Tag Archives: Birthday Books

happy birthday, Dr. A!

Asimov would have been 102 today, so there are some books one might want to read in celebration.

The book numbers for anything published in 1992 or later are to be taken with a shaker or two of salt, of course, meaning none of the 500s are 100% certain. Still, there can be no doubt that among the fifteen books listed here, the two one might want to read are I. Asimov and Yours, Isaac Asimov; the former would be my choice. Extraterrestrial Civilizations is a solid third.

The remainder are, for the most part, either anthologies or non-fiction for pre-teens.

One (I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay) is not, strictly speaking, and I only include it in my list on a technicality, and even then only because I like it so much.

Another, The Future in Space is likely not to have any input from Asimov at all and only gets listed because I’ve been too lazy to follow through on that.

Finally, Gold deserves an honorable mention at least, but as is true with most of Asimov’s later anthologies, it includes stories both good and not-so-good; as a result, I tend not to think very highly of it.