Thursday, November 24, 2016

Trying to grok it again - Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein, 1961

I first read this in April 1975. I've decided to revisit some of the books that I read in my twenties that I think influenced me and to see how they hold up. I had always kept track of my readings in notebooks and then had transferred the lists to documents on my computers. I was eventually able to have a fairly accurate list of my readings from about 1970 that I could add to Good Reads. So now I'm going back and looking at some of those books.

I started this re-reading project scanning my Good Reads list and my book shelves. I've always been a big science fiction fan and Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein and is considered a classic. I saw that it was available from the public library as an e-book and immediately downloaded it. I first read this book in the early 70's while stationed on board a Navy ship. Science fiction paperbacks were traded throughout the ship while we were at sea and I read several of Heinlein's earlier books. This book was a lot different.

Later I read it a second time in 1976 along with many more of Heinlein's later books. I just recently finished reading it again some 40 years later and what did I think? First of all it felt very dated and actually had some very cringe worthy moments.

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