This is sort of based on a challenge I saw on Kerrie Smith's blog--although slightly changed.
Pick five books from the year of your birth that say something about you, your world view and the books you love.
1. The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene
2. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
3. The Franchise Affair, Josephine Tey
4. The Loved One, Evelyn Waugh
5. Raintree County, Ross Lockridge
All of these books come from writers I read extensively except for the the last, which was a one-hit wonder. What about you? Do you identify with books written in the year of your birth? All of these speak to me in terms of style, subject or substance. They were written in my comfort zone.
61 comments:
Islands in the Stream Ernest Hemingway/The Long Lavender Look John D. MacDonald/The Man Called Noon Louis L'Amour/Passenger to Frankfurt Agatha Christie/The Day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth
Of course the biggest novel of 1970was Love Story and I cannot relate to that one on any level.
Patti - A few books that were written in the year I was born really do speak to me. In fact, one of them was a favorite of mine when I was in my teens. One thing that amazed me when I really started thinking about books published in my birth year was just what a variety there was - in all genres.
Mr, Megenthwirker's Lobblies and Other Fantastic Tales - Nelson S. Bond; The Moving Toyshop - Edmund Crispin; Nightmare Alley - William Lindsay Gresham; The Hounds of Tindalos - Frank Belknap Long; The Clock Strikes Twelve - H. R. Wakefield.
Let me cheat a little and add a play: An Inspector Calls by J. B. Priestley.
Other books that spoke to me include John Hersey's Hiroshima and Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men.
Although it never spoke to me, Benjamin Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care certainly spoke to my mother and millions of other mothers out there.
Great choices. And I saw that play, Jerry. Great set.
Of course there were just as many choices in the year of my birth that I felt no kinship with. But these summed up certain characteristics or interests.
The only one that comes to mind off the top of my head is 1984. For some reason I can't explain, Orwell's book is one of the few I've read at least half a dozen times. Most get one read only, a few two times through, and only a half dozen or so more than twice.
Somehow I believe Todd was able to come up with that list without any reference material.
Me, too, Randy. I even acted in it in a high school play.
A remarkable number of important books in my life were published in 1963 and 1965, rather than my birthyear 1964, along with many years around those, of course.
1. THE BEST FROM FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, 13th Series, edited by Avram Davidson
Fiction and Essays:
They Don't Make Life Like They Used To • (1963) • novelette by Alfred Bester
Eight O'Clock in the Morning • (1963) • shortstory by Ray Nelson [as by Ray Faraday Nelson ]
Deluge • [The People] • (1963) • novelette by Zenna Henderson
What Strange Stars and Skies • (1963) • novelette by Avram Davidson
Now Wakes the Sea • (1963) • shortstory by J. G. Ballard
Green Magic • (1963) • shortstory by Jack Vance
Hunter, Come Home • (1963) • novelette by Richard McKenna [as by Richard M. McKenna ]
Captain Honario Harpplayer, R.N. • (1963) • shortstory by Harry Harrison
Treaty in Tartessos • (1963) • shortstory by Karen Anderson
McNamara's Fish • [Max Kearny] • (1963) • shortstory by Ron Goulart
The Golden Brick • (1963) • shortstory by P. M. Hubbard
Peggy and Peter Go to the Moon • (1963) • shortstory by Don White
Niña Sol • (1963) • shortstory by Felix Marti-Ibanez
Introduction (The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 13) • essay by Avram Davidson
2. A PAIL OF AIR by Fritz Leiber
9 • A Pail of Air • (1951) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
25 • The Beat Cluster • (1961) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
41 • The Foxholes of Mars • (1952) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
51 • Pipe Dream • [Simon Grue] • (1959) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
66 • Time Fighter • (1957) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
72 • The 64-Square Madhouse • (1962) • novelette by Fritz Leiber
116 • Bread Overhead • (1958) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
132 • The Last Letter • (1958) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
145 • Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee • [Simon Grue] • (1958) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
163 • Coming Attraction • (1950) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
178 • Nice Girl with Five Husbands • (1951) • shortstory by Fritz Leiber
3. LABYRINTHS by Jorge Luis Borges
Edited by Donald A. Yates & James E. Irby
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
The Garden of Forking Paths
The Lottery in Babylon
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
The Circular Ruins
The Library of Babel
The Shape of the Sword
Theme of the Traitor and the Hero
Death and the Compass
The Secret Miracle
Three Versions of Judas
The Sect of the Phoenix
The Immortal
The Theologians
Story of the Warrior and the Captive
Emma Zunz
The House of Asterion
Deutsches Requiem
Averroes' Search 148
The Zahir 156
The Waiting 165
The God's Script 169
ESSAYS
The Argentine Writer and Tradition 177
The Wall and the Books 186
The Fearful Sphere o f Pascal 189
Partial Magic in the Quixote 193
Valery as Symbol 197
Kafka and His Precursors 199
Avatars o f the Tortoise 202
The Mirror o f Enigmas 209
A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw 213
A New Refutation of Time 217
PARABLES
Inferno, I, 32 237
Paradiso, XXXI, 108 238
Ragnarok 240
Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote 242
The Witness 243
A Problem 244
Borges and 1 246
Everything and Nothing 248
Elegy 251
CHRONOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chronology 253
Bibliography 257
4. WITH SHUDDERING FALL by Joyce Carol Oates
5. THE BRIGADEER AND THE GOLF WIDOW: Short Stories, by John Cheever
Oh, I of course had to consult online sources for the cotents lists, and was flabbergasted that I couldn't find such for the Cheever collection (which includes "The Swimmer"--probably cheating, as I caught up to Cheever around the time of the paperbacks of THE WORLD OF APPLES and THE SHORT STORIES OF). And yet, amidst much confusion and Trojan horses in my work computer and such, I still managed to pick the wrong "pale" for the Leiber title. And the wrong "aire"...
I can only wonder at the notion of a high-school play version of 1984.
They turned my character from a male to female and all I remember is the two leads talking about rats incessantly.
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (often referred to simply as Baby and Child Care), written by Benjamin Spock, was first published in the year I was born, 1946. I don't think my mother ever read it, but I still have my copy purchased in 1967 when I was pregnant with my first child. It is hopelessly outdated on many things but is an excellent diagnostic tool when anyone has symptoms. I used it to decide to take my ex-husband to the emergency room in 1971, and a few hours later they took out his appendix.
I guess a lot of other books were published in 1946, but this is the one that lasted with me.
Terrie
The following, published in 1945, I have read and enjoyed:
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
Death Comes As the End by Agatha Christie
Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis
The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber
Commodore Hornblower (Horatio Hornblower, #4) by
C.S. Forester
The Short-Wave Mystery (Hardy Boys, #24) by Franklin W. Dixon
The World of Null-A by A.E. Van Vogt
The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain
That was my bible in 1970 and on the whole a good book still.
Rick-Read the first half. Funny I was just talking about Costain who was on the best seller list for years and forgotten today.
Georges Simenon - My Friend Maigret,
WR Burnett - The Asphalt Jungle, George Orwell - 1984,
George R. Stewart -Earth Abides
Rex Stout - Trouble in Triplicate
Surely defining 1960 and me:
Green Eggs and Ham
Dreamtigers
Born Free
Who Will Comfort Toffle?
Tintin in Tibet
Surreal, comic, mystic, magical, wild, free - and comforting :-)
Yes, mine were religious, political, mysterious, satirical and romantic. I has then on there but took them off.
I'm going to have to try that EARTH ABIDES.
Not sure if these do in fact say something about me or just say something about what I would *like* to define me:
The Panda's Thumb, Stephen Jay Gould
The Dream of a Common Language, Adrienne Rich
The Beginning Place, Ursula LeGuin
The Paper Bag Princess, Robert Munsch
The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, Farley Mowat
(I'd *like* to include Midnight's Children or Music for Chameleons, both books I enjoy, but, again, not sure whether they'd define *me*.)
Paperbag Princess-have to look that up. The rest fall right into place. If I ever find a copy of MIDNIGHT'S CHILDREN with print I can make out, I intend to read it.
Isn't this the oddest comment made by the NYT about Paperback PRincess.
Some of the best children's books ever written have been about girls -- like The Paper Bag Princess. (New York Times 200502)
Well, duh!
"The hell you say!" Hmm...what Have I, among others, been saying about the quality of book reviewing in the TIMES, at least of late?
Ah, though THE DOG WHO WOULDN'T BE was published in 1957, and THE PANDA'S THUMB in 1980...is Olivia one of those Unstuck in time folks?
And I see I managed to typo BRIGADIER...sigh. (With THE BEGINNING PLACE, I gather that you, Olivia, are a 1980 birth...I had the Mowat to read in my '70s childhood, along with his later NEVER CRY WOLF, not yet knowing of his contributions to the early more-pacifist-than-anarchist issues of what would become my favorite magazine, OUR GENERATION, then still known as OUR GENERATION AGAINST NUCLEAR WAR...)
My birth year, 1935, saw some good plays, such as Winterset, but only minor novels, such as Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat. But it did yield The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by the mysterious B. Traven, who remained unknown until modern times, which a literary sleuth finally figured out he was a German socialist political refugee in Mexico named Otto Feige.
How about Little House of the Prairie and Studs Lonigan?
Olivia is a young'un and a marine biologist-hence the emphasis on nature. She must have picked a reissued version.
I have no idea, actually, but they are probably either too old or too new for me.
I´ll try to look into it one day when my nose is not running so much I can´t even enjoy a crime novel :(
Going back several posts to respond (sorry!): yes, I just looked online for books published in 1980 and didn't bother to really check if they were reissued. Not so much unstuck in time as just generally unstuck, I guess...
I never thought to check for it either so mine may also date from earlier times.
Great question, Patti! Sorry we were out of town this weekend or I'd have answered it, assuming I could find the list of titles from that ancient year.
I believe it is the same year as Patti but would not reach the same intellectual level.
Here's one that wasn't mentioned:
The Three Little Pigs. A classic by any means.
Jeff M.
1/1/48.
How did I miss that one? Hope you left DC nice and cool for us.
From 1963:
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - John le Carré
Ten Plus One - Ed McBain
The Castafiore Emerald - Hergé
Asterix and Cleopatra - René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo
plus anyone of the four Parker novels by Richard Stark that were published that year (The Man with the Getaway Face/The Outfit/The Mourner/The Score)
It was hot when we left and getting hotter, but then it's supposed to be 95 in New York today and tomorrow so it's not much better.
I'm at the other end of the year; think Thanksgiving.
Have fun in DC. The book will be on its way to you by tomorrow.
Jeff M.
The last two are new to me. THE SPY was such a great book.
As with a couple of Kate's, in fact Kate's TINTIN citation is also a Herge (Tintin was his most popular work), the latter two of Anders' are comics...ASTERIX and TINTIN and the Moomintroll stories including, I believe, WHO WILL COMFORT TOFFLE? and are among the most popular European comics so far, and not by any means solely for children (even if I did first encounter Tintin in the 1960s issues of CHILDREN'S DIGEST).
Which makes me wonder which collections Jules Feiffer and Walt Kelly and Gahan Wilson and Charles Addams might've published in 1964 that I'm foolishly overlooking above...
Everything That Rises Must Converge: F. O’Connor; Dune: D. Herbert; Desolation Angels: J. Kerouac; How to Talk Dirty and Influence People: L.Bruce; and
At Play in the Fields of the Lord: P. Matthiessen...
Nice bunch that year, Kieran. Can't beat Flannery. Is she the best female US writer. Oh, good blog question.
...MUST CONVERGE, officially published 1 January 1965, says Amazon. You see what I'm saying about 1965 and 1963. (Of course, DUNE was published in serial form in ANALOG in 1963 and 1964, but TALK DIRTY was assembled in part out of Bruce's columns for that other Chicago men's magazine, ROGUE, published over the previous several years, too...)
Feiffer's THE EXPLAINERS and Kelly's POGO FOR PRESIDENT both published in '64...
Are you suggesting that O'Connor was the best woman writer, lesser than the best man writer, Patti?
Well, we have to accept that there were less female writers of renown than male writers until the last forty or so years. She probably would rank near the top in any list.
Ah, though renown ain't quality. And there are quite a few who might suggest that a list of, say, O'Connor, Wharton, Parker, Hurston, Welty, Cather, Dawn Powell and KA Porter compares favorably with a list of Hemingway, Dos Passos, Kerouac, Benchley, Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Farrell, Kerouac...and that's not really stacking either deck...
Ha! Though it is repeating a Kerouac...let's throw in Mailer, or Cozzens, two guys on similar trajectories, or even Updike...
Although I would agree as to equal quality, a number of those women are known to few outside the lit bunch. Can we add Carson McCullers, a particular favorite of mine? Dawn Powell hasn't been read outside the classroom, I'd bet. There are probably more British women of letters wisely known than Americans.
widely known but wisely also fits.
Powell's a bit of a ringer, but few read Dreiser or Dos Passos, or certainly Sherwood Anderson, outside the classroom these days, either (when they do bother to read them for class).
Frankly, I suspect that if you quizzed the public general, you'd get as many blank looks for the men as for the women.
The Brit women have had a better support system than, say, the NEW YORK TIMES book misconstrue columns...
When did it all begin to go to wrong.
When was it all that right?
Well, politically never. But there was a time when most of us believed that we needed to read books, see certain movies, listen to new music, support the arts, go to museums, support art and music programs in schools, pay taxes so certain things were available to everyone. I swear my mother's high school education at Olney HS in Philly in 1940 surpasses any college education today. Don;t get me started.
Well...college is what you make of it.
(not a quotation from George W. Bush, Yale, Class of '68.)
And I'm not sure most of us were ever asked much if we should be paying taxes for all that...though in the mid '60s, a whole lot of us were making more money in comparison to what we do today, and at least some of us might've been more inclined to be more generous...albeit the poverty here was even more conveniently tucked away than it is now.
The education my folks got in their small-city Welch, West Virginia and Barre, Vermont high schools in the mid '50s seems to have been comparable to what I received around the turn of the '80s...only even more straitjacketed...I'm not sure what that says, except that, often, school districts will make do. I got to bounce around universities afterward...they didn't take up that option, much.
The Moomintroll comic strip was a spinoff of the novels. The Wikipedia entry for Tove Jansson is pretty good if you want more detailed info. And Todd will be delighted to know that what is widely regarded as the best of the novels - MOOMINPAPPA AT SEA - was published in, ahem, 1965...
Quick and dirty:
To Kill a Mockingbird
Resistance, Rebellion & Death
Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich
Blues Fell This Morning
Babylon Revisited
Green Eggs and Ham
For Your Eyes Only
Formidable selections.
There were all sorts of fine female writers earlier in the 20th century, including Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor, Margaret Mitchell, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Taylor Caldwell, Dame Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Kathleen Norris--and scores more. There were no distinctions between popular and literary fiction at that time, and the women covered the spectrum of literary endeavor.
Actually, there were a lot of people making distinctions between supposedly "serious" and supposedly "merely popular" fiction...and I will also have to take issue with the rating of Taylor Caldwell...she'd rate near the top of my Worst writers who had sustained and popular careers.
This is an interesting discussion.
For me, the five would be:
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler, The Lonliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alan Stillitoe (who died earlier this year), Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth, The Unpleasant Profession of Jonothan Hoag by Robert Heinlein (but that's a novella, isn't it?) and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
What a weird year 1959 was.
Read all of them but the Heinlein book. Loved Duddy and his other books too. Good year, John.
Got here via Clayton Moore, and am enjoying reading. (Love your daughter's books, by the way.)
1964-- I think the Sixties are about to happen:
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man/ Marshall McLuhan
Why We Can't Wait/ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead/Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert
Elements of Semiology/ Roland Barthes
The Terminal Beach/ J.G. Ballard
Got here via Clayton Moore, and am enjoying reading. (Love your daughter's books, by the way.)
1964-- I think the Sixties are about to happen:
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man/ Marshall McLuhan
Why We Can't Wait/ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead/Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert
Elements of Semiology/ Roland Barthes
The Terminal Beach/ J.G. Ballard
Got here via Clayton Moore, and am enjoying reading. (Love your daughter's books, by the way.)
1964-- I think the Sixties are about to happen:
Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man/ Marshall McLuhan
Why We Can't Wait/ Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead/Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzner and Richard Alpert
Elements of Semiology/ Roland Barthes
The Terminal Beach/ J.G. Ballard
Geoff Hopkins-welcome and I hope you will write a review of a forgotten book some week soon. Email me.
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