We are jumping back in time to the seventies. Relive or experience for the first time popular books, movies, television shows and music from this era.
Fiction
FICTION BACH
Jonathan Livingston Seagull / Richard Back
(1970) Because he spends so much time perfecting his flying form instead of concentrating on getting food, a seagull is ostracized by the rest of the flock.
FICTION IRVING
The world according to Garp / a novel by John Irving
(1978). Irving’s classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields – a feminist leader ahead of her time. Beyond that, The World According to Garp virtually defies synopsis.
FICTION KING
The shining / Stephen King
(1977) Jack Torrance sees his stint as winter caretaker of a Colorado hotel as a way back from failure, his wife sees it as a chance to preserve their family, and their five-year-old son sees the evil waiting just for them.
FICTION MORRISON
The bluest eye / Toni Morrison
(1970) The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedloe, a black girl who prays for her eyes to turn blue, so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different.
FICTION STYRON
Sophie’s choice / William Styron
(1979) As the fierce lovemaking and fights of Nathan, a paranoiac Jewish intellectual, and Sophie, a Polish-Catholic concentration-camp survivor, intensify, Stingo, a writer who lives below them in a cheap rooming house, becomes more and more involved in their lives.
FICTION RICE
Interview with the vampire / Anne Rice
(1976) Recounting his first two hundred years of life, a vampire tells of his erotic alliance with Claudia, whose passions are forever locked up in the body of a child.
SCIENCE FICTION ADAMS
The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy / Douglas Adams
(1979) After Earth is demolished to make way for a new hyperspatial expressway, Arthur Dent begins to hitchhike through space.
SCIENCE FICTION BUTLER
Kindred / Octavia E. Butler
(1979) Dana, a black woman, finds herself repeatedly transported to the antebellum South, where she must make sure that Rufus, the plantation owner’s son, survives to father Dana’s ancestor.
SCIENCE FICITON LEGUIN
The dispossessed / Ursula K. Le Guin
(1974) Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the anarchist moon Anarres, risks his life by traveling to the mother planet of Urras in the hope of offering wisdom to its inhabitants and to reunite the two long-alienated worlds.
CLASSICS VONNEGUT
Breakfast of champions : or, Goodbye blue Monday! / by Kurt Vonnegut
(1973) The author questions the condition of modern man in this novel depicting a science fiction writer’s struggle to find peace and sanity in the world.
J FICTION BLU
Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret / Judy Blume
(1970) Faced with the difficulties of growing up and choosing a religion, a twelve-year-old girl talks over her problems with her own private God.
Nonfiction
920 HAL
Roots : the saga of an American family / Alex Haley
(1976) The author shares the saga of an African American family that extends from his ancestor Kunta Kinte, an African brought to mid-eighteenth-century America as a slave, to himself.
BIO THOMPSON
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas : a savage journey to the heart of the American dream / by Hunter S. Thompson
(1976) This cult classic of gonzo journalism is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.
Movies
DVD ALIEN
Alien / 20th Century Fox (1979)
Terror begins when the crew of a spaceship investigates a transmission from a desolate planet and discovers a life form that is perfectly evolved to annihilate mankind.
DVD CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
Close encounters of the third kind [3 disc ed.] / Columbia Pictures (1977)
Roy Neary witnesses the arrival of a flying saucer from an alien world. Thus begins an incredible series of events, culminating in the ultimate encounter with other-worlders as Neary is led aboard the awesome Mothership.
DVD JAWS
Jaws / Universal Studios (1975)
A great white shark terrorizes a seaside resort town.
DVD LAST PICTURE
The last picture show / Columbia Pictures (1971)
Set during the early 1950s in a dying Texas town, The last picture show follows the daily lives of three futureless teens and the lost souls who bump up against them.
DVD NETWORK
Network / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1976)
A satirical look at the politics and power struggles of television executives as a network news anchorman turns the tables on the “ratings”.
DVD STAR WARS
Star wars: a new hope / 20th Century Fox (1977)
“The Imperial Forces — under orders from cruel Darth Vader (David Prowse) — hold Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) hostage, in their efforts to quell the rebellion against the Galactic Empire. Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford), captain of the Millennium Falcon, work together with the companionable droid duo R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) to rescue the beautiful princess, help the Rebel Alliance, and restore freedom and justice to the Galaxy.”
Shows
DVD 791.45 ALL
All in the family (1971)
The life of a bigoted working class man, Archie Bunker, and his family.
DVD 791.45 COL
Columbo (1968-1978)
Peter Falk stars as a wry and ruffled Lieutenant Columbo who solves L.A.’s most puzzling crimes with his trademark wit and style.
DVD 791.45 MAR
The Mary Tyler Moore show (1970)
The humorous adventures of a thirtyish, single woman trying to make her way in Minneapolis after breaking off her engagement to her long-time fiancé.
DVD 791.45 MAS
M*A*S*H. Season 1 (1972)
Series portrays both the horror and hilarity of the daily lives of MASH unit 4077 in Korea in 1950.
DVD 791.45 WKR
WKRP in Cincinnati / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (1978)
Join WKRP’s hilarious staff–program director Andy Travis, deejays Dr. Johnny Fever and Venus Flytrap, neurotic newsman Les Nessman, sultry receptionist Jennifer Marlowe and the rest–both on and off the air as they take their floundering station from hard times to hard rock.
CHILD DVD 791.45 MUP
Muppet show. Season 1 / Muppet Studios (1976)
A musical-variety program with a cast made up of muppets – man-made, human-operated creatures.
CHILD DVD 813.54 LIT
Little house on the prairie. Season 1 : deluxe remastered edition (1974)
Relive all the heartwarming adventures from season one; from the arrival of Charles Ingalls and his family in Walnut Grove, through the building of a new home and friendships, to battling for their lives against a vicious blizzard.
Music
CD BOWIE D
The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust & the spiders from Mars / David Bowie (1972)
Described as a loose concept album and rock opera, Ziggy Stardust is about Bowie’s titular alter ego Ziggy Stardust, a fictional androgynous and bisexual rock star who is sent to Earth as a saviour before an impending apocalyptic disaster.
CD KING C
Tapestry / Carole King (1971)
“Tapestry” was No. 1 on the Billboard charts for 15 weeks and King was the first woman (ever) to win song of the year. This was a monumental, pathbreaking achievement at a time when men continued to control the music industry.
CD CLASH
London calling / The Clash (1979)
To this day, it is still considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time. The Clash incorporate a range of musical styles, including punk, reggae, rockabilly, ska, New Orleans R&B, pop, lounge jazz, and hard rock creating a timeless sound of rock punkalicious music.
CD FLEETWOOD
Rumours / Fleetwood Mac (1977)
Rumors was Fleetwood Mac’s most significant album ever made because it enabled the band to last for years after it. Without them knowing it, the members wrote songs about each other. They sang about their relationships with one another.
CD PINK F
The dark side of the moon / Pink Floyd (1973)
For Pink Floyd, the moon’s dark side was used to symbolise the darker forces of human nature on an album that delved into unusual territories for pop: mental illness, mortality and the scars of the second world war.
CD MITCHELL J
Blue / Joni Mitchell
Released in 1971, the album reflects the disillusionment and disenchantment felt by a generation during the closing of The Sixties.
CD WONDER S
Innervisions / Stevie Wonder (1973)
With Innervisions, Wonder offered a landmark fusion of social realism and spiritual idealism.
BH: March 2023