|
|
1960s Novels Set in America
Return to Fiction_L Booklists Menu
March 2003
Compiled by Carrie A. Herrmann,
of Boone County Public Library, from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.
(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)
- Little Miss Strange by Joanna Rose.
- It is a coming of age story set in Denver during the 60's and would make for great
discussion. There are many period details and lots of still relevant issues to contend with.
- Five Smooth Stones by Ann Fairbairn
- It would be interesting to discuss black/white relations then and now and where the NAACP has gone in their development.
- To Kill A Mockingbird.
- Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique.
- It would be interesting to see how women feel about the book that was so revolutionary back in 1963.
- Michener's The Drifters
- Captures a lot of the rootlessness of the young people and the lack of understanding on the part of their elders
- Mona Clee Branch Point
- Walter Mosley A Little Yellow Dog
- Daniel Rhodes Kiss of Death
- F. Paul Wilson Reborn
- Gardner Dozois Slow Dancing through Time
- Dan Simmons Summer of Night
- William F. Buckley Tucker's Last Stand
- Joseph Heller Catch-22
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr Slaughterhouse-Five
- Truman Capote In Cold Blood
- Helen Gurley Brown Sex and the Single Girl
- J.D. Salinger Franny and Zooey
- Katherine Anne Porter Ship of Fools
- William Faulkner The Reivers
- Mary McCarthy The Group
- Saul Bellow Herzog
- Bernard Malamud The Fixer
- Philip Roth Portnoy's Complaint
- Ian Fleming James Bond books
- Morris WestThe Shoes of the Fisherman
- Irving Wallace The Man
- Arthur Hailey Hotel and Airport
- Jacqueline Susann Valley of the Dolls
- James Clavells Tai-pan
- Gore Vidal Myra Breckinridge
- Ira Levin Rosemary's Baby
- Robert Heinlein Stranger in a Strange Land
- Walking to Mercury by Starhawk
- This is a prequel to the Fifth Sacred Thing.
- Anything by Jack Kerouac
- Captures the mood surrounding the 1960's.
- Forrest Gump
- Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
- Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi
- Charlie Manson and his merry band of hippies bring the '60s to a brutal end.
- Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
- Mailor opines while on a Peace march to Washington in 1967.
- No One Gets Out of Here Alive by Jerry Hopkins
- Well known bio of Doors front man Jim Morrison.
- Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
- Teenager writes memorably about her drug addiction. (May be early 70s rather than 60s)
- Coffee, Tea or Me? by Trudy Baker
- 60s era Stewardesses discover the sexual revolution. Cheesy but popular book at the time.
- Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49.
- The Woman's Room by Marilyn French
- Really touched true on the relationships between men and women--to show how they have stayed the same despite the years between the publication of Betty Friedan's book and Marilyn French's.
- Bright Angel Time by Martha McPhee
- Captures the rootlessness, a mother's involvement with a feckless "guru" from the child's point of view.
- Mark Childress' Crazy in Alabama.
- It's humorous, but that doesn't always blunt Peejoe's experiences in the Alabama of the mid 60's.
- Richard Farina's classic Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.
- It appears to chronicle the transformation of an Ive Leaguer from the 50's to the 60's - I guess it sort of introduces the Sixties. It might be a good starting point for the list.
- One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey.
- It was published in 1962 and had a strong "question authority" message.
- Karen Stoltz's World of Pies
- Takes place in Texas in the 1960s. I liked it a lot.
|
|
