Friday, February 24, 2017

The Books of 1972




Recently on Facebook, there was some discussion about the number of books I seemed to have read down the years.    I explained that a lot of my reading had been done in my early years when I had a book on the go almost continuously.  From memory I used to read about six paperbacks a week.

To examine the original data, I blew the dust off one of my old notebooks (and I mean that literally) and opened it to see what I read in the month of November 1972, which is -- um -- almost 45 years ago.

  1. THE KANDY-KOLORED TANGERINE-FLAKE STREAMLINE BABY by Tom Wolfe
  2. PROFESSOR JAMESON SPACE ADVENTURES: TWIN WORLDS by Neil R Jones
  3. THE BLIND WORM by Brian Stableford
  4. SEED OF THE DREAMERS by Emil Petaja
  5. PERRY RHODAN: PLANET OF THE DYING SUN
  6. DON'T FALL OFF THE MOUNTAIN by Shirley MacLaine
  7. LOST HORIZON by James Hilton
  8. THE CYBERNETIC BRAINS by Raymond F. Jones
  9. NEW WORLDS QUARTERLY No.2
  10. THE DAYS OF GLORY by Brian Stableford
  11. THE INHERITORS by A. Bertram Chandler
  12. THE GATEWAY TO NEVER by A. Bertram Chandler
  13. KING KOBOLD by Christopher Stasheff
  14. THE HIGH HEX by Laurence M. Janifer & S.J. Treibich
  15. NEBULA AWARD STORIES No.2
  16. NEBULA AWARD STORIES No.3
  17. DRAGONFLIGHT by Anne McCaffrey
  18. THE AVENGERS: THE AFRIT AFFAIR
  19. THE AVENGERS: THE MAGNETIC MAN
  20. THE BLACK STAR PASSES by John W. Campbell   
  21. DR. FUTURITY by Philip K. Dick
  22. THE CRACK IN SPACE by Philip K. Dick
  23. HELL'S GATE by Dean R. Koontz
  24. THE NEW TOMORROWS edited by Norman Spinrad
  25. INFINITY TWO edited by Robert Hoskins
  26. THE REBEL WORLDS by Poul Anderson
  27. THE WEATHERMONGER by Peter Dickinson
  28. THE HOLLOW by Agatha Christie
  29. THE STAR VIRUS by Barrington J. Bayley
  30. PERRY RHODAN:  THE IMMORTAL UNKNOWN
  31. PERRY RHODAN: VENUS IN DANGER
  32. PERRY RHODAN: SECRET BARRIER X
  33. THE WARLORD OF THE AIR by Michael Moorcock
  34. THE ENEMY STARS by Poul Anderson
  35. GOD BLESS YOU, MR ROSEWATER by Kurt Vonnegut
  36. ALICE'S WORLD by Sam J. Lundwall
  37. NO TIME FOR HEROES by Sam J. Lundwall
  38. EMPIRE OF TWO WORLDS by Barrington J. Bayley
  39. VULCAN'S HAMMER by Philip K. Dick
  40. DR. OX AND OTHER STORIES by Jules Verne
  41. THE BLONDE AND THE BOODLE by Jack Trevor Story
  42. A BOOK OF MILLIGANIMALS by Spike Milligan
  43. MASTER OF LIFE AND DEATH by Robert Silverberg
  44. INVADER FROM EARTH by Robert Silverberg
  45. SKYJACK! by Clark Whelton
  46. DOC SAVAGE:  THE MUNITIONS MASTER
  47. FLIGHT INTO DANGER by Arthur Hailey.

So, forty seven books in thirty days.  Most not long books,  some quite short in fact.  But you can see how it adds up if you keep reading at that rate for several years.  I may not know many modern writers, but I can claim to have a pretty good acquaintance with the authors of the first three quarters of the twentieth century !

1 comment:

Crusty said...

I wish I'd have made a searchable database of books read through the last few years - I miss your regular posts but then I'm getting fairly unreliable at posting on "The News From Here." Life hasn't picked up but I've sure slowed down. (chuckle)