Ideally, all books should be memorable. Some books are more memorable than others, however. A very few are particular memorable in ways other books struggle to match. This can be a highly subjective category, grounded in personal experience. Here are five books that have a permanent place in my memory, for one reason or another…
Gordon R. Dickson’s Secret Under the Sea was a foray into children’s science fiction. It features young Robbie, who is drawn into sub-aquatic counter-terrorism (so typical of kids those days). It’s quite possible that this was the first Dickson novel I read… although that’s not why I remember it.
Secret was in a stack of books I had set aside for a family road trip. I very sensibly found a quiet reading spot at home and dove in. A small boy quietly reading in the back seat of a VW microbus makes the same sound (none) as a small boy quietly reading in an out-of-the-way corner back home. The exasperated conversation that ensued once the family returned, some hours later, to collect me wasn’t all that pleasant, but it ensured that I would never forget Dickson’s book.
I am not sure how Russ Winterbotham’s The Space Egg ended up in the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina’s library. It is, alas, a disappointing tale of evil antimatter space eggs and their quest to possess humans. But I was not at all disappointed to have discovered a previously overlooked1 trove of Anglophone books in this Brazilian library.
What actually guaranteed that I would never forget reading this book was a discovery, mid-sip, that while my attention was focused on the novel some many, many ants had found their way into my soft drink can. Tropical ants express displeasure far more effectively than do the Canadian ants with which I was familiar.2 Not only would I never forget The Space Egg, it would take decades before I stopped suspiciously checking drinks before sipping.
While one could critique Ender’s Game on a number of grounds, one must admit this story of a young man being weaponized by his government must still appeal to some readers, as the novel-length expansion is still in print. I know it from the original story, published a long time ago in the 1970s.
As is so often true of works that first appeared in short form and later expanded, the original version as it appeared in Analog was more memorable than the novel. As I was halfway through reading the story I was suddenly set on fire. This was the (entirely unpredictable!) consequence of having sat down too close to some tent caterpillar nests that were being burned off trees. Nothing, aside from numerous warnings, suggested that this might happen.
Despite the distraction, I did manage to maintain my focus on the story. It is seared into memory.
William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, which I read while camping in Ontario’s Algonquin Park, is a whimsical novel whose framing sequence involves a writer’s attempt to bond with his son by giving him a beloved book—The Princess Bride of the title. As the father belatedly discovers, the version of the story he knows and the book as written are two very different works. The writer sets out to provide a “good parts” version.
Not only was the framing sequence a novelty to me but…this is to date the only fantasy novel I have read where, partway through reading it, a hundred-kilogram rock was dropped on my left hand.3
Trying to access emergency medical care in the middle of Algonquin Park began badly and got much worse. I cannot deny that reading The Princess Bride under those circumstances left a lasting impression.
David Brin’s Startide Rising is the second of his Uplift novels. It’s the tale of a mixed crew of humans and various Uplifted animals who stumble over an ancient fleet of space hulks dating back to the earliest days of the civilized galaxy. It’s a thrilling tale, one that stands on its own (something more series books should do).
What made the plot even more thrilling was that I read the novel while working as a guard at a factory undergoing some sort of labor dispute (not a formal strike, I don’t think). I was warned that there was a slight chance that, while doing my round, I might be set upon and bludgeoned. Since the other guard absolutely refused to leave the locked office, I did all the rounds alone. Not knowing if I would be able to resume reading each time I set the book down added delightful suspense to the plot. As a means of enhancing the experience, one cannot beat it.
***
Of course, this is just a small sample of the times my reading experience has been unexpectedly enhanced. I didn’t even mention semi-molten glass! I have no doubt many of you have had similar experiences. Please regale us with them in comments, which are below.
In the words of fanfiction author Musty181, four-time Hugo finalist, prolific book reviewer, and perennial Darwin Award nominee James Davis Nicoll “looks like a default mii with glasses.” His work has appeared in Interzone, Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times as well as on his own websites, James Nicoll Reviews (where he is assisted by editor Karen Lofstrom and web person Adrienne L. Travis) and the 2021, 2022, and 2023 Aurora Award finalist Young People Read Old SFF (where he is assisted by web person Adrienne L. Travis). His Patreon can be found here.
[1]Because it had never occurred to me to look for English-language books in a Brazilian university library. I cannot express how foolish that oversight was.
[2]More ants. A few weeks later, still in Brazil, I discovered that what I took for a creek bank was the surface of a large anthill too fragile to bear my weight. If any of you are considering being buried up to your knees in furious ants, that is an efficient way to accomplish that task.
[3]How did that rock happen? We were trying to play cards.
Wonderful list with memorable circumstances! I have read many memorable books, but ones where the circumstances stand out are fewer.
First up is The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey. As a teenager in the 70’s, my mother was trying to connect with me and she was a SciFi book lover. She introduced me too, and started my love of Science Fiction, beginning with Anne McCaffrey.
Second is The Mists of Avalon by Marian Zimmer Bradley. I have always loved the Arthur legends, and this retelling from the female perspective really touched me. I was drawn in by the cover art while browsing in a bookstore. Very memorable for me.
(
and watching Star Trek with my parents. Live long and prosper )
Aaaaaugh.
@2 For each section, the final line was usually a joke on the event. “Impression”, for example.
James, getting emergency medical care was not improved by you insisting that the party stop en route to admire the aurora.
I don’t think you should have stopped checking drinks for insects — a wasp in a pop can got me a couple of years ago (it wasn’t Nicoll Event level, I’m not allergic, but it was painful for several minutes and then mostly numb for a couple of hours).
The first book I remember reading all on my own was a huge favorite of mine; I read it multiple times, and at one point (I was three or four years old) was sitting under the living room table reciting sentences from it to myself. My parents asked what I was doing. I told them; they didn’t believe me, and I fetched the book and found the relevant passages to show them.
The book? Call of the Wild.
I’d apparently pulled it off my dad’s shelf and he hadn’t noticed. Despite its mature topics, racism, misogyny, and sheer scientific inaccuracy, my parents let me keep the book, probably on the grounds that it was too late anyway. I still have it somewhere.
The novel hasn’t aged well at all, but I remember it for the sheer smug triumph of proving that I wasn’t making things up, I really HAD memorized my favorite bits.
4: It was to date the most beautiful aurora I’ve ever seen and my fingers were not going to get more broken if we waited a while.
What was much worse was when, much later, after having been to emergency and have had the nurse try use the tip of my crushed fingers as the fulcrum to bend the aluminum finger braces, I arrived at a hotel to overnight. The room, the cheapest I could find, was stuffy so I opened the window. There was a small stick on the sill whose purpose was unclear. I was still contemplating it, my crushed fingers on the sill, when the window slid shut on them.
(the next day I found used copies of Darker Than You Think and Web of Everywhere)
THE MEN IN THE JUNGLE, by Norman Spinrad. It had just been published (1967). There are passages that made me, as a young & fairly innocent/naive 18 year old, feel queasy. It was written as an anti-war -specifically the anti-Vietnam war- novel & was certainly effective in its descriptions of violence & bloodshed. I have never tried to reread it, but I’m pretty sure that I would still find it gorge-rising.
@3: Missed opportunity then with the first, could have said “would ensure the memory of Dickson’s book would never leave me behind.” I’m sure the second one could be improved too, I’ll have to keep my antennae up for a good pun.
Nothing as spectacular in my memorable reading! :)
LOTR, because I’d never read anything like it before. I got the book for Christmas in ’79.
Jane Eyre – another never-read-anything-like-that-before book; even with taking nineteen hours, including four lit courses, I still finished it in a little over forty-eight hours, without skipping chapel or any classes (tho’ I did block out Tuesday afternoons for reading).
The Beautiful and Damned – stayed up ’til three a.m. to finish it, even tho’ there was plenty of time to finish it before the next class session…I just had to find out what happened.
Surprised By Joy – for C.S. Lewis class…I still read it from time to time.
East of Eden – a finished-it-in-a-day book, but it was so intense I don’t think could reread it.
Many years ago, a friend and I were buying sodas from a vending machine (these were in glass bottles, and the soda cost 10¢). As I tended to do, I picked something or another that wasn’t cola or root beer; my friend picked cola or root beer.
He noticed something odd when he was drinking: there was something fuzzy from the soda. He decided to pour of the remainder (this was not a small decision; 10¢ was a lot of money for an elementary school kid back then!) and found a mouse, quite deceased.
He did get his dime back. I think he bought only clear soda after that.
Onto the topic of memorable reading? Usually, when I read something and a disaster happens, I forget the book’s title.
11: Life in the tropics taught me to avoid eating in the dark. I guess avoiding opaque drinks is related.
The first time I was skimming through If the Sun Dies (Se il Sol Muore), Oriana Fallaci’s non-fiction book about the 1960s space program, my mother died. While I was finally reading it in its entirety, my father died. Since I had only two parents, I’m afraid to find out what happens if I read it a third time…
Back in the 1990s, I played on the darts team at my local pub. One of my teammates was a fellow science fiction fan, a bit older, who introduced me to two authors, and series, that I’d never heard of and, now, will never forget. First was Gene Wolfe, lending me “Shadow and Claw”, the double volume kicking off “The Book of the New Sun”. I devoured it and the second volume, “Sword and Citadel”, and since, all the rest, Urth of the New Sun, Long Sun, and Short Sun. Hearing Mr. Wolfe, and having him sign those first two volumes, shortly before his death, was a Life Moment.
The other was Tad Williams, and the Otherland series. My friend started me off with “City of Golden Shadow”. Only the first two were out, at that point, so I had the delicious agony of waiting for the last two to complete the saga. But Otherland brings me to the book at the other end of the scale. I don’t abandon many books. I hate wasting my reading time, so usually research my selections pretty well. Then a book came along that many friends, and reviews, were raving about, a movie adaptation was in the works, so I finally picked up “Ready Player One”. I gave up about halfway through, probably in the middle of the latest list of brand names and/or franchises, largely because I realized I’d read this story, done much better, 15 years before. So, I started rereading “City of Golden Shadow” to get the bad taste out of my mouth, and brain.
re: footnote #2 – how did you even survive that??
James – Princess Bride is one of mine. One of my brothers borrowed it from the library when newly released and not yet a popular “thing,” and our Irish wolfhound pet/monster decided to use the book as a chew toy – causing the book to lose a couple of pages from the inside. The end result is we had to pay the library for a fresh replacement book and we got to keep the “dog toothed” version around the house for all to read. It because a well read and well loved book in our large family unit.
@15: It is well known that James is indestructible.
School library mid 70s I’m 13 discovered Lensmen,Foundation,Dune..
Bless the librarian.
There are two scifi stories that I will remember forever, because they so horrified me that I was traumatized. The joke is that most other people find the stories innocuous. But I was a sensitive little boy.
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury. Because the bullies did an infinity of psychological damage to the protagonist, yet were not punished.
I forget the name of the other. Planet is inhabited by intelligent robots who have no concept of organic life. Human in a spaceship crash lands. Robots figure the ship is a big robot. They cut the ship open with a high temperature torch. Man screams that they are killing him. Robots figure the ship is just heat sensitive, since the torch isn’t hot enough to hurt a robot
Robots are astonished to find ship’s computer is too simple to talk. And what is that bloody mass of charcoal on the floor?
I was outraged that the robots never learned their error. But at that age I was basically Young Sheldon.
I found The Princess Bride on a table of free books outside the operating room where they took my wife to perform a cesarean. I read the first three pages 10 times without retaining a word, and when they came out to tell me it was a boy, and my wife was OK, stuck the book in my pocket to read later. Every generation since has imprinted on the story, and quote it frequently.
I first read More Than Human while listening to Jefferson Airplane’s After Bathing at Baxter’s. Talk about mind-blowing (as opposed to James’s body-bending…).
@0: I know that I was no further in school than 2nd grade the first time I missed a ride due to being deep in a book because I remember the school ended at 2nd grade, but I have no idea what the book was. OTOH, the car was only a few minutes away when it turned around.
When I was very young I would sometimes have an asthma attack shortly after the sun went down. The medicine I took was a powerful CNS stimulant that would open up my airways and allow the fluid to drain from my lungs. I had to remain in an upright position to facilitate the process and would hang my arms over the back of a large chair to keep from becoming horizontal as I struggled to breathe. As my siblings and eventually my parents went to bed, I would be the only person still awake into the wee hours. In those days television broadcasting ended at midnight with a sign-off and the American anthem. Since I had to keep quiet my only diversion was reading. Powered by the medicine I’d taken I would often read throughout the evening unable to sleep until sunrise the following day. Many of the books I read were dry and unmemorable. However, a few remain with me to this day. I still can recall “Zip, Zip and His Flying Saucer” and one I cannot remember the title to that involved some kids who wake up to discover a giant tomato plant that has grown outside their bedroom window. Eventually I moved onto more extensive tales like “The Ant Men” and “Men, Martians, and Machines”. And then I discovered a book by an author I’d never heard of before called “Rocket Ship Galileo”. I soon learned that Mr. Heinlein had written a whole series of books aimed at people just like me. I’ve been hooked ever since.
I found my big sister’s school prize copy of Jane Eyre when I was ten and loved it. But because I had already introduced myself to SF, starting with The Shy Stegosaurus of Cripple Creek and moving on to Asimov and Heinlein when they let me into the Young Adult section at eight, I read it as science fiction.
I was entranced with the idea of a universe without electricity. What a concept!
@19 Winchell Chung: “Lost Memory”, by Peter Phillips. It’s been fairly widely anthologized: Title: Lost Memory (isfdb.org)
Definitely a memorable one, I immediately knew which story you were referencing, although I had to check my copy of “Science Fiction Terror Tales” to recall the author.
The original published version of “Lost Memory” can be found here.
There are a couple of SF works that stand out in my memory for having terrified me when I first tried to read them when I was young, but which I later enjoyed immensely. One is A Wrinkle In Time, which freaked me out when the protagonists were in the presence of IT and were becoming controlled. I shoved the book back on my bookshelf between two much larger books, so I didn’t have to see it for a couple of years.
The other is The Lord of the Rings. I borrowed the library’s hardcover copies, which had covers embossed with a representation of the Eye of Sauron. I read the passage set in Rivendell after Frodo wakes up, in which Gandalf was explaining what had been happening with “the splinter working inwards”, before going to bed. I had a nightmare from the point of view of the Ringwraith, with a calendar drawn on a scroll, marking off the days, one by one. I woke up and stuffed the books someplace out of sight, especially that evil Eye logo, and returned them to the library the next day. I didn’t try reading it again until a few years later.
@10 – Surprised by Joy is one of mine too, for very different reasons: I had just begun toying with atheism when a friend gave it to me. I have never seriously toyed with atheism since (though I do recognize a few flaws in the arguments these days).
Books read under circumstances I will never forget:
The first time I read The Einstein Intersection (or, to give it Delany’s original title, A Fabulous Formless Darkness), I was still in the habit of reading everywhere I went. As a result, I managed to drop the book in the toilet I was about to flush; necessity demanded that I head for the Other Change of Hobbit and purchase a new copy to finish reading it. My beloved spousal overunit of, at the time, about nine months (we recently celebrated 45 years) insisted on telling the nice gentleman behind the counter (I don’t recall which nice gentleman it was) all about why I was buying my second copy of the book in two days…
Then there was The Best of Philip K. Dick. I was in the OCH one fine afternoon (where I often was in those carefree college days), and a bearded guy walked in. Dave Nee whispered to me, in clear awe, “Do you know who that is?” I said I didn’t; “That’s Philip K. Dick!” I immediately bought the Best Of and quietly asked him to sign it. He did. The next day in my dorm room I started to read it and discovered it had (shades of Calvino) a repeated signature, with the one that belonged there missing. I believe I gave it away: more fool me, a “unique” copy, signed, might actually be worth more these days…
And finally Breakfast of Champions. In the year before my parents uprooted us from the Northeast to the Bay Area, my father and I had done some bonding over Vonnegut, with the peak moment probably being watching Between Time and Timbuktu; or, Prometheus-5 on the Philadelphia PBS — or, sorry, I guess it was still NET — channel and laughing our asses off. But then we did move, and when we got to the new house in California, I found a (about a week late) birthday present waiting in what would be my bedroom for the next three years: you guessed, Breakfast of Champions. (Some years later, he presented me with a signed copy of Vonnegut’s last novel, Timequake. A true gentleman, my father.)
I have very fond memories of reading Lord of the Rings in the evenings on the hotel veranda in Durbuy in Belgium, at the age of around 15 during vacation with our family. The dusk made the perfect atmosphere for the book.
@13 – for me the book that repeatedly seemed to cause disasters was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M Pirsig – every time I read it my motorbike broke down, in one instance the engine seized up on a motorway in heavy 70+ MPH traffic. This was over a span of several years and at least three different bikes were affected. Although I have to admit that I had a lot of breakdowns without reading that book since I was riding fairly old bikes…
Since I’m no longer a biker I should really give it another chance, but I’d prefer not to have some other disaster strike my house or something.
15: I was next to a creek where I could wash off the ants once I fled there. Not the last time proximity to a creek proved convenient.
My mom gave me the Hobbit when i was 8 or 9 and I remember how juvenile I thought it was. So I checked out Fellowship of the Ring and though the whole goblin/orc thing threw me, I was hooked on reading, fantasy or sci fi. I think Heinlein’s juvenile sci fi was actually pretty good. None of his adult stuff stuck as more than the read of the week. I could list 50 or more of the thousands I must have read as unforgettable and most would have familiar authors: Herbert, Asimov, Clarke, Donaldson, Lackey, Bradley, Jordan, in the way-backs, Liu Cixin, Brust, Sanderson, Weeks, Jodi Tayler more recently.
I was about age 10 and reading “The Treasure of Greene Knowe” by L.M. Boston, when I vaguely realized someone was calling my name, looked up from the book, and was momentarily disoriented–it took a split-second for me to remember where I was, and that it was time for dinner.
That was the first time I ever got so “lost in a book” that I forgot where I was.
I have so many books that are latched to events in my mind. I’m an agonizingly slow reader, so I vividly remember the moment I FINALLY made it through the Two Towers (in the back of the Jeep while my parents worked outside to try to get it, and the trailer it pulled, unstuck) and The Return of the King (sprawled across my parents’ bed, just staring in awe at the finished book).
I remember bringing home Bruce Coville’s Aliens Ate my Homework after a long day working at my library’s annual used book sale and just eating that sucker up. It was the first sci-fi, outside of Animorphs, that I had truly loved. I still read its whole series quite frequently.
Also the first time I listened through Gideon the Ninth was while pulling down hundred-year-old plaster from a semi-fallen bathroom ceiling in my parents’ house, covered in gunk and sweating through my mask and goggles. The book lasted so long that I had moved on to painting by the time it finished. Or maybe I had come back around to listening to it again when I started painting? Hard to say. I’ve been through that book like seven times.
Oh! And Joe Hill’s N0S4A2. There’s this passage where the antagonist hits the protagonist with some sort of weapon and you hear this resounding crack. It’s the first time a book ever jumpscared me. I reacted so viscerally that several teachers in the staff office I was working in came over to see if I was okay.
Circa 1970, I remember looking up from a Derleth anthology of Lovecraftian works, because the lights seemed to have gone down. I discovered that I’d been reading in a pool of sunlight for some hours after the Opa-Locka, Florida public library had closed for the day. I used their phone to call the city police department, who got somebody to unlock the building.
(My family was eventually driven out of Opa-Locka, because the local powers-that-be were striving desperately to keep the race line from crossing their borders, and some fine white citizens didn’t approve of the varied color of some of our friends. According to the 2020 census, Opa-Locka is now less than 2% white. King Canute, to the lily-white irony phone!)
I’ve read a sequel to All Summer in a Day where Margot grows up to invent the sun domes in The Long Rain. I can’t find it, though. There are a number of sequels to All Summer in a Day.
Found it.
“The Sun Shone on Venus” by Ravenbell
https://archiveofourown.org/works/139844
I can also remember at age 13, we were visiting family friends at their home in the Adirondacks. I had a lot of spare time when the adults were out socializing, and among the few interesting-looking books I could find was the classic paperback box-set of the Chronicles of Narnia. I read all seven books over the course of four days, mostly while sitting on a deck overlooking the High Peaks, surrounded by the scent of pine and spruce.
I remember when I was 16 or so, deciding to read one of the Great Literature novels that I hadn’t read (I think it might have been Oliver Twist). Now, from time to time I’d found myself getting light-headed when I stood up too quickly; after absorbing a chapter or so of Dickens, I stood up and the next thing I knew I was lying on the floor hurting. I went to my parents, was told there was blood on my chin, and a short trip to the ER later, I was getting stitches.
The scar is no longer visible under the beard I’ve been wearing for 40-some years, which is just as well. I’ve heard people comparing the stories of how they got their scars—setting some charges to blow up a stump, stood too close; talked shit to this big biker in a bar;nearly killed in a car accident. I am not sure I’d have the guts to explain that mine came from fainting while reading Charles Dickens.
I also remember Dune, as my parents were visiting a friend and were discussing literature. The friend had just finished reading Dune, and did not feel it was worth keeping; he asked if I wanted it. I said sure, and glommed onto it. It had a (then-steep) cover price of $1.95!
I had read a reference to Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat in one of Heinlein’s juveniles (Have Space Suit, Will Travel). So I decided I needed to read this myself, and it had literally never occurred to me that my parents might not have a copy. So I asked my mother where it would be. She didn’t know, and said to ask my father. I went to my father, who said, I don’t know, go ask your mother. Well, we had a big discussion, and it happened that neither of my parents had heard of this epic (which was vaguely amazing, as they had a library of nearly ten thousand volumes between them). So we went to the library, and all three of us enjoyed it greatly. When my parents took a trip to England, they came back with, I think, three paperback copies, along with the sequel (Three Men on the Bummel) and a few other titles of his.
There are others; on a family vacation, we found a copy of one of the Perry Rhodan translations from Ace. I read it, and instantly fell in love with the concept. (I still have the first 100 titles in a box somewhere, many thoroughly used. They were in those days $0.95 each, and I proceeded to collect as many as I could as they came out.)
I got a paper route at age 12 in 1972 which supplied me with $10 per week to spend on whatever I wanted. After I paid my paper bill it was just a couple of blocks to the Independent Blind Association book store. Lots of great comics and lots of great SF. The first things that struck me were Stand on Zanzibar, Dune, Roger Zelazny and Samuel Delaney. After reading dog-eared copies of Conan and Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser. After that and to this day, LOTR seems over wrought.
Due to the Evil Librarians in my Junior High School, I had fallen victim to the Heinlein juveniles, in particular, Have Space Suit, Will Travel and Citizen of the Galaxy. I then innocently read the next one in the library, mistakenly thought to be a juvenile: Orphans of the Sky. Which blew the top of my skull off.
There was a picture of me reading in the high school library that was put in my senior year yearbook, with the caption “Lost in a world of space and time”. I was reading The Power that Preserves, one of the Thomas Covenant books by Stephen R. Donaldson.
And finally, when I was a tween, we were visiting my grandmother who lived in a very small town in northern Louisiana, and I was desperately bored, and looking for anything to read. So what I found in her meager bookshelves was an old copy of one of the Tarzan novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which began my adventures of plowing through the 30 odd books in the series.
Digging deep into my memory banks, I came up with two books that fit the criteria.
The first is not an SF/F novel, but a (now defunct) book club at my employer decided to read Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. Only time a book has so disturbed/distressed me it left me feeling physically ill (sick to my stomach).
On a happier note, I was in a dance group that was performing at the Maryland Renaissance Festival when Lois McMaster Bujold’s A Civil Campaign came out. As is often the case when one is a cast member or other paid performer at such a festival, you have to act like you are in Renaissance times, including not being overheard talking about modern subjects like TV shows, movies, or science fiction novels. During a break between sets, while walking through the site with a friend and bandmate to get lunch, we proceeded to have a conversation about A Civil Campaign. Without either of us breaking character. (Granted it helps when the book in question is full of lords, ladies, counts, countesses, and emperors.)
In one of those little twists life likes to throw at us, the same day this piece went live, there was an unpleasant event at UWaterloo, where I work, in Hagey Hall, which happens to be the building where I had a shift that day. As is my habit, I exercised a series of what seemed to me prudent decisions, each of which moved me closer to the epicenter of events. And that’s how I ended up sheltering in place with fellow UWaterloonies, one of whom was the knife-wielding hate criminal we were all hiding from. But, and I both rue and lament this, I didn’t have a book with me to read so I just browsed on my phone. Opportunity missed.