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Last week, I had lists of books and plays from the 60’s. This week is the 70’s.
Looking at my latest Science Fiction and Fantasy catalog that I have ordered from for many, many years and which saved my life in the 70’s when I lived in a rural area with no bookstores and a tiny library that could not afford series books, I was appalled. I still order from them when I can, but there are so many books that are just…well, it reminds me of when I was young and people thought science fiction and fantasy were only pulp fiction.
As I said last week, I looked at the 100 best sellers list at Barnes & Noble and also winced.
This is why I am looking back at older books and hoping they have not been forgotten and can still be found for younger readers to enjoy.
Please add your favorites from the list as I only list my own.
Wiki has lists: (I have not read all of these, but they are ones that I heard about at the time or books that posters here have mentioned)
1970
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Judy Blume – Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret
Robertson Davies – Fifth Business The first book of the Deptford Trilogy
Ernest Hemingway – Islands in the Stream
Toni Morrison – The Bluest Eye
Larry Niven – Ringworld
John Jay Osborn, Jr. – The Paper Chase
Mary Stewart – The Crystal Cave
Leon Uris – QB VII
E. B. White – The Trumpet Of The Swan
Roger Zelazny – Nine Princes in Amber
Dee Brown – Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
Henri Charrière – Papillon
Note: from wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Charrière supposedly had a reputation as a great fantasizer and storyteller. Thus, Papillon can be said to be more about a fictional character than the author himself. Charrière himself always maintained that his account was accurate and true, and that the story was dictated by him to a professional writer who put it in writing. However, in an interview before he died, the publisher, Robert Laffont, admitted that the book was originally submitted to him as a novel. Laffont specialised in real-life adventures, and persuaded Charrière to release it as if it were an autobiography. The book's title was based on Charrière's nickname, derived from a butterfly tattoo on his chest, papillon being the French word for 'butterfly'.
1971
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Frederick Forsyth – The Day of the Jackal
Ernest J. Gaines – The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
John Gardner – Grendel
Ursula K. Le Guin – The Lathe of Heaven
Alexander Solzhenitsyn – August 1914
Wallace Stegner – Angle of Repose
Herman Wouk – The Winds of War
Carlos Castaneda – A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan
1972
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Richard Adams – Watership Down
Italo Calvino – Invisible Cities
Robertson Davies – The Manticore
R. F. Delderfield – To Serve Them All My Days
Frederick Forsyth – The Odessa File
James Herriot – All Creatures Great and Small
Chaim Potok – My Name is Asher Lev
1973
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
William Goldman – The Princess Bride
Graham Greene - The Honorary Consul
Toni Morrison – Sula
Iris Murdoch – The Black Prince
Robert B. Parker – The Godwulf Manuscript
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Thomas Pynchon – Gravity's Rainbow
Gore Vidal – Burr
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – Breakfast of Champions
1974
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Peter Benchley - Jaws
Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
John le Carré - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed
Madeleine L'Engle - A Wind in the Door
James A. Michener - Centennial
Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward – All the President's Men
Piers Paul Read - Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors
Lewis Thomas – The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
Joseph Wambaugh - The Onion Field
1975
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Edward Abbey – The Monkey Wrench Gang
Natalie Babbitt – Tuck Everlasting
James Clavell – Shōgun
Michael Crichton – The Great Train Robbery
Robertson Davies – World of Wonders
Samuel R. Delany – Dhalgren
E. L. Doctorow – Ragtime
Elizabeth Peters – Crocodile on the Sandbank (the first in the Amelia Peabody series)
Judith Rossner – Looking for Mister Goodbar
Joseph Wambaugh – The Choirboys
Paul Theroux – The Great Railway Bazaar
1976
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Judy Blume
Blubber
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing
Erma Bombeck – The Grass is Always Greener over the Septic Tank
Judith Guest – Ordinary People
Alex Haley – Roots: The Saga of an American Family
Leon Uris – Trinity
Richard Dawkins – The Selfish Gene
Simon Wiesenthal – The Sunflower
1977
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Marilyn French – The Women's Room
Toni Morrison – Song of Solomon
P. G. Wodehouse – Sunset at Blandings (posthumous)
1978
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Nelson DeMille – By the Rivers of Babylon
Graham Greene – The Human Factor
John Irving – The World According to Garp
M. M. Kaye – The Far Pavilions
Stephen King – The Stand
James A. Michener – Chesapeake
Tim O'Brien – Going After Cacciato
Herman Wouk – War and Remembrance
1979
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
John le Carré – Smiley's People
Morgan Llywelyn – Lion of Ireland: The Legend of Brian Boru
Mary Stewart – The Last Enchantment
William Styron – Sophie's Choice
Roger Zelazny -Roadmarks
Trevanian -Shibumi
David Attenborough – Life on Earth
I have read 46 of these.
Please share your favorites and ones I did not list.
Diaries of the Week:
Write On! Revising, scene by scene
by SensibleShoes
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Thursday Classical Music: Tschaikowsky Trio
by ramara
http://www.dailykos.com/...
NOTE: plf515 has book talk on Wednesday mornings early