From the books that defined a decade to the books we just enjoyed reading, here is a list of 50 books that have shaped our lives in the last 50 years.
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach
- Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
- Watership Down, by Richard Adams
- Centennial, by James A. Michener
- Trinity, by Leon Uris
- The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
- Mommie Dearest, by Christina Crawford
- Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
- The Bourne Identity, by Robert Ludlum
- The World According to Garp, by John Irving
- Breathing Lessons, by Anne Tyler
- The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
- The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood
- White Noise, by Don DeLillo
- IT, by Stephen King
- Beloved, by Toni Morrison
- The Swimming-Pool Library, by Alan Hollinghurst
- The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
- Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson
- The Kitchen God’s Wife, by Amy Tan
- The Pelican Brief, by John Grisham
- The Bridges of Madison County, by Robert James Waller
- The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield
- Long Walk to Freedom, by Nelson Mandela
- Primary Colors, by Anonymous
- Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
- Paradise, by Toni Morrison
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling
- White Teeth, by Zadie Smith
- A Day Late and a Dollar Short, by Terry McMillian
- Journey Through Heartsongs, by Mattie Stepanek
- The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
- The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth
- Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
- The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
- A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
- The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein
- Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, by Stieg Larsson
- The Help, by Katheryn Stockett
- Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
- The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride
- The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt
- Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee
- The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins
- Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward
- Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan
- Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens
- Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
- Crying in H Mart, by Michelle Zauner
How many of these books have you read? You can find these books and more at your local HPB or HPB.com. Happy reading!