Books Read in 1981

Following on from last month’s Books Read in 1980.

The total of books read for the year has dropped to a humble 81, which given the year feels like it was something I actually planned, but if so I don’t recall this many years later (it drops even further in 1982, before beginning a ‘recovery’ in 1983).

And, taking a cursory glance down the list, there are no authors I recognise as significant discoveries.

On my 27th birthday I was reading Space Whores by the no doubt pseudonymously named A. J. Rimmer. I have only the vaguest memory of this book over thirty years on (‘erotica’ set on a space station brothel, if I recall correctly), and had to use Google to discover the author’s name. No doubt I needed some form of light relief between the demands of a Jean-Paul Sartre trilogy and a Lovecraft collection. Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it, as they say. And please, no innuendo.

Here’s the list (with author names in the main added from memory, so please feel free to point out any errors):-

The Web of Everywhere – John Brunner

Police Your Planet – Lester Del Rey & Erik Van Lhin

Mission to Moulokin – Alan Dean Foster

Lost: Fifty Suns – A. E. Van Vogt

Monument – Lloyd Biggle, Jr

Martian Time-Slip – Philip K. Dick

In the Footsteps of the Abominable Snowman – Josef Nesvadba

Suaine and the Crow-God – Stuart Gordon

The New SF – Edited by Langdon Jones

The Best of Fredric Brown – Fredric Brown

The Sword of Orley – Stewart Farrar

England Invaded – Edited by Michael Moorcock

Nine by Laumer – Keith Laumer

Nebula Alert – A. Bertram Chandler

The Rival Rigelians – Mack Reynolds

100 Years of Science Fiction Book One – Edited by Damon Knight

100 Years of Science Fiction Book Two – Edited by Damon Knight

The Best of Philip K. Dick – Philip K. Dick

Eye Among the Blind – Robert Holdstock

A Dream of Wessex – Christopher Priest

Blue Movie – Terry Southern

Dreamsnake – Vonda N. McIntyre

The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World – Harlan Ellison

Golem 100 – Alfred Bester

Crowned Heads – Thomas Tryon

A Planet Called Treason – Orson Scott Card

Up the Walls of the World – James Tiptree Jr.

Search the Sky – Robert Silverberg

Willard and His Bowling Trophies – Richard Brautigan

Xanthe and the Robots – Sheila MacLeod

Stephen Hero – James Joyce

The Inferno – Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle

In Solitary – Garry Kilworth

Le Grand Meaulnes – Henri Alain-Fournier

Alternating Currents – Frederik Pohl

The Houses of Iszm – Jack Vance

Tiger! Tiger! – Alfred Bester

My Uncle Oswald – Roald Dahl

Roadside Picnic – Boris & Arkady Strugatski

The Tides of Lust – Samuel R. Delany

Wolfbane – Cyril M. Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl

The Secret Agent – Joseph Conrad

Interworld – Isidore Haiblum

October the First Is Too Late – Fred Hoyle

Brother to Demons, Brother to Gods – Jack Williamson

My Name is Legion – Roger Zelazny

Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino

The Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Compton – Robert Sheckley

Mind of My Mind – Octavia E. Butler

Turtle Diary – Russell Hoban

A Storm of Wings – M. John Harrison

The Joyous Invasions – Philip K. Dick

Dreaming of Babylon – Richard Brautigan

Flesh – Philip Jose Farmer

Sword of the Demon – Richard A. Lupoff

The Marquis de Sade – Gilbert Lely

Solar Lottery – Philip K. Dick

The Jagged Orbit – John Brunner

The Sodom & Gomorrah Business – Barry N. Malzberg

The Infinity Box – Kate Wilhelm

Stand on Zanzibar – John Brunner

Black Easter/ The Day After Judgement – James Blish

A World Between – Norman Spinrad

Henry Miller On Writing – Henry Miller

Leonard Cohen Poems 1956 – 1968 – Leonard Cohen

The Killer – Colin Wilson

Thy Neighbour’s Wife – Gay Talese

The Glass Teat – Harlan Ellison

The Aristos – John Fowles

Eye in the Sky – Philip K. Dick

Panglor – Jeffrey A. Carver

Against Nature – Joris-Karl Huysmans

Fantasms and Magic – Jack Vance

The Age of Reason – Jean-Paul Sartre

The Reprieve – Jean-Paul Sartre

Iron in the Soul – Jean-Paul Sartre

Space Whores – A. J. Rimmer

At the Mountains of Madness – H. P. Lovecraft

The Tin Drum – Gunther Grass

The Priestess of Isis – Edouard Schure

Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth