Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum

Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Hi all, please see this major site announcement: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058427594/boards-ie-2026

84 books from 1984 read by a guy from 1984

  • 07-01-2015 11:57PM
    #1
    OwaynOTT
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,657 ✭✭✭✭


    Thought I'd read Necromancer by William Gibson and saw that it was published in 1984, which is my year of birth.
    So why not read 84 books published in the year 1984 in the next 12 months?
    I was going to do a 100 in the year but eyeing as I read maybe 15 last I thought I'd try something more reachable.
    Hopefully it was a good year.
    So far, apart from Neuromancer, I have found Thinner by Richard Bachman and the first in the Dragonlance Chronicles and The Black Company series.


Comments

  • #2
    wreade1872
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 362 ✭✭wreade1872


    I don't know which would be more difficult, reading 84 books in a year or finding 84 books from the same year that are worth reading :) .

    Anyway good luck i have a few suggestions:
    Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
    Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
    The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (haven't read this one, on my to-do list)


  • #3
    OwaynOTT
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,657 ✭✭✭✭OwaynOTT


    wreade1872 wrote: »
    I don't know which would be more difficult, reading 84 books in a year or finding 84 books from the same year that are worth reading :) .

    Anyway good luck i have a few suggestions:
    Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
    Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
    The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (haven't read this one, on my to-do list)

    I only had John Updike's book on my list, so thanks for the other suggestions.
    Reading 84 might be difficult but finding 84 books worth reading is proving difficult.
    I have 20 possible books identified.
    Anyone else have suggestions?


  • #4
    Wyldwood
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,165 ✭✭✭Wyldwood


    Plenty of choice here

    https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/108.Best_Books_of_1984


  • #5
    wreade1872
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 362 ✭✭wreade1872


    If you get desperate you can always resort to gamebooks or comics :D . They have writing in them they still count ;) .

    There's at least 6 fighting-fantasy from that year
    Deathtrap Dungeon
    Island of the Lizard King
    Scorpion Swamp
    Caverns of the Snow Witch
    House of Hell
    Talisman of Death

    aswell as Alan Moore's famous run on Swamp-Thing.

    I meant this as a joke but now that i think about it, it would be almost appropriate, a sort of broad cultural view of the literature of '84 :) .


  • #6
    OwaynOTT
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,657 ✭✭✭✭OwaynOTT


    wreade1872 wrote: »
    If you get desperate you can always resort to gamebooks or comics :D . They have writing in them they still count ;) .

    There's at least 6 fighting-fantasy from that year
    Deathtrap Dungeon
    Island of the Lizard King
    Scorpion Swamp
    Caverns of the Snow Witch
    House of Hell
    Talisman of Death

    aswell as Alan Moore's famous run on Swamp-Thing.

    I meant this as a joke but now that i think about it, it would be almost appropriate, a sort of broad cultural view of the literature of '84 :) .

    Swamp thing might be a go and TMNT was first issued as a comic in 1984 as well. Trying to stay away from comics but your argument in trying to gather a truer and wider representation of the cultural view of 1984 is persuasive.


  • Advertisement
  • #7
    OwaynOTT
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,657 ✭✭✭✭OwaynOTT


    Finished Neuromancer by Gibson and wasn't overly impressed by it but maybe I had to high expectations.
    Obviously it was a trailblazing novel for its time but it feels a bit unorignal when its read today, thanks to everything it has influenced in the years since its publication.
    Still a enjoyable enough novel and my first book down in my quest to read 84 books from 1984 this year.

    Currently reading Wasp Factory by Iain Banks, another book published in 1984 and his first to be released if I'm not mistaken.
    Half way thorugh it and I haven't read anything like it before and it holds up much better than Neuromancer, so far.

    Next up is David Gemmell's Legend, again first released in 1984, and it will be my first book by that author. Looking forward to it.

    Some good fantasy books released in 1984 or highly influential ones with The Black Company and Dragonlance Chronicles both getting the series released in that year.


Advertisement