1980

The Wanting of Levine (Michael Halberstam)
The Black Marble (Joseph Wambaugh)
The Red Raven (Lilli Palmer)

TOTAL = 3

1979

The Double Helix (James D. Watson) NF
AKA: A Cosmic Fable (Rob Swigart) SF
Where are the Children? (Mary Higgins Clark)
A Stranger is Watching (Mary Higgins Clark)
Dewey Decimated (Charles A. Goodrum)
Urshurak (Bros. Hildebrandt & Jerry Nichols) fant.
Vulcan (Kathleen Sky) SF
Trek to Madworld (Stephen Goldin)

TOTAL = 8

1978

Foundation and Empire (Isaac Asimov) SF
Walk to the End of the World (Suzy McKee Charnas) SF
Coma (Robin Cook)
Second Foundation (Isaac Asimov) SF
Surgeon Under the Knife (William Nolan, MD) NF
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller) SF
The End of Eternity (Isaac Asimov) SF
The Investigation (Dorothy Uhnak)

TOTAL = 8

1977

Prelude to Space (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio? (Maury Allen) NF
Law and Order (Dorothy Uhnak)
The Currents of Space (Isaac Asimov) SF
The Pitching Staff (Mets) (Steve Jacobson) NF
The Boys from Brazil (Ira Levin)
The City and the Stars (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
The Gemini Contenders (Robert Ludlum)
The Door Into Summer (Robert Heinlein) SF
Behind Closed Doors (Bob Woolf) NF
Pebble in the Sky (Isaac Asimov) SF
Super-Folks (Robert Mayer)
The Secret Word is Groucho (Groucho Marx) NF
The Sword of Shannara (Terry Brooks) fant.
Veeck — As in Wreck (Bill Veeck with Ed Linn) NF
Foundation (Isaac Asimov) SF
Only You, Dick Daring (Merle Miller & Evan Rhodes) NF

TOTAL = 17

1976

Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Childhood's End (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
Star Trek: New Voyages (ed. by S. Marshak & M. Culbreath)
The Other Side of Midnight (Sidney Sheldon)
Watership Down (Richard Adams)
The Gods Themselves (Isaac Asimov) SF
How the Weather Was (Roger Kahn) NF
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (Judith Rossner)
Joe, You Coulda Made us Proud (Joe Pepitone) NF
The Wrong Box (Robert L. Stevenson & Lloyd Osbourne)
Quarterbacks Have All the Fun (Dick Schaap) NF
Baseball is a Funny Game (Joe Garagiola) NF
Shardik (Richard Adams)
The Choirboys (Joseph Wambaugh)
W'ere Going to Make You a Star (Sally Quinn) nF
Without Feathers (Woody Allen) NF
Imperial Earth (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
Curtain (Agatha Christie)

TOTAL = 18

1975

The Great Comic Book Heroes (Jules Feiffer) NF
The Dynamics of Behavior Development: An Epigenetic View (Zing Yang Kuo) NF
The MAD World of William M. Gaines (Frank Jacobs) NF
Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
The Case of the Mid-Wife Toad (Arthur Koestler) NF
Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York (Gail Parent)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
The Rape of the A*P*E* (Allan Sherman) NF
Tonight (Terry Galanoy) NF
All the President's Men (Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward) NF
Cavett (Dick Cavett & Christopher Porterfield) NF

TOTAL = 11

1974

The Boys of Summer (Roger Kahn) NF
The Summer Game (Roger Angell) NF
The Wrong Season (Mets) (Joel Oppenheimer) NF
The Wit and Wisdom of Yogi Berra (Phil Pepe) NF
Screwball (Tug McGraw & Joe Durso) NF
I Managed Good But Boy Did They Play Bad (Jim Bouton with Neil Offen) NF
The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)
The Onion Field (Joseph Wambaugh) NF

TOTAL = 8

1973

M*A*S*H Goes to Maine (Richard Hooker)
Report from Engine Co. 82 (Dennis Smith) NF
Anthem (Ayn Rand)
Semi-Tough (Dan Jenkins)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (John Godey)
Sybil (Flora R. Schreiber) NF
The Blue Knight (Joseph Wambaugh)
Harvest Home (Tom Tryon)
Amen: The Diary of Rabbi Martin Siegel (ed. by Mel Ziegler) NF

TOTAL = 9

1972

The Peter Principle (Dr. Lawrence J. Peter & Raymond Hull)
"Becket" (Jean Anouilh)
The Mephisto Waltz (Fred Mustard Stewart)
The Methuselah Enzyme (Fred Mustard Stewart)
Down the Tube; or, Making Television Commercials is Such a Dog-Eat-Dog Business it's No Wonder They're Called Spots (Terry Galanoy) NF
The Hot Rock (Donald Westlake)
Being There (Jerzy Kosinski)
Getting Even (Woody Allen) NF
FOUL! The Connie Hawkins Story (David Wolf) NF
M*A*S*H (Richard Hooker)
The New Centurians (Joseph Wambaugh)
Confessions of a Basketball Gypsy (Rick Barry) NF
The Incredible Mets (Maury Allen) NF
I'm Glad You Didn't Take it Personally (Jim Bouton) NF
I Am Third (Gayle Sayers) NF
The Perfect Game (Tom Seaver with Dick Schaap) NF
Last to First: The Story of the Mets (Larry Fox) NF
Amazing: The Miracle of the Mets (Joe Durso) NF
Our Gang (Philip Roth)
You'll Like My Mother (Naomi Hintze)
The Possession of Joel Delaney (Ramona Stewart)

TOTAL = 21

1971

Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (Marjorie Kellogg)
Siddhartha (Herman Hesse)
The Revolutionary (Hans Konningsberger)
Tortilla Flat (John Steinbeck)
Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
The Moon is Down (John Steinbeck)
The Making of a Surgeon (William Nolan, MD) NF
Ball Four (Jim Bouton) NF
The Year the Mets Lost Last Place (Paul D. Zimmerman & Dick Schaap) NF
Candide (Voltaire)
Treadmill to Oblivion (Fred Allen)
Gulliver's Travels (Jonathan Swift)
The Republic (Plato) NF
Walden Two (B. F. Skinner)
We (Eugene Zamiatin)
The Other (Tom Tryon)

TOTAL = 16

1970

The Conversion of Chaplain Cohen (Herbert Tarr) NF
This Simian World (Clarence Day) NF
The Groucho Letters (Groucho Marx) NF
"The Man Who Came to Dinner" (George Kaufman and Moss Hart)
"George Washington Slept Here" (George Kaufman and Moss Hart)
Funny Men Don't Laugh (Arnold Auerbach) NF
Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
Life with Groucho (Arthur Marx) NF
The Marx Brothers (Kyle Crichton) NF
Harpo Speaks! (Harpo Marx) NF
"Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid" (William Goldman)
The Fine Art of Hypochondria or How Are You? (Goodman Ace)
Bigger Than a Breadbox (Steve Allen)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Arthur C. Clarke) SF
The Best of S. J. Perelman (S.J. Perelman)NF
Sweet Thursday (John Steinbeck)
Cannery Row (John Steinbeck)
"Waiting for Godot" (Samuel Becket)
Love Story (Erich Segal)
"Anthony & Cleopatra" (William Shakespeare)
Where's Poppa? (Robert Klane)
Our Mutual Friend (Charles Dickens)

TOTAL = 22

1969

Main Street (Sinclair Lewis)
My Life as a Small Boy (Wally Cox) NF
The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
Lust for Life (Irving Stone)
Washington Square (Henry James)
"Hamlet" (William Shakespeare)
Heaven Help Us (Herbert Tarr) NF
"The Autumn Garden" (Lillian Hellman)
"Tea and Sympathy" (Robert Anderson)
"The Zoo Story" (Edward Albee)

TOTAL = 10

1968

The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy)
To Sir, With Love (Edward Ricardo Braithwaite)
"Romeo and Juliet" (William Shakespeare)
The Call of the Wild (Jack London)
Albert Schweitzer's Gift of Friendship (Erica Anderson) NF
"Julius Caesar" (William Shakespeare)
The Illustrated Man (Ray Bradbury) SF
Rosemary's Baby (Ira Levin)
New Stories from the "Twilight Zone" (Rod Serling)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
Life with Father / Life with Mother (Clarence Day) NF
The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
The House of Seven Gables (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)


TOTAL = 15

1967

A Patch of Blue (Elizabeth Kata)
1984 (George Orwell)
Animal Farm (George Orwell)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury) SF
Karen (Maria Killilea) NF
With Love From Karen (Maria Killilea) NF
Up the Down Staircase (Bel Kaufman) NF
The Fixer (Bernard Malamud)
Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
The Return of the Native (Thomas Hardy)
Rebirth (John Wyndham) SF

TOTAL = 12

1966

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Mama's Bank Account (Kathryn McLean (Forbes)
Rip Van Winkle (Washington Irving)
"Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmund Rostand)
My Sister Eileen (Mary McKinley)
8 Tales of Terror (Edgar Allan Poe)
10 Great Mysteries (Edgar Allan Poe)
Tales (Edgar Allan Poe)
(a collection of O. Henry short stories)
"Pygmalion" (George Bernard Shaw)
Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (James Hilton)
Stories from the "Twilight Zone " (Rod Serling)
More Stories from the "Twilight Zone" (Rod Serling)
Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)

TOTAL = 15

1965

Goldfinger (Ian Fleming)
Thunderball (Ian Fleming)
From Russian With Love (Ian Fleming)
Dr. No (Ian Fleming)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (Ian Fleming)
You Only Live Twice (Ian Fleming)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne) SF
"Inherit the Wind" (Jerome Lawrence & Robert E. Lee)
The Human Comedy (William Saroyan)
National Velvet (Enid Bagnold)
Anna and the King of Siam (Margaret Landon)
The Trapp Family Singers (Maria Von Trapp) NF
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank) NF
The Incredible Journey (Sheila Burnford)

TOTAL = 15

YOUNG ADULT Titles

These books were read after I became a Young Adult Specialist librarian in 1983. I continue to read them on occasion. These are not all I've read; just the ones I liked most. Some YA and Children's titles also appear in the annual lists. Oh, and I switched to the Adult specialty in 1990.

Ace Hits the Bigtime (Barbara Bessley Murphy & Judy Wolkoff)
Ace Hits Rock Bottom (Barbara Bessley Murphy & Judy Wolkoff)
The Mark of Conte (Sonia Levitin)
Hangin' Out with Cici (Francine Pascal)
My First Love and Other Disasters (Francine Pascal)
No Scarlet Ribbons (Susan Terris)
The Creep (Susan Dodson)
Shadows Across the Sand (Susan Dodson)
Not Just Another Pretty Face (Peter Filichia)
Hard Love (Cynthia D. Grant)
Perdita (Isabelle Holland)
Brother Jonathan (Crawford Killian) SF
The Arizona Kid (Ron Koertge)
Take it Easy (Steven Kroll)
Buck (Tamela Larimer)
I'm Still Me (Betty Jean Lifton)
Downtown (Norma Fox Mazer)
The Dog Days of Arthur Cane (T. Ernesto Bethancourt)
The Alfred G. Graebner Memorial High School Handbook of Rules and Regulations (Ellen Conford)
The Fat Girl (Marilyn Sachs)
Fourteen
The Shell Lady's Daughter (C.S. Adler)
Someone is Hiding on Alcatraz Island (Eve Bunting)
Wart, Son of Toad (Alden R. Carter)
Up Country (Alden R. Carter)
Say Goodnight, Gracie (Julie Reece Deaver)
Morning Glory Afternoon (Irene Bennett Brown)
Cold Feet (Gen LeRoy)
Winning Kicker (Thomas J. Dygard)
Blissful Joy and the SATs (Sheila Greenwald)
Taking Terri Mueller (Norma Fox Mazer)
The Chemist Who Lost His Head (Vivan Grey) [biography of LaVoisier]
Chiseling the Earth (R.V. Fodor) NF
The Trembling Earth (Frederic Golden) NF
The Brooklyn Bridge: They Said it Couldn't be Done (Judith St. George) NF
Chinese Handcuffs (Chris Crutcher)
The Truth Trap (Frances A. Miller)
Aren't You the One Who? (Frances A. Miller)
Losers and Winners (Frances A. Miller)
Cutting Loose (Frances A. Miller)
The Ghost Belonged to Me (Richard Peck)
Ghosts I Have Been (Richard Peck)
The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp (Richard Peck)
Fallen Angels (Walter Dean Myers)
Love Letters to my Fans (Jackie Parker)
Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars (Daniel M. Pinkwater)
The Girl in the Grass (David Roth)
Last Seen on Hopper's Lane (Janet Allais Stegeman)
Izzy Willy-Nilly (Cynthia Voigt)
Dicey's Song (Cynthia Voigt)
A Solitary Blue (Cynthia Voigt)
Homecoming (Cynthia Voigt)
Wolf of Shadows (Whitley Strieber) SF
Z for Zachariah (Robert C. O'Brien) SF
The Girl in the Box (Ouida Sebestyen)
The Burning of the General Slocum (Claude Rust) NF
The Keeper of the Isis Light (Monica Hughes) SF
The Guardian of Isis (Monica Hughes) SF
The Isis Pedlar (Monica Hughes) SF
From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsburg) Juv
The Amazing and Death-Defying Diary of Eugene Dingman (Paul Zindel)
Futuretrack 5 (Robert Westall) SF
Lifter (Crawford Killian) SF
Holes (Louis Sachar) Juv
Uncle Vampire
Hero (S.L. Rottman)
Stetson (S.L. Rottman)

AGATHA CHRISTIE Mysteries

I read the following books from 1963 (age 10) to 1969, with a few stragglers in later years.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Mystery of the Blue Train
So Many Steps to Death
A Murder is Announced
The Hollow
Funerals Are Fatal
Murder in Mesopotamia
Death on the Nile
A Pocketful of Rye
Dead Man's Folly
The Mirror Crack'd (the only one I actually figured out whodunit)
The Pale Horse
The Moustrap (and Other Stories)
Thirteen at Dinner
Mrs. McGinty's Dead
Hickory Dickory Death
The Mystery of the Orient Express (originally, The Mystery of the Calais Coach)
The 12 Labors of Hercules
Appointment With Death
Curtain

What the Heck is This?

I've decided to put my reading journal online. Until now, it resided only in a blank book I was gifted with many years ago, around 1970, I think. It has a gnome motif and is called a Gnome Gnotebook. I am continuing to write in it, given it's barely half full, but thought I could share its contents here because, well, I'm addicted to blogging, if you haven't guessed. Once all the previous years have been entered here, I'll add to it as I add each book I finish reading, similar to the list I maintain on Shelly's Book Shelf. And when I list a book (in more recent years) that I've reviewed there, I'll hotlink it.

My reading journal is not detailed. I list title, author, and make note if SF (science fiction), and NF (non-fiction). Genre can be iffy at times (lots of times), so this is a hit or miss thing. I don't expect everyone to agree with what I include in SF or exclude. And genre is even fuzzier when it comes to separating mysteries from suspense or thrillers or spy fiction, so I never indicated those, nor horror.

I do not rate books. I don't like comparing if I can help it, which is what a rating system boils down to. I expect each book I read to stand on its own and I judge them on that basis. What I look for in my reviews is whether or not I liked the book and if so, did it have an emotional impact on me? Did it grab me by the heart and did I need to forcibly sever the connection when I reached the last sentence? If I have time, I'll try to add a comment for each title to indicate if I liked or didn't like the book. For this, I need to trust my admittedly spotted memory, but then, that will depend on how memorable the books were.

In addition, it seems that I didn't write down everything I read, merely the ones I wanted to remember. As luck would have it, I actually remember reading books I don't see listed. A few that I knew I read, I entered in years close to when I think I read them. Others, I will probably leave out. Not recorded are the hundreds of children's mystery series books I devoured: Nancy Drew, The Dana Girls, Trixie Beldon, a few Judy Bolton and Kay Tracy mysteries, plus The Bobbsey Twins (my younger sister's books), Clara Barton, Cherry Ames, a couple of Happy Holisters, even the Hardy Boys books I read as an adult.

My reviews, which don't date back further than sometime last year, over on Shelly's Book Shelf, will tell you in detail if I liked something. You'll also note the link in the sidebar for My Favorite Books. I'm not good at picking just a few favorites of anything, mostly, so the lists, which are by genre, are rather long.

At any rate, if you stop by, I hope you find a title or two that intrigues you enough to give it or them a try. After all, that's a big part of why we share online what we read.