Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1972

Have a lot of love for Tove Jansson, and it would be appropriate to vote for The Summer Book on this glorious day of sunshine, but I'll throw a vote to "Journey Through A Small Planet" by Emanuel Livtinoff. Great evocation of growing up Jewish in London during the 30's - the bit that stuck with me the most was how the protagonist had one schoolyard friend, an Italian who also got picked on for not being True English, but then Mussolini came to power and the Italian kid stopped talking to him.

I like the Atwood and Drabble and Berger choices.

But have to go with Calvino here. That's a wonderful little book that you can dip into and out of. There are pleasures on every page.

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino
Triptricks by Ann Quin

Probably Roadside picnic.

Love to read Mumbo Jumbo someday!

should really put my glasses on, thought that Green Darkness was written by Ayrton Senna for a moment.

Having a hard time choosing between the Strugatskys and Calvino, Le Guin too but I've voted for her in previous polls so she can sit this one out. The only other one I've read is Charlie And The Great Glass Elevator, which comes a distant fourth even with the Vermicious Knids and Shanks, Shuckworth & Showler (the only two things I remember about it).

as a a big quin devotee have to say i struggled with triptricks

Calvino. Lovely concept and execution, timeless yet modern, etc.

Reading the recent translation from Wakefield of Waystations of the Deep Night by Marcel Brion, a collection of "weird" short stories originally published in 1942, it struck me that the title story could well have influenced Calvino.

haven't read any of these! been meaning to get around to calvino forever

Mumbo Jumbo for me: jazzy satire instigated by Voudon elements, with an alt-historical cinematic quality, kinda low-key, deadpan, with good timing.
Haven't yet read Revolt of the Cockroach People, which is about a Brown Power campaign, as recounted by activist Oscar Zeta Acosta, whose Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo is pretty amazing---he's the basis for the attorney in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

challop: Roadside Picnic is better than Stalker

The Christopher Priest is excellent but should probably go for Strugatskys or Calvino.

Although just seen Surfacing - the only Atwood I've ever really connected with.

summer book & invisible cities are neck & neck, & share something that i can't put my finger on, a light touch maybe. can't decide between them. i enjoyed tripticks as well though not at the same level, which remains the only quin i've read yet.

No one's mentioned Watership Down, which got my vote.

Watership Down is highly beloved by many ilxors, as shown when it gets mentioned in other threads, but like many well-known books it is the film or television adaptation that dominates the conversation. I reread it a couple of years ago and can see why it, like Tolkien, would make an oversize impression on young adults. That's an age that responds strongly to mythos and both Adams and Tolkien incorporate mythic elements extremely well. It may well win the poll.

I voted Tove Jansson's Summer Book, but I also strongly considered The Manticore.

The Polo/Khan sections of Invisible Cities are Calvino's very best writing IMO. The cities parts are fun but a bit tedious, but this book gets my vote.

Honorable mention to "August 1914" which is top tier Solzhenitsyn IMO.

That Dahl book is terrible.

One more IMO than I intended in that last post.

as a a big quin devotee have to say i struggled with triptricks

― devvvine

Yeah, I think it's her weakest. It feels like an attempt at furthering her style that just falls a bit flat. I always say it's her only properly post-modern novel, though that in itself isn't the problem, and I would probably still vote for it as a Good book that doesn't quite hit Great, but there are several other amazing things to vote for here.

Really tempted to give Mumbo Jumbo my vote, as its innovations are so effortless and fun and I fear it will be overlooked, but my heart belongs to Invisible Cities, honestly. Roadside Picnic and Watership Down both strong contenders too.

Shamefully I've only read "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator". By any reasonable standard its not one of Dahl's better books. He rarely wrote sequels but I guess he made an exception in this case, perhaps it had something to with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" being his best-selling book. Perhaps to compensate, he made this one of his silliest books that I know of, indulging in more than the usual share of outright absurdity.

I read both to my kids last year, C&TGGE reads like it was put together in a single sitting without a plan, it's like the rubbish thing I produced when I did nanowrimo.

It's kind of Dahl doing self-parody. It prefigures David Walliam's success as an author of Dahl parodies for children.

yes, the random inconsequential space stuff and the uncalled-for involvement of the president of the USA do smack of the walliams.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I thought number of books I'd read from a given year would increase as time went on. BUt still only a handful here .
Oh well maybe I'm still reading other books from a given year.
Have read 4 or 5 of these anyway or at least have them floating around my floor . Shame those 2 categories aren't automatically interchangeable.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

No votes for The Farthest shore, not that surprising as it is a bit of a downer. Tombs of Atuan is the highlight of the original trilogy but I think that was displaced by The Lathe of Heaven.

The Miracle Game is a book I read because it was on my shelves, no idea where it came from but it was good enough to read twice.

Wherein We Elect Our Favourite Novels of 1973

I like The Farthest Shore a lot, actually, but I couldn't vote for anything but The Summer Book.

as a a big quin devotee have to say i struggled with triptricks

Gave up on it tbh.