I stumbled across "Space Suit" in the threadbare library of my junior high school in 1970. I was 11. Been an RAH fan ever since.
Patricia Wyant Reisfeld (sp?) lived in my reverie when I was still terrified of girls. (You'll have to read the book to know.)
About half of what Heinlein wrote is laid against a common background, sometimes known collectively as his "future history."
Most of that, from "Lifeline" to "Methuselah's Children" is complete in one volume, if you can get your hands on "The Past Through Tomorrow."
In the late 70's, he wrote a capstone to all that, a hefty tome called "Time Enough For Love." It's all fine reading, I think his best work, but some of it is at least PG-13, even today.
Heinlein's deepest penetration into lesbian sex (make up your own joke here) was with "I Will Fear No Evil," about an old man whose brain is transplanted into a young woman's body. RAH actually danced around a lot of societal taboos with this approach. And the political commentary in "Evil" is unsurpassed.
All that said, I could not get 100 pages into "Number of the Beast" without my eyes glazing over. Wish I had stopped with "Friday." You might wish you had stopped reading this several paragraphs ago.
Have a good weekend.
And I don't care for Job: A Comedy of Justice ... thought it very bland.
And I never finished To Sail Beyond The Sunset ... what does that say about me???
I loved The Number Of The Beast .. how could i resist four Heinleins crammed into a tiny car with the personality of a fifth Heinlein?
<laughing> I read Time Enough For Love while a junior in high school. I was enthralled by the "Notebooks of Lazarus Long," to the point where I would sneak into my English classroom before class and write selected ones on the blackboard ... no one ever even noticed they were there (which tells you a lot about that English class).
Isn't that the book which he never actually finished himself? I have been long under the impression that a surrogate completed that work. I have only read 5 or so Heinlein book's so I am not certain about "evil" which I did read.
There were similar problems with Stanley Kubrick's last film. I wouldn't even consider reading another Dune book once Herbert died. Somehow to me it is like watching new commercials with people like John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Martin L. King, or Steve McQueen et al. It seems bizarre and disrespectful to me.