Books Read in 1990

Billville has an engaging essay--an introduction, if you will--to his and my practice of keeping lists of the books we've read. I've kept up my list since the day I graduated high school; on June 6, 1985, rather than attending noisome graduation parties, I finished Watership Down. Bill's essay brought me to the stunning realization that I've kept my lists now for over 20 years, two decades of reading.

The annual tally of books I read has dwindled a bit since I started work on my Ph.D., and I don't count most of the dry academic texts required by my program on my lists (for one thing, I rarely read them cover to cover). I also don't list plays or collections of poetry, since they're not designed to be "read" in the traditional sense of sitting down somewhere and being silent with a book for a while (at least, I don't think so). Recently, however, I started including graphic novels on my list, since the kind of reading I do with those texts seems at least as complex as reading lines of words (if you don't believe me, check out any volume of Lone Wolf & Cub or Dave Sim's Cerebus--your eyes will not want to rest).

In 1990, I had started working for the Internal Revenue Service, and many of the books I read were chosen to both make me stand apart from my co-workers ("What is he reading?") and to be digested in 15 or 30 minute chunks with my lunch or a snack. I had also just started to delve into my history minor, and I was particularly interested in the history of Native Americans. And I was reading a lot of science fiction, as you will see from the list below.

I've highlighted the titles of those books that were particularly influential on me and/or those that I would recommend to others who are not me in the year 1990.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's by Hunter S. Thompson
(Thompson has long been one of my favorite writers.)
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis by Kevin Clarke
(This was one of the last Doctor Who novels I read for quite a while.)
All the Lies That Are My Life by Harlan Ellison
(A novella that, for better or worse, affected my worldview and creativity for many years.)
Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle
The Day of Creation by J. G. Ballard
(Another of my favorite authors, Ballard's work now seems disturbingly prophetic.)
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman
(After reading this, Feynman quickly became one of my personal heroes. Read more here.)
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
The Stand (Complete and Uncut) by Stephen King
(This also shows up on Bill's 1990 list. Must've been the book of the month.)
"I Will Fight No More Forever": Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War by Merrill D. Bean
The Nexus by Mike McQuay
What Do YOU Care What Other People Think? by Richard P. Feynman
(I ran out to find this as soon as I had finished his first book. I couldn't get enough of the guy.)
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
(An adaptation of this was playing on Masterpiece Theatre at the time.)
Victim: The Other Side of Murder by Gary Kinder
Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons
(A beautiful novel and one of my all-time favorites. It's about an astronaut who's questioning the purpose of his life.)
The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon
The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon
Venus Plus X by Theordore Sturgeon
Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon
(About a messiah who preaches and practices open sexual relations of all kinds. A book for our times, and one that should be read by all regular churchgoers.)
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard
(Another of my favorite authors.)
Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty by W.L. Rusho
(A very romantic biography of a young artist who disappeared into the wilderness of the American Southwest.)

24 books. Not a bad year, though there have been better ones. I still have many of these books today; I've been looking through some of them as I've been typing in the titles. I've already decided that Sturgeon, Ellison, and Ballard are worth re-reading. (I re-read the Simmons novel three years ago, and will probably read it again sometime.)

I don't know if I will keep posting these lists as my brother says he will do, unless I can demonstrate that, once upon a time, I read much more than he ever could in 12 months.