1972: What a momentous year...

How many of these UK authors published a new novel in 1972?

Here are some of the names I thought of when first contemplating my 19/72 Challenge (reading 19 novels from 1972): Kingsley Amis, JG Ballard, Malcolm Bradbury, Anthony Burgess, Lawrence Durrell, Grahame Greene, David Lodge, John Le Carre, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, Anthony Powell, Colin Wilson and Evelyn Waugh.

Some rereads, and some famous names that had somehow passed me by... Splendid!

Then I started checking around.

As you will have guessed, but to my great suprise, the answer was, of course, that none of them presented the world with a new novel that year.

Perhaps I should have chosen 1973 - JG Ballard's Crash was 73, as was Grahame Greene's Honorary Consul. Muriel Spark published in 71 and 73, as did Kingsley Amis, Doris Lessing and Iris Murdoch; John Le Carre  selected 71 and 74. Lawrence Durrell published a collection of poetry in 1973, The Suchness of the Old Boy (but younger brother and my boyhood hero, Gerald's Catch Me a Colobus was 1972!).

Evelyn Waugh had been dead seven years...

 

The best selling books were Watership Down and Joy of Sex. PG Wodehouse published Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin

Comments

[Maxine]

Oh dear! I liked Watership Down when it came out but I was young and it was fresh then - the theme has been overdone since. As for the other two...hmmm! Via the internet I see that A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond was first published in 1972. Also James Herriot's It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet. However, there is a Joan Aiken, a Graves collection of poetry and Young Winston Churchill's war diaries.....good luck!

[Philip]

That is the thing about 1972, Maxine - it is never what you expect! A Bear Called Paddington was actually first published in 1958, and I loved it as a child (and thoroughly enjoyed interviewing Michael Bond for a 1996(?) newspaper profile); Bond published the eighth Paddington, Paddington's Garden in 1972... and I'll think I'll give it a miss.

I doubt I will have the resolve for Herriot *and* Watership Down (a bit girly for me in those days!!!!).

[Kerrie]

Edgar Awards 1972
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth (winner)

[Kerrie]

THE OPEN HOUSE by Michael Innes
something by Edith Pargeter? (Ellis Peters)
SMOKESCREEN by Dick Francis
MAIGRET & MONSIEUR CHARLES by Simenon

[Philip]

Thanks for the suggestions, Kerrie. I had just discovered Michael Innes (and his alter ego JIM Stewart, so they are welcome additions). I love Maigret and hadn't realised & M Charles was the last one. Agatha Christie, PD James and Ruth Rendell all published in 1972 so they could feature. Day of the Jackal was actually published in 1971 - yet another example of 1972 not being the year we thought it was!

[Maxine]

Sorry, the original Paddington must have been a reprint in 1972 (obviously, now I think about it!). Nice that some more appealing suggestions have emerged, JIM Stewart is worth a read for one.