Stoner by John Williams was published in 1965, was barely reviewed, fell out of print, and was rediscovered forty years later when a French publisher brought it to a new readership. The story of its non-reception and belated recognition is almost as interesting as the novel itself, because it prompts the question: what kind of book is so good that nobody notices?

The novel is about an unremarkable man who teaches literature at a midwestern university for forty years. He has a bad marriage, a thwarted love affair, a conflict with a vindictive colleague, and a daughter he fails to connect with. Nothing spectacular happens. What Williams does is render this ordinary life with a completeness and precision that makes it feel universal.

Stoner is the most honest account I've read of the experience of being a person who loves something — in this case, literature — and never quite knows what to do with that love.