In 2012 I read an even 80 books, a new personal best as an adult. Friday’s column is about this, and about books, long and short. Since I began reading intensively again, I’ve logged 60 in 2011, 52 in 2010 and 58 in 2009. In four years, then, I’ve read 250 books. Mostly I read fiction, often classic science fiction, with some pulp and literary stuff thrown into the mix, but a few nonfiction and art books crept in.
Authors most represented in 2012: two each by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Sean Howe, Jonathan Lethem and Mike Royko; three each by A. Conan Doyle and Robert A. Heinlein; four each by Philip K. Dick and Sax Rohmer; five by Ray Bradbury; and eight by Harlan Ellison. (How many people read eight Ellisons last year?) Embarrassingly, I didn’t get to any by my boy Mark Twain last year, other than about 70 pages of essays, but I plan to start “A Tramp Abroad” any day now.
1. “I, Robot,” Isaac Asimov
2. “Like I Was Sayin’,” Mike Royko
3. “I Wouldn’t Have Missed It,” Ogden Nash
4. “Soon I Will Be Invincible,” Austin Grossman
5. “I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon,” Philip K. Dick
6. “I’ll Mature When I’m Dead,” Dave Barry
7. “I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay,” Harlan Ellison
8. “As I Lay Dying,” William Faulkner
9. “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” Harlan Ellison
10. “Take My Picture Gary Leonard,” Gary Leonard
11. “Party of One: A Loner’s Manifesto,” Anneli Rufus
12. “The Pleasure of My Company,” Steve Martin
13. “This Shape We’re In,” Jonathan Lethem
14. “Common Ground: Ceramics in Southern California 1945-1975,” AMOCA
15. “Aldo Casanova: A Retrospective,” Scripps College
16. “The Valley of Fear,” A. Conan Doyle
17. “The Space Merchants,” Frederick Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth
18. “Starburst,” Alfred Bester
19. “If on a winter’s night a traveler,” Italo Calvino
20. “Summer Morning, Summer Night,” Ray Bradbury
21. “Switch on the Night,” Ray Bradbury
22. “Like the Night (revisited),” C.P. Lee
23. “Sleepless Nights in the Procrustean Bed,” Harlan Ellison
24. “Last Night at the Lobster,” Stewart O’Nan
25. “Night,” Elie Wiesel
26. “One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko,” Mike Royko
27. “Double Star,” Robert Heinlein
28. “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch,” Philip K. Dick
29. “The Man With Nine Lives,” Harlan Ellison
30. “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew,” Robert Benchley
31. “Going Like Sixty,” Richard Armour
32. “1000 Record Covers,” Michael Ochs
33. “Robert Fawcett, the Illustrator’s Illustrator,” Manuel Auad, ed.
34. “Grand Master of Fantasy: The Paintings of J. Allen St. John,” Stephen Korshak
35. “Doonesbury and the Art of G.B. Trudeau,” Brian Walker
36. “His Last Bow,” A. Conan Doyle
37. “Fear of Music,” Jonathan Lethem
38. “Paul’s Boutique,” Dan LeRoy
39. “The Devil’s Advocate, an Ambrose Bierce Reader,” Brian St. Pierre, ed.
40. “Press Boners,” Earle Tempel
41. “Bugf#ck: The Useless Wit and Wisdom of Harlan Ellison,” Arnie Fenner, ed.
42. “Barrel Fever,” David Sedaris
43. “Children of the Streets,” Harlan Ellison
44. “The Son of Tarzan,” Edgar Rice Burroughs
45. “Daughter of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
46. “Methuselah’s Children,” Robert A. Heinlein
47. “Orphans of the Sky,” Robert A. Heinlein
48. “A Memory of Murder,” Ray Bradbury
49. “A Medicine for Melancholy,” Ray Bradbury
50. “At the Mountains of Madness,” H.P. Lovecraft
51. “Mail-Order Mysteries,” Kirk Demarais
52. “The Mad Morality,” Vernard Eller
53. “Of Mice and Men,” John Steinbeck
54. “The Marx Brothers at the Movies,” Paul Zimmerman and Burt Goldblatt
55. “The Mask of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
56. “Men Without Women,” Ernest Hemingway
57. “The Illustrated Man,” Ray Bradbury
58. “The Bride of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
59. “Partners in Wonder,” Harlan Ellison
60. “Family Man,” Calvin Trillin
61. “The Man in the Maze,” Robert Silverberg
62. “A Maze of Death,” Philip K. Dick
63. “The Man in the High Castle,” Philip K. Dick
64. “The Trail of Fu Manchu,” Sax Rohmer
65. “Lost and Found,” Elizabeth Pomeroy
66. “Lost and Found 2,” Elizabeth Pomeroy
67. “Weird Heroes Vol. 1,” Byron Preiss, ed.
68. “Zorro,” Isabel Allende
69. “The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes,” A. Conan Doyle
70. “Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar,” Edgar Rice Burroughs
71. “Doomsman/Telepower,” Harlan Ellison/Lee Hoffman
72. “My L.A.,” Matt Weinstock
73. “Orange County,” Gustavo Arellano
74. “Farewell to Manzanar,” Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James Houston
75. “Translating L.A.,” Peter Theroux
76. “This is Claremont,” Harold Davis, editor
77. “Ancient L.A.,” Michael Rochlin
78. “Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers!,” Sean Howe, ed.
79. “Marvel Comics: The Untold Story,” Sean Howe
80. “Marvel Comics in the 1970s,” Pierre Comtois
