Following on from last month’s Books Read in 1982.
And the grand total for the year is 104, a respectable 2 a week, after the dismal showing in 1982 (only 48). For some reason I didn’t read any books at all in December, either that or made a real meal out of finishing off The Citadel of the Autarch (begun on 30 November).
On the occasion of my 29th birthday I was reading The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe.
It was the year I discovered James Michener and Joseph Wambaugh, Wilbur Smith and Raymond Chandler, and put a skeleton in my closet with Jackie Collins.
It was the year when I finally decided that Stephen King was a taste I’d acquired after the false start of The Stand.
It was the year I learned that you can go back again, reading the four Modesty Blaise novels I’d enjoyed so much as a teenager, and catching up on all those Peter O’Donnell had written since, loving every one of them. And I also learned that sometimes you can’t go back, tainting my memories of Dennis Wheatley’s oeuvre by reading the appallingly bad The Irish Witch.
It was a year for series of books (Tubb, Donaldson, Wolfe, Zelazny, Leiber) and themed reading (in January I read nothing but Picador titles).
It was the best of reading and the worst of reading, and here’s the list (with author names in the main added from memory, so please feel free to point out any errors):-
Revenge of the Lawn – Richard Brautigan
More Pricks Than Kicks – Samuel Beckett
The Cement Garden – Ian McEwan
The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon
Kleinzeit – Russell Hoban
Our Ancestors – Italo Calvino
Paris Peasant – Louis Aragon
Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Lord Foul’s Bane – Stephen Donaldson
The Illearth War – Stephen Donaldson
The Power That Preserves – Stephen Donaldson
Storm: The Deep World – Don Lawrence & Saul Dunn
The Priests of Psi – Frank Herbert
Bring on the Bad Guys – Stan Lee and others
The Fog – James Herbert
Modesty Blaise – Peter O’Donnell
Sabre-Tooth – Peter O’Donnell
I, Lucifer – Peter O’Donnell
A Taste for Death – Peter O’Donnell
The Impossible Virgin – Peter O’Donnell
Pieces of Modesty – Peter O’Donnell
The Silver Mistress – Peter O’Donnell
Last Day In Limbo – Peter O’Donnell
Dragon’s Claw – Peter O’Donnell
The Great Superman Comic Book Collection – Various
The Celebrated Cases of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
The Exorcist – William Peter Blatty
Sovereign – R. M. Meluch
Cadbury and The Samurai – George MacBeth
Cadbury and The Seven Witches – George MacBeth
Swords in the Mist – Fritz Leiber
Swords Against Wizardry – Fritz Leiber
Swords and Ice Magic – Fritz Leiber
Sombrero Fallout – Richard Brautigan
The Lovers – Philip Jose Farmer
The Gardens of Delight – Ian Watson
The Languages of Pao – Jack Vance
The Bloody Chamber – Angela Carter
The Great White Space – Basil Copper
As On a Darkling Plain – Ben Bova
Get Out of My Sky – James Blish
Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown
The High Place – James Branch Cabell
Black Legion of Callisto – Lin Carter
Familiar Spirit – Lisa Tuttle
The Glitter Dome – Joseph Wambaugh
The Stud – Jackie Collins
The Eye of the Tiger – Wilbur Smith
The Irish Witch – Dennis Wheatley
The Executioners – Nick Carter
MASH Goes to Miami – Richard Hooker & William E. Butterworth
The Inheritors – Harold Robbins
Tarzan’s Quest – Edgar Rice Burroughs
‘Salem’s Lot – Stephen King
The Xanadu Talisman – Peter O’Donnell
Last of the Zinja – Robert Shea
Farewell, My Lovely – Raymond Chandler
Love All – Molly Parkin
Behond the Man – Michael Moorcock
Moonchild – Aleister Crowley
The Book of Skulls – Robert Silverberg
Goodbye, Columbus – Philip Roth
Nine Princes in Amber – Roger Zelazny
The Guns of Avalon – Roger Zelazny
Sign of the Unicorn – Roger Zelazny
The Hand of Oberon – Roger Zelazny
The Courts of Chaos – Roger Zelazny
Futuropolis: Impossible Cities of Science Fiction and Fantasy – Robert Sheckley
Frank Frazetta Book Four
The Immortals of Science Fiction – David Wingrove
Hawksbill Station – Robert Silverberg
Shield – Poul Anderson
The Fight of Neither Century – Robin Chambers
The Brass Dragon – Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Black Moon – Saul Dunn
Immortality Inc. – Robert Sheckley
Jack of Swords – E. C. Tubb
Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun – E. C. Tubb
Haven of Darkness – E. C. Tubb
Prison of Night – E. C. Tubb
Incident on Ath – E. C. Tubb
The Science Fiction and Fantasy World of Tim White
Solar Wind – Peter Jones
Alien Landscapes – Robert Holdstock & Malcolm Edwards
Tour of the Universe – Malcolm Edwards & Robert Holdstock
Yragael/Urm – Philippe Druillet
The Sirens of Titan – Kurt Vonnegut
Tyranopolis – A. E. van Vogt
The First Kingdom – Jack Katz
A Funeral for the Eyes of Fire – Michael Bishop
Dreams Die First – Harold Robbins
Catacombs – John Farris
The Choirboys – Joseph Wambaugh
Sirens – Eric van Lustbader
The Shining – Stephen King
Return to Paradise – James Michener
The Sunbird – Wilbur Smith
Dhalgren – Samuel R. Delany
The Shadow of the Torturer – Gene Wolfe
The Claw of the Conciliator – Gene Wolfe
The Sword of the Lictor – Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch – Gene Wolfe
Trumpetville 
I read a Jackie Collins novel decades ago, out of curiosity– I think it was Hollywood Wives, but I won’t swear to it– and I remember the odd feeling I had, going page to page, that it wasn’t really a book. The sentences (and I say this sincerely) didn’t read like actual sentences, but once-removed summaries of sentences. I don’t know if this makes sense. It’s was like eating a cheeseburger, but instead of getting the immersive cheeseburger experience, I was only tasting the individual components– patty, cheese, lettuce, tomato– that never became better than its parts. It was such an odd experience I’d almost recommend one of her novels, just to confront something that says it’s a novel, looks like a novel, but is a pod.
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