Often, when looking back over the decade, we overlook contributions to areas other than ones linked to major political events, the hippie culture or the war in Vietnam. So let’s start exploring some of the contributions that the sixties provided, many of which are still ingrained in today’s culture. This will be spread over several posts. Today, I’ve listed fifty of the top literary contributions of the sixties, in no particular order. Are there books you would add or remove from this list? Which ones have you read? Let us know, because we want to hear from you.
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
• Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• The Chosen by Chaim Potok
• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
• Green Eggs & Ham by Dr. Seuss
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• The Godfather by Mario Puzo
• Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
• The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo by Judy Blume
• The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
• The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Charlie & the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
• James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
• The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
• Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
• Papillon by Henri Charriere
• The Thin Red Line by James Jones
• The Complete Adventures of Curious George by Margret Rey
• Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Bell Jar by Silvia Plath
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr.
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
• The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
• Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
• The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexlander
• The Last Temptation of Christ by Nikos Kazantzakis
• Sounder by William H. Armstrong
• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
