imaginary friends.

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Winner of the National Book Award, Jincy Willett

All of Willett’s novels are sardonic and bitingly funny, but this one — about twin sisters, relationships, and books — is the best.

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The Interrogative Mood, Padgett Powell

Why is every sentence in this odd little book a question? And how did Powell make it a genuinely great read?

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Marbles, Ellen Forney

This graphic memoir — a chronicle of Forney’s bipolar disorder — vividly explores the line between creativity and mental illness.

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