Books Read in 1986

Ah, for those heady, unfocused days of minimum wage jobs, minimum responsibility, and maximum reading time. I wonder if I will ever be able to read as much again. Maybe retirement. How fucking depressing.

The notebook pages on which I originally kept track of my reading are beginning to fade. I have no memory of the plots of some of these books, including most of the Frederik Pohl novels. But I was reading voraciously, and only occasionally for content.

There is only one more year left in my reading archives, and then I will jump back to 2002 and list the books I have read since then. I know the suspense is maddening, but try to contain yourself.

Total number of pages read (including Doctor Who books not listed): 17,757
Pages read in 1987: 11,496
Pages read in 1988: 9058
Pages read in 1989: 5892
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324
Pages read in 2000: 8639
Pages read in 2001: 12,542

The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Thinner by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)
The Magic Barrel by Bernard Malamud
Night Shift by Stephen King
The World According to Garp by John Irving
The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Amulet by Michael McDowell
The Auctioneer by Joan Samson
The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven
Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin
The Wounded Land by Stephen R. Donaldson
The One Tree by Stephen R. Donaldson
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
Black Star Rising by Frederik Pohl
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Bearing an Hourglass by Piers Anthony
The Natural by Bernard Malamud
The Many-Colored Land by Julian May
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Days of Grass by Tanith Lee
Demon in the Skull by Frederik Pohl
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
The Hampdenshire Wonder by J.D. Beresford
Contact by Carl Sagan
War by Gwynne Dyer
Tom O'Bedlam by Robert Silverberg
Terror by Frederik Pohl
The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Frederik Pohl
Glitz by Elmore Leonard
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Brightness Falls from the Air by James Tiptree, Jr.
SS-GB by Len Deighton
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
Books of Blood, Vol. One by Clive Barker
Doctor Who: The Early Years by Jeremy Bentham
The Inhuman Condition by Clive Barker
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John LeCarre
Herzog by Saul Bellow
The Scarlatti Inheritance by Robert Ludlum

In addition to these titles, I also read 21 Doctor Who novelizations in 1986. I had an elaborate reading system for these novelizations, based on my knowledge of the program's timeline. I would divide my reading of the novels (which averaged about 150 pages each) into the same number of episodes that the actual program contained, reading the equivalent of one "episode" per day. This seemed very important to me at the time. Some years ago, I traded my Doctor Who novelization collection into a used bookstore in Ogden. On my last visit there, most of the novels were still on the shelves. Apparently, I am the only one who loves them. Someday I will return for them, though I doubt I would ever read them again.

Books Read in 1987

Two years out of high school, unfocused and terrified, I began taking college literature classes and reading on the bus. Kerouac would inspire me to chuck it all out the window, in search of that elusive quality known as "life experience." I was 20 years old. I would never be the same.

Total number of pages read: 11,496
Pages read in 1988: 9058
Pages read in 1989: 5892
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324
Pages read in 2000: 8639
Pages read in 2001: 12,542

Strange Seed by T.M. Wright
The Looking Glass War by John le Carre
Doctor Who: Marco Polo by John Lucarotti
Doctor Who: The King's Demons by Terence Dudley
White Gold Wielder by Stephen R. Donaldson
High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Doctor Who and the Keys of Marinus by Philip Hinchcliffe
Harry Sullivan's War by Ian Marter
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
The Black Castle by Les Daniels
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
Memos from Purgatory by Harlan Ellison
Books of Blood, Vol. 2 by Clive Barker
In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott
Doctor Who: The Aztecs by John Lucarotti
Doctor Who: Slipback by Eric Saward
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
Misery by Stephen King
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Magic Kingdom for Sale by Terry Brooks
Doctor Who: Black Orchid by Terence Dudley
Books of Blood, Vol. 3 by Clive Barker
Ensign Flandry by Poul Anderson
Doctor Who: The Mind Robber by Peter Ling
Doctor Who: The Sensorites by Nigel Robinson
Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H.F. Saint
Doctor Who: The Celestial Toymaker by Gerry Davis & Alison Bingeman
Greener Than You Think by Ward Moore
Enterprise: The First Adventure by Vonda N. McIntyre
Paradise Postponed by John Mortimer
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Magician: Apprentice by Raymond E. Feist
Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
Magician: Master by Raymond E. Feist
Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
Dying Inside by Robert Silverberg
Fifty-Two Pickup by Elmore Leonard
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
Unknown Man No. 89 by Elmore Leonard
Silverthorn by Raymond E. Feist

Books Read in 1988

We're approaching those dangerous years during which nearly every other book I read was a Doctor Who novelization, but I promise you that if I read more than ten in any given year, I will exclude them from these lists. Ahem.

Total number of pages read: 9058
Pages read in 1989: 5892
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324
Pages read in 2000: 8639
Pages read in 2001: 12,542

Doctor Who: The Savages by Ian Stuart Black
Doctor Who and the Auton Invasion by Terrance Dicks
Songmaster by Orson Scott Card
2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke
Great Sky River by Gregory Benford
Lennon Remembers edited by Jann Wenner
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Venus of Dreams by Pamela Sargent
Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Postman by David Brin
Ironweed by William Kennedy
Buried Alive: The Biography of Janis Joplin by Myra Friedman
Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters by Malcolm Hulke
Doctor Who: Fury from the Deep by Victor Pemberton
The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Bury My Heat at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Land of Little Rain by Mary Austin
Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison
Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
The Damnation Game by Clive Barker
Doctor Who: Time and the Rani by Pip & Jane Baker
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Slob by Rex Miller
The Hour of the Oxrun Dead by Charles L. Grant

Books Read in 1989

I started keeping track of my reading in mid-1985, so I've got a few more of these lists to add, for completion's sake, if nothing else. As always, favorite and/or influential titles are in boldface.

Total number of pages read: 5892
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324
Pages read in 2000: 8639
Pages read in 2001: 12,542

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
LaBrava by Elmore Leonard
Fire on the Mountain by Edward Abbey
Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
A Brief History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking
Radix by A.A. Attanasio
Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle
The Talisman by Stephen King & Peter Straub
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Doctor Who: The Gunfighters by Donald Cotton
The Jehovah Contract by Victor Koman
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. I edited by Robert Silverberg

Books Read in 2001

After this, everything, including my reading habits, changed.

Total number of pages read: 12,542
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324
Pages read in 2000: 8639

Star Trek DS9: The War of the Prophets by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Star Wars: Vector Prime by R.A. Salvatore
Louie Louie: The History and Mythology of the World's Most Famous Rock 'n' Roll Song by Dave Marsh
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now by Barry Miles
The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff
Firestar by Michael Flynn
Star Trek: The Entropy Effect by Vonda N. McIntyre
Regeneration by Pat Barker
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer
A Man in Full by Thomas Wolfe
Coming Through Slaughter by Michael Ondaatje
Red Dragon by Thomas Harris
The Best American Movie Writing 1999 edited by Peter Bogdanovich
Mefisto in Onyx by Harlan Ellison
John Glenn: A Memoir with Nick Taylor
Star Wars: Dark Tide I--Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole
Reporting Vietnam: American Journalism 1959-1969
Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll, 1947-1977 by James Miller
Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
Preston Falls by David Gates
Star Trek: Where Sea Meets Sky by Jerry Oltion
Slippage by Harlan Ellison
Star Trek DS9: Avatar (Book One) by S.D. Perry
Star Trek DS9: Millennium I--Inferno by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina edited by Kevin J. Anderson

Books Read in 2000

Well, this is more like it. I must've been motivated by the turn of the century to read more.

Total number of pages read: 8639
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546
Pages read in 1999: 4324

Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Star Trek: Vulcan's Glory by D.C. Fontana
Great Books by David Denby
Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf
Grown Up All Wrong: 75 Great Rock and Pop Artists from Vaudeville to Techno by Robert Christgau
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Battle of the Books by James Atlas
The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Ministry of Fear by Graham Greene
Star Trek: The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner
The Heat of the Day by Elizabeth Bowen
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson
Selections from the First Two Issues of "The New York Review of Books" edited by Robert B. Silvers and Barbara Epstein
In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike
Get a Life! by William Shatner and Chris Kreski
The Poorhouse Fair by John Updike
Star Wars: Rogue Planet by Greg Bear
I Am Not Spock by Leonard Nimoy
Star Trek DS9: The Fall of Terok Nor by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Flashforward by Robert Sawyer
The Same Door by John Updike
ST Voyager: Mosaic by Jeri Taylor
Wartime by Paul Fussell
I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy
Over the Edge by Harlan Ellison

Books Read in 1999

In '99, I was editing Petroglyph, a magazine of creative nature writing. So, again, I wasn't reading a lot of books, but I was reading a lot. Mostly poetry. Bad poetry. Lots and lots of bad poetry.

Though I didn't read many books in 1999, the ones that I did read were, for the most part, exceptional, including the best books I have ever read about Elvis Presley and the U.S. space program.

Total number of pages read: 4324
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890
Pages read in 1998: 6546

Dead Elvis: A Chronicle of a Cultural Obsession by Greil Marcus
Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley by Peter Guralnick
Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide by Robert Michael Pyle
Waterland by Graham Swift
Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Rise and Fall of English by Robert Scholes
Aftermath by Charles Sheffield
The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro
A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the "Apollo" Astronauts by Andrew Chaikin
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Books Read in 1998

Flushed with success at teaching college-level courses, I soon learned to cockily neglect student papers in favor of reading more interesting (and literate) fare. I also took a literature course on drug addiction and another on James Joyce, which may explain some of the more esoteric titles in this list. To this day, I want to get a tattoo of a phrase from Ulysses; I just haven't decided which one yet.

Here's Bill's shockingly incomplete list.

Total number of pages read: 6546
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268
Pages read in 1997: 6890

Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi (trans. Frances Frenaye)
Confessions of an English Opium Eater by Thomas DeQuincey
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard
Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
Ulysses by James Joyce (ed. Hans Walter Gabler)
The New Bloomsday Book by Harry Blamires
My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid
Pronto by Elmore Leonard
Fermat's Enigma by Simon Singh
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The House Gun by Nadine Gordimer
Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's "Basement Tapes" by Greil Marcus
Star Trek TNG: Q-Space by Greg Cox

And while we're on the subject of books, check out this great new blog from Bookman and company (apostrophe notwithstanding).

Books Read in 1997

One thing I haven't added to these lists, for fear of revealing my true obsessions: the number of pages I've read each year (because, of course, I've kept track of that, too). So, because I want you to notice that I read two--TWO!--gigantic Dickens novels in 1997, I'll start adding my total number of pages read to the actual list of books I read for each year. Not necessarily because I think anyone cares, but because someone in the future will want to know what books were all about.

Here's Bill's list.

Total number of pages read: 6890
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268

History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past by Robert Brent Toplin
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
My Dark Places by James Ellroy
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Star Trek: New Frontier--House of Cards by Peter David
Star Trek: New Frontier--Into the Void by Peter David
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
Jukebox America by William Bunch
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Obasan by Joy Kogawa
Daughters of Copper Woman by Anne Cameron
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

Books Read in 1996

This will be the last of the embarassingly short lists. That is, until we get to 2002, the year I began my PhD program. In the meantime, please enjoy yet another humiliating look into my lazy reading habits.

Here's Bill's list.

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Star Trek Movie Memories by William Shatner & Chris Kreski
Borderliners by Peter Hoeg (trans. Barbara Haveland)
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
Star Trek: The Fearful Summons by Denny Martin Flinn
Earthfall by Orson Scott Card
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg (trans. Tiina Nunnally)
Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Books Read in 1995

Another slow year. But fuck you! I was in grad school and learning how to respond to bad student writing. I was reading a lot, just not a lot of, you know, books.

Not to belabor the point, but the Anne Rice novel was, in fact, 1043 pages long.

If you're keeping score at home, here's Bill's list.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Star Trek: Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Ships of Earth by Orson Scott Card
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories by Philip Roth
Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers
Ania Malina by Lawrence Osborne
ST Voyager: The Escape by Dean W. Smith & Kristine K. Rusch
Clockers by Richard Price
The Birth of the Elizabethan Age: England in the 1560s by Norman Jones
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Star Trek: Federation by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

Books Read in 1994

1994 was a busy year for me: got married, rented a house, entered graduate school, and commuted to a full-time job. So you will perhaps understand why this is, so far, the shortest of my annual reading lists.

In my defense, I will point out that the Joan D. Vinge novel was 949 pages long, and the Thomas Hardy novel seemed at least that long.

Here's Bill's list. (UPDATE: Billville isn't coming up for me at the moment. Please stay tuned.)

Star Trek TNG: The Devil's Heart by Carmen Carter
The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card
The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein
Star Trek TNG: All Good Things. . . by Michael Jan Friedman
The Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Star Trek Memories by William Shatner with Chris Kreski
The Chinchilla Farm by Judith Freeman
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Books Read in 1993

I'm pretty sure my brother and I are the only people who give a crap about these lists, but I like the idea of having them posted here, in case my precious hard copies get burned or, as seems more likely, become the unfortunate victims of a termite infestation and/or an accidental urination event.

Anyway, just wanted to remind the rest of you that I usually post these lists just after I've posted another, hopefully more substantial, entry, so be sure to, you know, browse beyond the headlines.

Here's Bill's list. He's already up to 1996, so I need to catch up. I'm totally going to crush his average once I get around to posting my lists from the mid-80's, Doctor Who novels notwithstanding.

A Sort of Life by Graham Greene
Star Trek TNG: Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman
Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Troublemaker by Joseph Hansen
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen
"And So It Goes": Adventures in Television by Linda Ellerbee
After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson
Star Trek TNG: Grounded by David Bischoff
Tartuffe by Moliere (trans. Richard Wilbur)
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (annotated by Alfred Appel, Jr.)
Star Trek DS9: The Siege by Peter David
Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Star Trek TNG: Descent by Diane Carey
Gerald's Game by Stephen King
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Star Trek TNG: Imzadi by Peter David

Books Read in 1992

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of posting these lists, though as I've been doing so I've found myself making some disturbing projections on the number of books I will conceivably be able to read before I die. Maybe it's time to look into that whole books-on-tape thing.

Here's me brudda's 1992 list.

The Dark Half by Stephen King
Look into the Sun by James Patrick Kelly
Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
Night by Elie Wiesel
Good-bye to All That by Robert Graves
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Aftershocks: A Tale of Two Victims by David Haward Bain
Saturday Night: A Backstage History of "Saturday Night Live" by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad
Dawn by Elie Wiesel
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn
Stopping at Slowyear by Frederik Pohl
Star Trek: The Covenant of the Crown by Howard Weinstein
Fadeout by Joseph Hansen
Death Claims by Joseph Hansen
Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids by Donna Gaines
Ironweed by William Kennedy
The Death of Rhythm & Blues by Nelson George
Rich in Love by Josephine Humphreys

Books Read in 1991

If you're tuning in late, go here and here to catch up.

No comments this time, though I'm still highlighting my faves and most influential reads.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
The Harlan Ellison Hornbook
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Mystery by Peter Straub
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. LeGuin
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Hiding Place by John Edgar Wideman
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
Star Trek TNG: Unification by Jeri Taylor
Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

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.