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 !