Books my father read

Here are some books my father had, those I can remember seeing or still have in my possession. He was an avid reader, so he probably read most of the non-reference ones.

• 1500s:
  • 1543: Vesalius: De humani corporis fabrica
  • 1599: Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
• 1600s:
  • 1616: Shakespeare: Complete Works – I still have this one!
• 1700s:
• 1800s:
• 1900s:
  • 1930s
    • 1933: George Morey Miller, editor: English Literature (6 volumes, up to the Victorians)
    • 1939: L. Sprague de Camp: Lest Darkness Fall (pictured)
  • 1940s
  • 1950s
    • book of logarithms and other mathematical tables
    • books on dinosaurs and geology
    • 1953: Winston Churchill: The Second World War – not sure if he had all 6 volumes.
    • 1953: L. Sprague de Camp: The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens
    • 1957: Lands and Peoples – 7 volumes, one on each part of the world.
    • 1958: Encyclopedia Americana and their yearbooks from at least 1965 to 1973.
    • 1958: Winnie ille Pu – Winnie the Pooh in Latin
    • 1958: A. Wolf: A History of Science, Technology, & Philosophy in the 18th Century – I have this one. There is no other way I would remember it.
  • 1960s
    • Russian-English dictionary – olive and white cover, it was falling apart!
    • a book on calculus
    • a medical dictionary
    • a book about Archimedes
    • Catholic missal – but I do not remember him having a Bible, though.
    • 1961: Webster’s Third New International Dictionary – in three huge volumes.
    • 1962: Thomas B. Costain: The Last Plantagenets
    • 1964: The Flammarion Book of Astronomy – I adored this book, with its tantalizingly fuzzy pictures of the planets.
    • 1964: Patrick Moore: The Sky at Night
    • 1965: Fowler’s Modern American Usage
    • 1965: Isaac Asimov: Of Time and Space and Other Things
    • 1966: Random House Dictionary
    • 1966: James T. deKay: The Left-Handed Book
    • 1967: Desmond Morris: Naked Ape
    • 1968: Columbia Viking Desk Encyclopedia
    • 1968: Nancy Kennedy: Ford Times Cookbook
    • 1968: Brian Moore: I am Mary Dunne
    • 1968: Louis Auchincloss: A World of Profit
    • 1969: Michael Crichton: The Andromeda Strain – I am pretty sure read this.
    • 1969: Dr Laurence J. Peter: The Peter Principle
  • 1970s
    • Poul Anderson paperback novels – inhaled.
    • 1970: Lewis Mumford: The Pentagon of Power
    • 1970: Nancy Milford: Zelda – my sister said he read this.
    • 1971: Michael Moorcock: The Warlord of the Air – I read this in 2020
    • 1973: Kurt Vonnegut: Breakfast of Champions
    • 1974: Annie Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
    • 1974: Michael Shaara: The Killer Angels – about the Battle of Gettysburg. I know he read this.
    • 1974: Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle: The Mote in God’s Eye – I know he read this one too.
    • 1975: E.L. Doctorow: Ragtime
    • 1979: William Shawcross: Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon & the Destruction of Cambodia
  • 1980s:
    • 1984: Larry Niven: Integral Trees
    • 1988: Isaac Asimov: Prelude to Foundation

Magazines: Science, Scientific American, National Geographic, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Byte.

Books that seem out of place are probably my mother’s or were book club selections they did not send back in time. My mother, though, was more a magazine reader.

Because I liked science, science fiction and reference books, I was more likely to notice and remember those. He had over 500 books, so I would not draw any cosmic conclusions about what does not appear in this list! He had more books than anyone I knew before I went to university.

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• books
• Lost book covers – mentions some of these
• Books I was made to read at school
• US magazines in the 1970s
• My 1970s media diet

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