Yesterday being rainy and me with a cold, I found myself reorganizing several troublesome drawers and trying to get rid of the accumulation of little notebooks from past years. Jotted down addresses, brilliant ideas, good quotes, mysterious scribblings . . . a hodge-podge of stuff. One notebook was from my time in rehab after my accident in October of 2016 -- during which time I did a lot of reading. Two books that I read then were John Greene's The Fault in Our Stars and Jo Walton's Among Others. Both of these novels referenced numerous other books and authors and, having nothing better to do at the time, I made a list for future reference. In my little notebook. So today I moved the lists onto my computer and decided (fiendish chuckle) to share them with you. If you make it through the lists, I'd be interested to hear if any of these particularly resonated with you.
Mentioned in The Fault in Our Stars (a diverse and intriguing list many of which I have managed not to read --- yet) His Dark Materials – Pulliam (have read them all now and loved them) Birdsong – Faulks War and Peace - Tolstoy (groan) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – de Bernieres Memoirs of a Geisha - Golden One Hundred Years of Solitude – Marquez (embarrassed to say I haven't read any Marquez) Atonement – McEwan (read and enjoyed, somewhat to my surprise) A Suitable Boy - Seth Shadow of the Wind – Zafur (on my bedside table) Love in the Time of Cholera - Marquez Midnight’s Children – Rushdie Ulysses – Joyce Germinal - Zola Cloud Atlas – Mitchell (I keep thinking I want to read this but somehow don't Remains of the Day – Ishiguo A Fine Balance – Mistry The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Albom The Folk of the Faraway Tree – Blyton (I used to love Enid Blyton but missed this one) The Wasp Factory -Banks A Town Like Alice – Shute The Ice Queen – Hoffman The Archivist – Cooley
From Jo Walton’s AMONG OTHERS (mostly fantasy and sci fi. I am familiar with many of the big names, Heinlein, Asimov, Silverberg, Adams, LeGuin. In the Fifties, I read lots of SF and even subscribed to the magazine Fantasy and SF -- I'm sure much of what I read has stuck with me but I kinda quit reading much sci-fi after the Sixties. Now i find myself returning to some old favorites and enjoying a lot of authors that I missed. ) Adams - The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (One of my favorites) Anderson -The Broken Sword, Ensign Flandry, Guardian of Time Anthony- A Spell for Chameleon, Vicinity Cluster, Chaining the Lady Asimov - The End of Eternity, Guide to Science, Foundation Trilogy, The Left Hand of the Electron Austen - Emma Blyton - Malory Towers (another Blyton to look for) Boyd - The Last Starship from Earth Bradley - The Spell Sword (I loved The Mists of Avalon but was not so impressed with subsequent entries in the series) Brazil, Angela (author) Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar Carpenter - The Inklings (bio), Tolkien (bio) (I want to read these) Churchill – History of the English- Speaking People (and this) Clarke – Forgotten Enemy, Imperial Earth, Childhood’s End Clement – Mission of Gravity Coney – Hello, Summer, Goodbye; Charisma Cooper - The Dark is Rising Sequence (just finished rereading all of them) Cussler - Shockwave Delaney - Babel 17, Trouble on Triton, Empire Star, The Einstein Intersection Phillip K. Dick Donalson – The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (intriguing) Eliot -Four Quartets, The Wasteland Ellison - Dangerous Visions Engdahl - Heritage of the Stars, Beyond the Tomorrow Mountains Fowles - The Magus (I LOVED this book -- have read it many times and may have to have another go Garner -Red Shift Graves – I, Claudius (I read this when I was in high school -- one of the few books on my parents' shelves. Time for another re-read.) Harrison - Make Room! Make Room! (the original, I believe, of Soylent Green) Heinlein -The Number of the Beast, Starship Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Citizen of the Galaxy (on my shelves. H is a sexist of the first water but he can sure tell a story. Henderson - Pilgrimage ( I think I read this about half a century ago an seem to remember liking it) Herbert - Dune (Loved this and have read it many times. I found the sequels disappointing.) Hughes -Crow (poem) Huxley - Brave New World (of course) Kerr - When Hitler Stole the Pink Rabbit (really?) Ursula K. LeGuin -The Farthest Shore, The Eye of the Heron, The Word for World is Forest, The Dispossessed, Wizard of Earthsea, The Lathe of Heaven, City of Illusions, The Winds (very much enjoyed Earthsea) Lewis, C.S. (author) (from Narnia to his sci-fi trilogy, his novels and even his Christian apologetics, I've read and enjoyed all his works) Marx - The Communist Manifesto McCaffrey – Pern series, Dragonquest) Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz- (Another one I remember reading and liking a looong time ago) Montgomery - Jane of Lantern Hill Moore - Lot Niven - World of Ptavvs, Ringworld, A Gift from Earth, The Flight of the Horse, The Mote in God’s Eye (with Pournelle) O’Brian - Voyage to Alpha Centauri Piper, H. Beam (author) Plato - The Symposium, The Republic Ransome, Arthur (author) Renault – Return to Night (a Renaukt I'm not familiar with) Robinson - Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Telempath Shute - An Old Captivity Silverberg - Dying Inside, Stepson of Terra, Up the Line, Born with the Dead, The World Inside Simak -City Smith, Cordwainer (Author) (Is that a cool name for an author or what?) Smith, D.- I Capture the Castle, The Starlight Barking (these both sound most interesting) Streatfield, Noel (author) (read many of these as a child) Sturgeon - If All Men Were Brothers Tey -Daughter of Time (I went on a Tey rampage maybe twenty years ago -- time to reread) Tiptree - Warm Worlds and Otherwise Tolkien - Lord of the Rings (of course) Vonnegut – The Sirens of Titan Wyndham The Chrysalids (another that I know I once owned and read but don't remember) Zelazny -A Prince in Amber (and other in the Amber Chronicles), Creatures of Light and Darkness, The Guns of Avalon, The Dream Master, The Sign of the Unicorn, The Dream Master, Isle of the Dead, Roadmarks, Doorways in the Sand (I think Ethan had a lot of these books at one time and I gave a look but didn't get into them -- may give Z another try.)
