Early reading, Laying Foundations 

I quite enjoying looking back at my earliest reading recently and thought I’d continue that – at least for a while. Don’t worry though... I’m definitely not going to list EVERY book that came my way through my teenage years and my 20’s. What I thought I’d do is ‘sample’ my reads by recording every 10th book in a batch of 10, so effectively a years' worth of reading – just to get the flavour. On top of that I’ll throw in some commentary or memories of particular books or moments. It might interest you (and me!) to see how my reading has changed over the years – or not – we'll see!! So, we have:  

Natural State and Other Stories by Damon Knight
The Galactic Riddle – Perry Rhodan 8 by Clark Dalton
The Expert Dreamers edited by Frederik Pohl
Reach for Tomorrow by Arthur C Clarke
Beyond this Horizon by Robert Heinlein
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C Clarke
The Ghosts of Gol – Perry Rhodan 10 by Kurt Mahr
Transit by Edmund Cooper
The Last Continent by Edmund Cooper
A Clash of Cymbals by James Blish

So, we're still exclusively Science-Fiction at this point. There’s an interesting mix of short story collections and books from the core cannon of SF authors (Heinlein, Clarke, Blish etc.) so I was pretty well informed/on the ball even back then. This was probably because they were SO very well-known and the fact that my Maths teacher around this time was lending me books from his collection. The two Perry Rhodan books were from a series – I think I read the first 15 or so – purchased in conjunction with two school friends. None of us could afford ALL of the books so we split the costs which meant we could buy (and enjoy) more of them. I believe that the series was a collaboration between a number of European authors and was essentially YA space-opera. Edmund Cooper was a British SF author (who died in 1982) and was very prolific penning over 20 SF novels. I think I bought and read almost all of them over a few years. They were not exactly great literature, but I remember them as being highly entertaining.