February just flew by but that does at least mean that spring is on the way! And as March begins it’s time for our monthly look back on the new releases of the past in our 50 years of literature slot. Every month we look back at five decades of book releases to see what the hot new books were of the past.
See if any of these trigger your memory, maybe you grabbed them when they were first released, maybe they were long awaited and you might be surprised at just how long ago some were released. Here we go, back through the last five decades in publishing.
March 2007
The Reluctant Fundamentalist – Mohsin Hamid
This is one of the most wonderful evocative books I have ever read, leaving the reader with questions to the last page. Cleverly written, The Reluctant Fundamentalist relies on your perception and bias to decide what is really going on, and was very topical on its release back in March 2007.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist US
The Reluctant Fundamentalist UK
March 1997
The God of Small Things –Arundhati Roy
It’s 20 years since the release of Roy’s debut novel, The God of Small Things, a haunting novel about family and politics and life in rural India. Nothing followed this masterpiece but Roy has just announced that her second novel is coming soon.
February 1987
Consider Phlebas – Iain M. Banks
Consider Phlebas is a science fiction ‘space opera’ novel and the first of the Culture novels. Released in March 1986, the book revolves around the Idiran-Culture War and it was well received upon release.
March 1977
Illusions –Richard Bach
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah is the follow up novel to Jonathan Livingstone Seagull and that meant it was highly anticipated upon its release in March 1997.
March 1967
Rosemary’s Baby – Ira Levin
While totally outshone by the movie adaptation, the novelisation of Rosemary’s Baby sold 4 million copies and became one of the best selling horror novels of the 1960s, sparking a horror boom that would span many years.
And that’s it for another month, we hope those brought back some fond memories of past book buying and reading, and we’ll be back next month with April!
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