Reading challenge #1 2025
Milestone reading from 1975
This year, 2025, marks a landmark year for me. So inspired by a post from the fantastic Mr Fables at Feasts and Fables, I have made it into a reading challenge. So 25 books for 2025 published from 1975!
The plan is to get the physical books. Partly as when I eventually get round to building the shelves for the home library these will have a shelf to themselves.
Not sure which will be the main 25 but sourcing has not been as easy, or cheap as I had thought. For example the Stephen King book of Salems Lot was £21 used on World of Books.
Oh well sure it will be fine…
25 BOOKS PUBLISHED IN 1975
In no particular order
The Eagle has landed - Jack Higgins
The great railway bazaar - Paul Theroux
The periodic table - Primo Levi
Factorum - Charles Bukowski
The Philosophy of Any Warhol - Andy Warhol
The house of medicine its rise and fall - Christopher Hibbert
Tao the watercourse way - Alan Watts
Crazy horse and Custer - Stephen Ambrose
Tuck everlasting - Natalie Babbitt
The Grey - Susan cooper (the dark is rising series)
Salem’s lot - Stephen King
Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
The great train robbery - Michael Crichton
Shogun - James Clavell
The complete enchanter- L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
Crocodile on the sandbank - Elizabeth Peters
Dhalgren - Samuel Delaney
Sir Gawain and the green knight, Pearl and Orfeo Tolkien translation
The winds 12 quarters - Ursula le guin
Imperial earth - Arthur C Clark
The Heritage of Hastur - Marion zimmer Bradley ( a novel of Darkover)
The Dracula tape - Fred saberhagen
The Illuminati’s trilogy - Robert Shea and Robert Anton
The sign of the unicorn - Robert Zelany
The Mothman prophecies - John Keel
I've read nine of them--which is surprising, usually I don't read many popular books but the list included a lot of F/SF--and then, of course, I read Shogun as well! The Illuminatus Trilogy proved that it is possible to create under the influence of hallucinogens, and Dahlgren proved that literary does not necessarily = entertaining; can't say I read it since I gave up after about 100 pages. The sympathetic look at homosexuality in The Heritage of Hastur was ground breaking. The Sign of the Unicorn is third in the Amber series, and IMO those are best read in order. The Compleat Enchanter was a fix-up of three related novellas featuring Harold Shea, quite entertaining--and what introduced me to Spenser's Faerie Queen. I no longer remember The Dracula Tape, Salem's Lot, Imperial Earth, or the short stories of The Wind's Twelve Quarters.
The Dracula Tape preceded Interview With the Vampire (Anne Rice) and Hotel Transylvania (Chelsea Quinn Yarbro). IMO that third one is the best of them.