Library News
Novels of a Changing World: Fiction about the ’60s
Posted on September 22nd, 2014
Readers can experience the spirit of the colorful, volatile, and transformational 1960s by reading novels set during this decade. Topics include the civil rights movement; the Vietnam draft and protests; second-wave feminism; the counterculture of drugs and rock ‘n’ roll; and the glitzy world of art, fashion, and film.
Some of the works in this exhibit were written during the ’60s, while others are historical novels that look back on and reimagine the era. All are available for checkout from Booth Library. The exhibit was curated by reference librarian Sarah Johnson.
The Air Betwee
n Us
Deborah Johnson
Read & Relax PS3610.O3347 A67 2009x
The difficulties in bridging the racial divide in ’60s Revere, Mississippi.
An Angry-Ass Black Woman
Karen E. Quinones Miller
Read & Relax PS3563.I41335 Z46 2012
Autobiographical fiction; the author’s experience growing up poor in ’60s and ’70s Harlem.
Comeback Love
Peter Golden
Read & Relax PS3607.O4525 C66 2012
Two former lovers who came of age in the ’60s rekindle their relationship.
A Dual Inheri
tance
Joanna Hershon
Read & Relax PS3558.E788 D82 2014x
Literary saga spanning decades which follows two men, former friends, who first met at Harvard in 1963.
Four Spirits
Sena Jeter Naslund
Read & Relax PS3564.A827 F68 2003
The Civil Rights Movement in ’60s Birmingham, Alabama, as seen from many characters’ viewpoints, both black and white.
Freshwater Road
Denise Nicholas
Read & Relax PS3614.I337 F74 2008x
A Michigan university student travels to Mississippi to help register voters during the Freedom Summer of 1964.
The Gallery o
f Vanished Husbands
Natasha Solomons
Read & Relax PR6119.O455 G35 2013
A saga of the sexual revolution amid the 1960s art world.
I Hotel
Karen Tei Yamashita
Read & Relax PS3575.A44 I19 2010
A multi-viewpoint novel of the civil rights struggle in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the ’60s.
Last Night at the Blue Angel
Rebecca Rotert
PS3618.O85557 L37 2014
A mother-daughter tale set amid the jazz scene of 1960s Chicago.
Little Green: An Easy Rawlins Mystery
Walter Mosley
Best Sellers PS3563.O88456 L44 2013
In his 12th outing in Mosley’s crime series, private eye Easy Rawlins does some investigating along the Sunset Strip in ’60s LA.
Loss of Innocence
Richard North Patterson
Read & Relax PS3566.A8242 L67 2013
A young woman from a wealthy family on Martha’s Vineyard comes of age and begins questioning her family’s values during the troubled summer of 1968.
The Love Children
Marilyn French
Read & Relax PS3556.R42 L68 2009
In this classic novel, a young woman gets drawn into the hippie scene in 1968 Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Miss Dreamsville and the Collier County Women’s Literary Society
Amy Hill Hearth
Read & Relax PS3608.E274 M57 2012
A young Bostonian woman moves to Naples, Florida, in 1962 and becomes a radio host in the racially segregated Southern town.
More Than You Know
Penny Vincenzi
Read & Relax PR6072.I525 D43 2013x
In this glitzy epic saga, a privileged young woman falls in love with a working-class boy during the Swinging Sixties, and troubles arise when their relationship crumbles.
Natchez Burning
Greg Iles
Best Sellers PS3559.L47 N38 2014
Dual-period crime fiction; Penn Cage, mayor of Natchez, Mississippi, confronts his beloved father’s possible involvement in the murder of an African-American nurse back in the ’60s.
Our Man in the Dark
Rashad Harrison
Best Sellers PS3608.A7837 O97 2011
A noir thriller about the Civil Rights movement, fears of communism, mobsters, and the KKK in the story of a man working as an accountant for Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Pink Suit
Nicole Mary Kelby
PS3561.E382 P56 2014x
About the seamstress who crafted Jackie Kennedy’s iconic pink Chanel suit, which became a symbol of pain and endurance following JFK’s assassination.
Set the Night on Fire
Libby Fischer Hellmann
Read & Relax PS3608.E46 S48 2010
After her life is threatened, a woman struggles to uncover her father’s violent past in late ’60s Chicago, with its civil rights struggles and anti-war protests.
Sixty-Six
Barry Levinson
Best Sellers PS3562.E9213 S59 2003
The political and social changes sweeping across ’60s America finally reach young people living in the quiet city of Baltimore, Maryland.
Sway
Zachary Lazar
Best Sellers PS3562.A969 S93 2009
A dark novel weaving together the big names of rock and roll, the Manson murders, underground filmmaking, and the drug culture of late ’60s America.
The Time of our Singing
Richard Powers
Read & Relax PS3566.O92 T55 2004b
The artistic pursuits and personal journeys of three musically talented children in a mixed-race family during the troubled ’60s.
Valley of the Dolls
Jacqueline Susann
The top-selling book of 1966 follows three women over a 20-year period, from the Forties through the early Sixties, covering their glitzy social lives, their messy relationships, their recreational drug habits, and their involvement in the film industry.
Virgin Soul
Judy Juanita
Best Sellers PS3610.U17 V57 2013
A young woman gets involved with the Black Panther movement in 1960s San Francisco.
The Wednesday Sisters
Meg Waite Clayton
Read & Relax PS3603.L45 W43 2009x
The story of five very different women in the Bay Area in the late ’60s who form a strong friendship that lasts decades.
The books in this exhibit, part of the Revolutionary Decade: Reflections on the 1960s program series, can be found on display in Booth Library’s third floor south hallway during fall 2014. Please stop by and check them out!
