Books Set in the 1960s

Book Summary

When young, angry, and pregnant Sara must flee Chicago, she boards a bus to still-segregated Memphis. When she arrives, she is welcomed by Mama Sugar, the matriarch of The Scarlet Poplar boardinghouse. 

In Memphis, Sara learns about the push for civil rights spreading across the country. She loves discussing education, politics, and the hope for a brighter future with her new friend, Jonas. He is a schoolteacher, and soon their friendship begins blooming into something more. 

However, secrets from Mama Sugar’s past unexpectedly catch Sara and Jonas in the crosshairs. Sara must again make impossible decisions.

Book Summary

This might just be the perfect historical fiction beach read for the summer – a family drama that brings the 60s to life in vivid, nostalgic detail.

Each year, the children of the Levin family have looked forward to spending their summer in Nantucket with their grandmother. But in the summer of ’69, thirteen-year-old Jessie is the only sibling who can make the trip. One of her older sisters is pregnant with twins, the other is caught up in the civil rights movement, and her older brother has recently been deployed to the war in Vietnam.

The summer proves to be an eventful one – Vietnam, Woodstock, the moon landing, the Chappaquiddick affair, Jessie struggling with her first heartbreak, and her grandmother with a few secrets of her own.

Book Summary

Elizabeth Zott is a quirky and brilliant female chemist working with an all-male team at the Hastings Research Institute. But her scientific qualifications don’t stop the “good old boys” from being frustrated that she won’t get coffee or make copies for them. When Elizabeth meets Calvin Evans, another scientist at the Institute, another type of chemistry results.

Fast forward a few years. It’s 1961, and Elizabeth is a 30-year-old single mother and her career has been detoured. Instead of working for Hastings, she’s now (somewhat reluctantly) the star of a much-loved cooking show called Supper at Six. Her cooking methods are unusual (“combine one tablespoon of acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”). As her popularity grows, it turns out she’s not just teaching women to cook, she’s also daring them to change the status quo.

Book Summary

In 1962, the world was teetering on the brink of nuclear war. But even with the Cuban Missile Crisis dominating headlines, life goes on for Celia Duchesne. Though she longs for a career, she spends her days working the register at a London bookshop. When a handsome American enters the shop one day, she finds herself suddenly drawn into a budding romance that might just be her path to a new life.

But when Celia learns a devastating secret, she’s instead pulled into the murky world of espionage. She begins to learn the story of Anya, a young women during the French resistance of WWII who transmitted messages to London from behind enemy lines.

This discovery comes just as her romance is taking an unexpected turn and the world superpowers are on the verge of nuclear annihilation. Celia will have to risk everything in the name of justice.

Book Summary

After her mother passes away, 14-year-old Lily Owens runs away with her friend and nanny, Rosaleen. The two escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, where an eccentric trio of Black beekeeping sisters takes them in. 

Lily is introduced to the world of bees and honey, the Black Madonna, and the town that holds the secret to her mother’s past.

Book Summary

This coming-of-age story is about three different 18-year-old men growing up in 3 different time periods. 

William was 18 in 1967 when he went to Vietnam as a Marine. Vincent is 18 in 1979 when he meets William, working on a construction crew, and hears William’s stories of his war-time experience. 

The third young man is Vincent’s son, Beau, who has had an easier life than the first two men. He was 18 in 2015 when Vincent received William’s old Vietnam journal in the mail as a thank you for listening to his stories years ago. It was written while he was a Marine and facing things that no one, much less a teenager, should have to encounter. 

The three stories are woven together in a beautiful way that many are calling a must-read for everyone, despite the grim nature of William’s combat experiences. 

Book Summary

Living in a beautiful home with a white picket fence in North Carolina, teenager Lorraine seems to have the perfect life. She has a wonderful boyfriend, but she has big ambitions and dreams of more for her life.

When Lorraine ends up pregnant, her family sends her away to a maternity home in order to shield themselves from the “shame.” But what is supposed to be a secluded safe haven is instead a house of dark secrets and suffocating rules.

As Lorraine begins to piece together a new vision for her future, she has to decide if she can fight against those who plan to take her child away or whether to bend to the rules of society.

Book Summary

Newlywed Ruth is a law school graduate and has an independent streak stronger than most young women in her posh neighborhood. However, she still wants to impress her mother-in-law, who has signed Ruth up for etiquette lessons with Lillian Diamond. 

Fellow etiquette classmate Carrie is quiet but has a dark secret. When witty Ruth befriends Carrie, they form an unbreakable bond. Ruth pushes Lillian and all of her Diamond Girls to question the status quo and stretch beyond their comfort zones as they unite to protect one of their own.

Book Summary

The summer of 1961 started out full of hope and innocence in New Bremen, Minnesota – a new young president, the Twins baseball team playing their debut season, root beers at the soda counter, and comic books on the barbershop magazine racks. But the summer soon turned grim, with multiple deaths. Accident? Natural? Suicide? Murder?

When the tragedies occur in town, 13-year-old Frank Drum is thrust into adulthood overnight. The novel is part mystery and part coming-of-age story, told by Frank himself as a 40-year-old adult looking back on that fateful summer.

Book Summary

This book is NOT what you’d expect from Stephen King. Instead of horror, you’ll find suspenseful historical fiction crossed with science fiction (and even a twist of romance) that addresses the most compelling aspect of time travel. How do actions taken in the past affect the same future you started in?

English teacher Jake Epping is recruited by his friend Al, the local diner owner, to help with the most unlikely of requests. Al discovered a portal in the diner’s storeroom that transports him back in time to the era of Ike and Elvis. He becomes obsessed with using the portal to go back in time and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. But when he realizes he won’t be able to complete the mission, he enlists Jake for the job. Jake reluctantly agrees to go back to 1958 and live the early years of the 1960s in the small town of Jodie, Texas while devising a plan to stop JFK from dying on 11/22/63.

Book Summary

In 1964, a racial divide cuts through the town of High Cotton, Texas, just as plainly as the train tracks, but cultural shifts are on the horizon. And the friendship between two girls, one local and one new to town, is about to escalate the tension.

Corky is 13-years-old, right on the cusp between childhood and adolescence. Her family just hired a new housekeeper from Haiti, and Corky is quick to befriend her daughter, America. Corky has been reading a new “grown-up” novel called To Kill a Mockingbird, and she’s eager to share it with America. But America’s take on the book is very different from Corky’s… and much more personal.

As the summer goes on, Corky learns that America can run as fast as Olympian Wilma Rudolph, and she invites America to play on her church softball team. It seems like fun and games, but the invitation crosses the color lines and sparks a firestorm in High Cotton. It will be a season of big changes for the town with lifelong impacts on the girls.

Book Summary

In this memoir, Chick Donohue, a Vietnam vet, recounts the craziest of his many adventures. It all began on a night in 1967 when 26-year-old Chick was at a bar in NYC with his buddies. Each of them had lost loved ones in Vietnam, and they were disheartened to see anti-war protesters turning on the troops.

One of the guys came up with a crazy idea – someone should sneak into Vietnam and track down their buddies still serving there to bring them messages of support, and – of course – a beer. It would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever.

It’s likely none of them meant for the idea to be taken seriously, but nonetheless, Chick volunteered. A day later he was on a cargo ship headed back to Vietnam during the height of combat with a backpack full of alcohol. 

What would follow was his own personal Odyssey – a serviceman turned civilian searching for his childhood friends in Vietnam. Chick’s story is filled with lots of hilarious escapades and harrowing close calls – including the Tet Offensive. 

This memoir has been described as a “hilarious quest laced with sorrow, but never dull.”

Book Summary

Marilyn wasn’t just caught making out with the rabbi’s son—she was caught by the whole congregation! In hopes of saving their daughter’s reputation, her parents sent her to her great-aunt Ada for the summer. They gave her an ultimatum: spend the summer with Ada, Philadelphia’s strict premier matchmaker, or kiss her college plans goodbye.

Based on her mother’s description, Marilyn expects Ada to be a humorless septuagenarian. Instead, Ada is sharp and straight-talking, with platinum blonde hair, a Hermès scarf, and a Cadillac convertible. As the summer goes on, Ada and Marilyn set off for the Jersey Shore, where Marilyn helps to scope out eligible matches for anyone but herself. She’s learning a lot from Ada—but not exactly what her parents were hoping for. Marilyn realizes that she doesn’t have to settle, even as her father threatens to disinherit her.

Book Summary

Skeeter has returned home from college to her family’s cotton plantation where – despite trying to act like a proper Southern lady – she seems to constantly disappoint her mother. 

Her true ambition, however, is to be a writer. The only job she’s able to find is one she is completely unqualified for – writing a housekeeping advice column for the local paper. Having virtually no experience of her own with housekeeping, Skeeter turns to her friend’s maid, the very poised Aibileen, for help. 

As she gets to know Aibileen and Aibileen’s friend, the very sassy Minny, more intimately, Skeeter is inspired to help tell their stories, and she pitches the idea to write the narratives of 12 Black maids – a very risky project for all of them.

Book Summary

In August of 1961, barbed wire was placed across Berlin in the middle of the night. Families were torn apart against their wishes by the new 30-mile wall. This historical fiction imagines the lives of twin sisters separated on that fateful night.

Karin is in East Berlin when the wall goes up, separating her from her twin, Jutta. They live parallel lives for years, with Karin surviving the brutal East German regime only with Otto’s help. One day, Jutta finds a hidden way to reach Karin, but the Stasi are watching. Should Jutta flee back home with her sister or follow her heart?

Book Summary

It’s the 1960s, and Elwood has been raised by his loving but strict grandmother. His hard work and focus on always doing the right thing are about to pay off. 

Elwood is getting ready to enroll in the local black college and has big dreams. Everything changes when an innocent mistake causes him to be sent to The Nickel Academy to be “reformed” from his so-called crimes.  

While the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys is fiction, it’s based on real “schools” and the unspeakable treatment of young Black men who were sent there during the 1960s. Elwood does his best to remain optimistic, but his positive attitude is challenged by his new friend Turner, who has experienced a different world growing up.

Book Summary

This is the memoir of Jackie Kennedy’s personal secret service agent who was with her throughout her years as First Lady. In this intimate portrait, Clint Hill recalls being by Jackie’s side for some of her happiest moments, as well as the darkest.

He traveled the world with her, shared in intimate family moments in and out of the White House, and was with her in Dallas on 11/22/63 when he jumped onto the back of the President’s car to shield Mrs. Kennedy in the moments after her husband’s assassination – a tragic day that he recounts moment by moment in this book.

Book Summary

Growing up in Harlem, Benny’s father had ties to the mob. Benny learned that love and family can get you into trouble, so he decided to make music his entire life. But rather than seeking the spotlight, Benny writes songs for other musicians.

That is, until Benny meets Esther – a petite but powerful singer. He writes a song for her, but when they end up performing it together, he’s suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. Not only do music fans take notice – it also gains the attention of the mob. 

In addition to the storyline set in 1960, we read portions of an interview that Benny gave to radio show personality Barry Gray in 1969. But what happened in between? The answer—like the decade—involves politics, racism, and lots of amazing music.

Book Summary

Set during Thanksgiving week of 1962, this novel tells the story of a family torn apart by secrets.

Macey was just nine years old when her mom put her on a bus to her grandma’s farm and told her to wait at the station to be picked up.

Her grandma is keeping secrets from her mama. Her mom keeps secrets from her. And her father is so lost in the memories of the Korean War that he even keeps secrets from himself.

Now Macey has a terrible secret of her own. Is this a secret she is meant to keep, or one she should tell?

Book Summary

Starla is only 9 years old when she makes a series of decisions that change her life overnight. It’s 1963, and she lives with her strict grandmother in Mississippi. Despite being grounded, Starla sneaks out to see the annual 4th of July parade. When she’s caught, she believes her grandmother’s threats of reform school and sneaks out again with the intention of finding her mom all the way in Nashville. 

Starla is offered a ride from a black woman, Eula, traveling with a white baby, quite the controversial scene in the 1963 South. Their journey is full of adventures, sometimes dangerous, and long chats that help Starla redefine family and understand more about the world she lives in.

Book Summary

In this coming-of-age novel, thirteen-year-old Jack Elliot wants to find a way to keep his oldest brother, Pete, from being drafted and sent to Vietnam. He overhears the men at the local barbershop complaining that famous boys don’t go to war, so he decides the best way to protect his brother is to make him the biggest celebrity in their small town. 

Jack and his cousin Frankie convince Jack’s brothers to hunt for a missing fighter jet that crashed in their neck of the woods a few winters back. If they find it, Pete will be a hero. But their summer plans become more complicated thanks to a beautiful girl, a greedy developer, and a wild motorcycle gang.

Book Summary

Fifty-something Imogen Fortier is a magazine columnist living on Camano Island outside of Seattle. When she receives a fan letter containing a gift of saffron, from 27-year-old Joan Bergstrom in LA, she writes back. Thus begins an unlikely friendship between these two women.

As the years pass, their letters to one another help them through the ups and downs of the world – the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy – as well as the unexpected twists and turns in their own lives. From world events to romantic relationships, through their letters, they discover that food and a good life can’t be separated. Can anything shake the trust they’ve built over their years of correspondence?

This book is fully written in epistolary style, so you’ll be reading the letters back and forth between the women. The author kept the book on the shorter side, hoping it could be enjoyed in one sitting.

Book Summary

In 2010, architect Kayla Carter’s husband dies tragically while working on the construction of the family’s dream home in the quiet town of Round Hill, North Carolina. Kayla tries to stay strong for her young daughter, but she knows that the new house will always hold upsetting memories. A mysterious older woman shows up at Kayla’s office who seems to know too much about the family and warns Kayla not to move into the trophy home in Shadow Ridge Estates. The property is rumored to be haunted, but the true history of the land may hide even darker secrets.

In the 1965 timeline, the author takes us back to Round Hill during a very turbulent time in American history. College student Ellie Hockley was raised to be a proper Southern lady, but she envisions a different future than the one that’s expected of her. She plans to spend her summer break helping to register black voters. As she aids the fight for civil rights, she’ll discover the frightening true nature of her neighbor’s prejudices.

When these two women’s stories ultimately come together, the truth will finally be revealed.

Book Summary

Eight years before Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in Memphis, he was arrested in Atlanta during a peaceful sit-in at Rich’s Department Store. This happened less than three weeks before the 1960 Presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, creating the ultimate October Surprise for the election. 

Each candidate had to decide whether they wanted to address the arrest and, if so, how to respond. Kennedy’s campaign included a Civil Rights Section (CRS), and the CRS advocated for action by Kennedy. The CRS was led by pioneering Black journalist Louis Martin, future Pennsylvania senator Harris Wofford, and Sargent Shriver, the founder of the Peace Corps. Over the course of nine days, they worked both with Kennedy and behind his back to secure King’s release. 

This compelling and well-researched non-fiction tells the story of the first time King spent a night in jail and how his bail refusal impacted an extremely close election.

Book Summary

When Alice Weiss leaves her home in Iowa to chase her dreams in NYC, she is lucky to land the job of a lifetime at Cosmopolitan magazine, which is under the new leadership of its first female editor, Helen Gurley Brown.

Not everyone is happy to see Helen at the helm of the magazine, with some editors and writers resigning and others cooking up a scheme to sabotage their new boss. Alice, on the other hand, remains loyal and is determined to help her new boss succeed as she shocks America by daring to talk to women about all things off-limits.