Top 10 Tuesday: The Backlist

August 1: Forgotten Backlist Titles (Spread love for books that people don’t talk about much anymore!)

I resisted the urge to make a list of Stephen King’s early works. 😁

1

Fight Club by Chuck Palhniuk

First published August 1, 1996

“The first rule about fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.” Chuck Palahniuk’s outrageous and startling debut novel that exploded American literature and spawned a movement. Every weekend, in the basements and parking lots of bars across the country, young men with white-collar jobs and failed lives take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded just as long as they have to.

goodreads

Yes, the movie was good. The book is even better with an eerie open-ended ending.

2

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

First published July 1, 1954

The population of the entire world has been obliterated by a pandemic of vampire bacteria. Yet somehow, Robert Neville survived. He must now struggle to make sense of what happened and learn to protect himself against the vampires who hunt him nightly.
 
As months of scavenging and hiding turn to years marked by depression and alcoholism, Robert spends his days hunting his tormentors and researching the cause of their affliction. But the more he discovers about the vampires around him, the more he sees the unsettling truth of who is—and who is not—a monster.

goodreads

3

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

First published January 1, 1895

… the Time Traveller’s astonishing firsthand account of his journey 800,000 years beyond his own era …A pull of the Time Machine’s lever propels him to the age of a slowly dying Earth.  There he discovers two bizarre races—the ethereal Eloi and the subterranean Morlocks—who not only symbolize the duality of human nature but offer a terrifying portrait of the men of tomorrow as well. 

Goodreads

Did H.G. Wells know about climate change? Regardless, Wells’ stories are always worth a read. He has a conversational writing style (or a writing style that sounds like oral story telling): only the information you really need to move the story forward and understand the circumstances is included. Not “literary” just damn good story telling.

4

Kindred by Octavia E. Butler

First published January 1, 1979

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana’s life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

goodreads

A terrifying time-travel story. It is also great historical fiction.

5

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

First published January 1, 1949

… a fictional small American community which observes an annual tradition known as “the lottery”, in which a member of the community is selected by chance and stoned to death to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though what actually happens to the selected person is not revealed until the end.

wikipedia

A literary horror story – it doesn’t get any better than this. ❤️

6

Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

First published January 1, 1963

In this simian world, civilization is turned upside down: apes are men and men are apes; apes rule and men run wild; apes think, speak, produce, wear clothes, and men are speechless, naked, exhibited at fairs, used for biological research. On the planet of the apes, man, having reached to apotheosis of his genius, has become inert.

To this planet come a journalist and a scientist. The scientist is put into a zoo, the journalist into a laboratory.

goodreads

I started reading this book one evening and literally kept reading through the night until it was finished. I never felt tired or worried about how I was going to function at work the next day. 🤣 It is one of those stories that I wish I could read for the first time over and over.

The pacing was perfect, with no extra words about anything. The only other book that I have ever read that comes close to this perfection would be To Kill a Mockingbird.

7

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot – First published January 1, 1972

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot – First published August 15, 1974

All Things Wise and Wonderful by James Herriot – First published November 1, 1976

Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world’s most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients.

… For decades, Herriot roamed the remote, beautiful Yorkshire Dales, treating every patient that came his way from smallest to largest, and observing animals and humans alike with his keen, loving eye.

goodreads

Great storytelling and great stories. ❤️❤️❤️

8

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg

First published January 1, 1964

Chronicles the three-year battle of a mentally ill, but perceptive, teenage girl against a world of her own creation, emphasizing her relationship with the doctor who gave her the ammunition of self-understanding with which to help herself.

” … to give a picture of what being schizophrenic feels like and what can be accomplished with a trusting relationship between a gifted therapist and a willing patient. It is not a case history or study. I like to think it is a hymn to reality.” —Joanne Greenberg

goodreads

A fictionalized version of what the author herself went through, beautifully written. I wonder if young people today even know this book exists.

9

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

First published January 1, 1984

… the story of two couples, a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing, and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. In a world in which lives are shaped by irrevocable choices and by fortuitous events, a world in which everything occurs but once, existence seems to lose its substance, its weight. Hence, we feel “the unbearable lightness of being” not only as the consequence of our pristine actions but also in the public sphere, and the two inevitably intertwine.

goodreads

10

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

First published October 1, 1962

It’s America in 1962. Slavery is legal once again. The few Jews who still survive hide under assumed names. In San Francisco, the I Ching is as common as the Yellow Pages. All because some twenty years earlier the United States lost a war—and is now occupied by Nazi Germany and Japan.

Goodreads

Actual picture of me after reading The Man in the High Castle: 🤯

As a U.S. citizen, I wonder about the alt-history fiction to be written in the future especially the January 6th alt-history stories.

Thoughts

I know there are so many more.