Neglected Books
@neglectedbooks.com
Brad Bigelow, Missoula, MT
bradbigelow.com
Author, Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts
Editor, Recovered Books series @ Boiler House Press:
www.boilerhouse.press/recovered-books
Editor, neglectedbooks.com. Champion of reading off the beaten path.
bradbigelow.com
Author, Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts
Editor, Recovered Books series @ Boiler House Press:
www.boilerhouse.press/recovered-books
Editor, neglectedbooks.com. Champion of reading off the beaten path.
"He sings through his nose!" My mother hated country star Ernest Tubb, BOTD in 1914, so of course my first country album was Ernest Tubb's Greatest Hits. I was lucky enough to see him perform in Gulfport, MS in 1981, shortly before emphysema took him off the road for good after a six-decade career.🧵
The T.B. is Whipping Me ~ Ernest Tubb with Guitar (1937)
YouTube video by Hankfan Hankfan
www.youtube.com
February 9, 2026 at 3:21 PM
"He sings through his nose!" My mother hated country star Ernest Tubb, BOTD in 1914, so of course my first country album was Ernest Tubb's Greatest Hits. I was lucky enough to see him perform in Gulfport, MS in 1981, shortly before emphysema took him off the road for good after a six-decade career.🧵
Poet Hayden Carruth's one novel, Appendix A (1963), is a good example of an artistic failure that proves as interesting as many other better books, an awkward collage with moments of inspired writing — especially about life in Chicago 60+ years ago.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 9, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Poet Hayden Carruth's one novel, Appendix A (1963), is a good example of an artistic failure that proves as interesting as many other better books, an awkward collage with moments of inspired writing — especially about life in Chicago 60+ years ago.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
On Thursday, February 19th, I'll be speaking as part of the National Willa Cather Center's Virtual Author series. Register free to join the discussion at the link.
Virtual Author Series: Brad Bigelow | National Willa Cather Center - Red Cloud, NE
Delve into the life and work of an important Willa Cather scholar with the return of our virtual author series! Brad Bigelow will share passages from his new book, Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Act...
www.willacather.org
February 8, 2026 at 4:05 PM
On Thursday, February 19th, I'll be speaking as part of the National Willa Cather Center's Virtual Author series. Register free to join the discussion at the link.
Tillie Olsen's 1978 book, Silences, was a pioneering study of the obstacles that kept many women writers from the readers and critical attention they deserved. Back in 2015, I looked at some of the still-neglected books included in Olsen's reading lists in Silences.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 8, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Tillie Olsen's 1978 book, Silences, was a pioneering study of the obstacles that kept many women writers from the readers and critical attention they deserved. Back in 2015, I looked at some of the still-neglected books included in Olsen's reading lists in Silences.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
John V. A. Weaver's second novel, Joy-Girl (1932), tries to be a satire of Hollywood and its star-making machine, but it fails due to numerous construction problems, too many pages of Su'thun dah-uh-lect dah-uh-log being just one.
Promising but forgettable. I want my time back.
Promising but forgettable. I want my time back.
February 7, 2026 at 4:06 PM
John V. A. Weaver's second novel, Joy-Girl (1932), tries to be a satire of Hollywood and its star-making machine, but it fails due to numerous construction problems, too many pages of Su'thun dah-uh-lect dah-uh-log being just one.
Promising but forgettable. I want my time back.
Promising but forgettable. I want my time back.
In the mid-1950s, Angus Wilson called P. B. (Patricia Barnes) Abercrombie “the most interesting of our young women novelists," but when I looked at one of her early novels, Fido Couchant, back in 2018, her work had become utterly forgotten in the decades since her death.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM
In the mid-1950s, Angus Wilson called P. B. (Patricia Barnes) Abercrombie “the most interesting of our young women novelists," but when I looked at one of her early novels, Fido Couchant, back in 2018, her work had become utterly forgotten in the decades since her death.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Reposted by Neglected Books
Virginia Faulkner: Writer, Editor and... Ghostwriter?
Read an excerpt from VIRGINIA FAULKNER by Brad Bigelow (@neglectedbooks.com) in @literaryhub.bsky.social: bit.ly/3NTLHi4
Read an excerpt from VIRGINIA FAULKNER by Brad Bigelow (@neglectedbooks.com) in @literaryhub.bsky.social: bit.ly/3NTLHi4
February 6, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Virginia Faulkner: Writer, Editor and... Ghostwriter?
Read an excerpt from VIRGINIA FAULKNER by Brad Bigelow (@neglectedbooks.com) in @literaryhub.bsky.social: bit.ly/3NTLHi4
Read an excerpt from VIRGINIA FAULKNER by Brad Bigelow (@neglectedbooks.com) in @literaryhub.bsky.social: bit.ly/3NTLHi4
Two Under the Indian Sun (1966) is an atmospheric memoir of growing up in the Indian Raj by sisters and novelists Jon and Rumer Godden.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 6, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Two Under the Indian Sun (1966) is an atmospheric memoir of growing up in the Indian Raj by sisters and novelists Jon and Rumer Godden.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Last year on this date, I looked at The Goldfish Bowl (1932), an examination of the fame industry by Mary C. McCall Jr., who went on to become one of Hollywood's most influential screenwriters.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 5, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Last year on this date, I looked at The Goldfish Bowl (1932), an examination of the fame industry by Mary C. McCall Jr., who went on to become one of Hollywood's most influential screenwriters.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
I had the pleasure of talking about the process of writing Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts with Kirk McElhearn for Scrivener's Write Now podcast. Scrivener was invaluable through the many months when the manuscript was just a collection of fragments.
www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/write-n...
www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/write-n...
Write Now with Scrivener, Episode no. 59: Brad Bigelow, Biographer - Literature & Latte
www.literatureandlatte.com
February 4, 2026 at 3:23 PM
I had the pleasure of talking about the process of writing Virginia Faulkner: A Life in Two Acts with Kirk McElhearn for Scrivener's Write Now podcast. Scrivener was invaluable through the many months when the manuscript was just a collection of fragments.
www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/write-n...
www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/write-n...
Back in 2022, novelist Cliff Burns wrote about The Poppy Factory (1989), William Fairchild's evocative and compelling novel about combat in the trenches of the Western Front in World War One.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 4, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Back in 2022, novelist Cliff Burns wrote about The Poppy Factory (1989), William Fairchild's evocative and compelling novel about combat in the trenches of the Western Front in World War One.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Heads, Bodies and Legs (1946) was an early mix-up child's book created by Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping. The two artists, who lived together for over 70 years, entered a civil partnership a few years before Chopping's death in 2008.
February 3, 2026 at 9:00 PM
Heads, Bodies and Legs (1946) was an early mix-up child's book created by Denis Wirth-Miller and Richard Chopping. The two artists, who lived together for over 70 years, entered a civil partnership a few years before Chopping's death in 2008.
Reposted by Neglected Books
Just read this tremendous novella, which is so intense that it demands to be read in one gulp. Out next month.
Our first Recovered Book from @bhousepress.bsky.social to be mentioned in Kirkus Reviews gets a starred review! Vengeance is Mine by Friedrich Torberg was written in exile in 1943. One of the earliest examples of Holocaust fiction, it's never before been translated.
VENGEANCE IS MINE | Kirkus Reviews
This 1943 novella by the Austrian Jewish writer Torberg—published before the horrors of the Nazi death camps were widely known—describes a brutal showdown between a Jewish prisoner and the German SS officer who calmly tells him he is about to die.
www.kirkusreviews.com
February 3, 2026 at 6:17 PM
Just read this tremendous novella, which is so intense that it demands to be read in one gulp. Out next month.
The Fly, by Richard Chopping (1965). The first few chapters of this novel by a designer famed for his covers of Ian Fleming's original James Bond books are intense with exultant disgust. At length, sadly, disgust turns into tedium.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 3, 2026 at 2:00 PM
The Fly, by Richard Chopping (1965). The first few chapters of this novel by a designer famed for his covers of Ian Fleming's original James Bond books are intense with exultant disgust. At length, sadly, disgust turns into tedium.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Reposted by Neglected Books
A new edition of Pilgrimage is now available in the United States asterismbooks.com/product/pilg.... This edition, is based on the first editions of the chapter-volumes. @neglectedbooks.com
Pilgrimage | Asterism Books
The first U.S. edition in 50 years of Dorothy Richardson's challenging, insightful modernist classic, **Pilgrimage**. First published in 13 separate
asterismbooks.com
February 3, 2026 at 1:06 PM
A new edition of Pilgrimage is now available in the United States asterismbooks.com/product/pilg.... This edition, is based on the first editions of the chapter-volumes. @neglectedbooks.com
Joan Butler was the penname of Irish novelist Robert William Alexander, whose comic novels gave those of P. G. Wodehouse a run for the money for over 30 years. Now, they're probably as much sought after for their dust jackets as for what's between the covers.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 2, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Joan Butler was the penname of Irish novelist Robert William Alexander, whose comic novels gave those of P. G. Wodehouse a run for the money for over 30 years. Now, they're probably as much sought after for their dust jackets as for what's between the covers.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
Once in a while, you luck across a book where something as simple and unique as the narrator’s voice hooks you from the start. This was my experience with Josephine Carson’s 1957 novel, Drives My Green Age, about an orphan girl growing up in 1930s Kansas.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
February 1, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Once in a while, you luck across a book where something as simple and unique as the narrator’s voice hooks you from the start. This was my experience with Josephine Carson’s 1957 novel, Drives My Green Age, about an orphan girl growing up in 1930s Kansas.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
The cover of our Recovered Books/@bhousepress.bsky.social edition of Jane White's 1967 novel, Quarry, was drawn by White's son Martin Brady and does a wonderful job of conveying the ominous violence lurking in this tale of three bored teenagers who decide to kidnap a young boy.
January 31, 2026 at 9:00 PM
The cover of our Recovered Books/@bhousepress.bsky.social edition of Jane White's 1967 novel, Quarry, was drawn by White's son Martin Brady and does a wonderful job of conveying the ominous violence lurking in this tale of three bored teenagers who decide to kidnap a young boy.
A fun review of Constance Tomkinson's memoir of life as a chorus girl in 1930s Europe, Les Girls, recently reissued by @slightlyfoxed.bsky.social.
Book review: Les Girls by Constance Tomkinson
A chorus girl's hugely entertaining odyssey around Europe shortly before World War II
open.substack.com
January 31, 2026 at 4:53 PM
A fun review of Constance Tomkinson's memoir of life as a chorus girl in 1930s Europe, Les Girls, recently reissued by @slightlyfoxed.bsky.social.
Joan Jukes's “On the Floor," the interior monologue of a disabled young woman who falls and can't get up, was selected as one of the best British short stories of the 1930s. And then it and she disappeared. You can find a PDF of this fascinating story at the link below:
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
January 31, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Joan Jukes's “On the Floor," the interior monologue of a disabled young woman who falls and can't get up, was selected as one of the best British short stories of the 1930s. And then it and she disappeared. You can find a PDF of this fascinating story at the link below:
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
- Calculus of Variations
- Number Theory
- Differential Geometry
- Quantum Physics
- Remote Sensing from Space
... from all of which I know remember essentially nothing now. But they kept me in a scholarship.
- Number Theory
- Differential Geometry
- Quantum Physics
- Remote Sensing from Space
... from all of which I know remember essentially nothing now. But they kept me in a scholarship.
- Intro to Biology
- Narrative Theory
- Southern Politics in State and Nation
- Rome, the Eternal City
- Medieval Gossip
- Narrative Theory
- Southern Politics in State and Nation
- Rome, the Eternal City
- Medieval Gossip
tell me five classes you took in college:
Meteorology
Indian Wars and Treaties (got to write a research paper on the treaty between the Cherokee Nation and the CSA)
History of Pirates
The Vietnam War
International Institutions
Meteorology
Indian Wars and Treaties (got to write a research paper on the treaty between the Cherokee Nation and the CSA)
History of Pirates
The Vietnam War
International Institutions
January 31, 2026 at 2:38 AM
- Calculus of Variations
- Number Theory
- Differential Geometry
- Quantum Physics
- Remote Sensing from Space
... from all of which I know remember essentially nothing now. But they kept me in a scholarship.
- Number Theory
- Differential Geometry
- Quantum Physics
- Remote Sensing from Space
... from all of which I know remember essentially nothing now. But they kept me in a scholarship.
"I like this book uncommonly well," wrote publisher Alfred A. Knopf in a rare ad whose copy he wrote himself. It was for Peter de Polnay's debut novel, Angry Man's Tale (1939). A Hungarian Jew who transformed himself into an English gentleman, De Polnay wrote over 80 books.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
January 30, 2026 at 2:00 PM
"I like this book uncommonly well," wrote publisher Alfred A. Knopf in a rare ad whose copy he wrote himself. It was for Peter de Polnay's debut novel, Angry Man's Tale (1939). A Hungarian Jew who transformed himself into an English gentleman, De Polnay wrote over 80 books.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
neglectedbooks.com/?...
For connoisseurs of the Internet Archive, an image that gets the heart racing.
January 29, 2026 at 9:00 PM
For connoisseurs of the Internet Archive, an image that gets the heart racing.
Somehow I don't think "Bend Down, Sister" was really meant as an ode to the benefits of dieting. An early but trademark example of Busby Berkeley's choreography, from Palmy Days (1931), with Charlotte Greenwood as the Amazon.
January 29, 2026 at 7:01 PM
Somehow I don't think "Bend Down, Sister" was really meant as an ode to the benefits of dieting. An early but trademark example of Busby Berkeley's choreography, from Palmy Days (1931), with Charlotte Greenwood as the Amazon.
Many thanks to editor Tim Schaffert for including "The Dream Bien Meublé," my account of Virginia Faulkner's awkward attempt to psychoanalyze Willa Cather through what we'd today call close reading, in the latest issue of Prairie Schooner.
prairieschooner.unl.edu/issue/winter...
prairieschooner.unl.edu/issue/winter...
Winter 2025 - Prairie Schooner
TABLE OF CONTENTS Essays The Long Short Story (preface)Kasey Peters The Dream Bien Meublé: Virginia Faulkner, PsychobiographerBrad Bigelow Fiction 3 White
prairieschooner.unl.edu
January 29, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Many thanks to editor Tim Schaffert for including "The Dream Bien Meublé," my account of Virginia Faulkner's awkward attempt to psychoanalyze Willa Cather through what we'd today call close reading, in the latest issue of Prairie Schooner.
prairieschooner.unl.edu/issue/winter...
prairieschooner.unl.edu/issue/winter...