Category: book Nook
Hey guys. I'm curious if any of you like these types of books, or if any of you have read a book that was written about this erra that you would recommend I read. I have read about the 1960's and I find the changes the country went through around then to be very interesting. I am also working on writing a book about it myself in my spare time. Once I finish it I will post a summary about it, if anyone is interested in reading it I can send it to you. I'd just like to get a better idea of what it was like then, and perhaps see how authors wrote about it. I am particularly interested in the genres of historical fiction or the style of a memoir, because that will probably be the genre of the book I write. Thanks for your suggestions in advance.
Wallace Stegner's "Angle of Repose" takes place during 1970s. It is the story of a man writing about his grandmother during the late 1890s, but it does reflect on the changes the world went through in both time periods; not a bad read, really
Thanks Kate... I'll check that one out.
It's a good read, although I have read other Stegner books that I prefer... my favorite of his is "The Big Rock Candy Mountain." Takes place from 1904 until 1940 or so; while note a lighthearted book, it's wonderful!
Kate
The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Fantastic book set in the mid sixties.
Ryan, I appreciate your fascination with the 60s and the tumultuous times. You may want to watch the documentaries online about the Manson murders. You get an inside view of how people felt about a lot of things then.
But here's a bit of word to the young people now: You are in just that kind of revolutionary times now. I mean, look what you've done: Social networking across the globe has brought together downtrodden and oppressed people like no flower child commune could. People have worked to overthrow oppressors in the Middle East. Satellites showing the oppression in work camps in North Korea.
Now, I'll grant you, there's not the values differences between us exers and you millennials. Not like there was between my parent's age and us. I couldn't even listen to my father's music, and certainly my mother's rants against Martin Luther King day made no sense at all to me. But that word 'generation gap' they used in the 1980s when some of us were teenagers? It's really not as big between people my daughter's age and me. Some people on the older end, more so. But still, while the values haven't changed that much, we have the veritable printing press, the flattening of ideas and fact-finding.
Look at the Texas situation, where Rick Perry was holding hostage some women's health concerns, one woman worked against it for hours in Congress there. No word of this on the news, but it was all over Twitter. Same goes for Anonymous, Snowden's findings, a lot of the pushback against the NSA, and other things going on now. So, you don't have the minibuses, fuzzy dice, and LSD. Instead of Free Love, you have campus V Day celebrations, vagina warriors and campus rules for sexual interactions staged by protests rife with rich white elitists asking for us working class people to give up our privilege. It's tumultuous times. You should maybe reflect on the 60s, but write your memoirs from your own activities now. The activities of young people now are rich, adding a whole new dimension to society that we don't yet fully realize.
Just my thoughts.
Thanks Cody. I looked at the plot summaries of the books that you and Kate suggested and they both look interesting.
I'll check out those documentaries Leo. You have lots of good points. A couple weeks ago I thought a lot of how social networks like Facebook have braught together many people that you haven't heard of in years and it is astounding. I may have my bad days with it (hence my one topic about it) but I'm glad it exists.
The Advise and Consent series by Alan Drury is a fascinating peak into how some people on the right/near-right were thinking back then, although technically these books did not take place in the 1960s per se. There were six books in all, and you probably can’t get your hands on many of them anymore. The first book, Advise and Consent, was written in 1958, and I think it won a Pulitzer in ’59. You can download it on the BARD website though, and if you still have a recordplayer and can get your hands on the old vinyl talking books from that era, you just might be able to get some of the others. If you don’t know the basic story, that first book concerned Washington politics and the machinations of the U.S. senate as it dealt with the nomination of a secretary of state who may have had past ties in the Communist party. Future books portray a United States beleaguered by increasing domestic and international strife and the threat to its very existence by an aggressive Soviet Union that wanted ultimately to conquer it. As the series continues, you find it mirrors the crescendo of the events that took place in the 60s, and it even has some fictionalized political assassinations toward the end of it. You also find as you read that the plots become increasingly more byzantine, with some scenarios that may now seem highly improbable, though at the time nearly everybody was paranoid about practically everything, and I think Drury was pretty paranoid about the Communists. It shows in the increasingly shrill and preachy tone of his writing, and frankly, Come Nineveh Come Tyre, the fifth book, is so badly written in spots that it makes me cringe. His characters become caricatures. You have a heroic president who stands almost alone against the Communist threat while another side is represented by a man who wants the presidency but becomes a dupe to the Communist conspiracy, all because he wanted to “be good.” Come Nineveh Come Tyre actually portrays what might happen to the United States if he ever came to power, while the sixth and final volume, The Promise of Joy, explores what happens in an alternate reality if his chief rival is elected. But if you can suspend your disbelief and get past their obvious defects, these books can be an interesting read. From a historian’s perspective, there’s a lot to think about since all the books were based on the future as Drury saw it then. For instance, one of the issues in Advise and Consent is what happens to a senator when a past homosexual relationship is brought to light. In 1958, this was pretty taboo stuff. It also posited a moon landing by the USSR. The president dies in office, and his vice president takes over. This is important because in the 50s and early 60s, there were no constitutional provisions for nominating a vice president under those circumstances, so a president who assumed the office on the death of his predecessor served alone without a vice president. I’d have to go back and read this book, but I believe you also saw video phones at that time. Of course, I think, only the president had access to one, and his Soviet counterpart. A Shade of Difference, the second book in the series, was published in 1962, and it prophesied that Southern resistance to desegregation would present an opportunity for the Soviet Union and her allies to bring a motion to expel the U.S. from the United Nations. In Capable of Honor (1966), Air Force One is blown up, and in Preserve and Protect, the speaker of the house becomes president. (This book was published in 1968, so the 25th Amendment was in play, and I have to say that Drury used it to good effect.) In Come Nineveh Come Tyre, one of the characters is a female justice of the Supreme Court, while in Promise of Joy, you see the nomination of the first black vice presidential candidate. (Again, these books were published in 1973 and 1975 respectively, so I suppose the ideas were pretty noteworthy for mainstream audiences.) Overall, I’d give them a read if you’re interested in seeing one person’s perspective on life in those times. Drury fascinates, as I think you’ll see, because he’s very conservative on one issue, but relatively liberal on many others. His writing could be very poetic in spots, but absolutely abysmal in others. I definitely think he hated student radicals, and he’s definitely guilty of over-inflating the Soviet threat, but that’s interesting in and of itself because we never really realized what a paper tiger the Soviet Union was in many ways until the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the 1980s and 90s. To tell the truth, I’d still read them now even with their annoying tendencies.
That sounds interesting. It's pretty much close enough to the time period I'm interested in anyway. I don't have a Bard account yet. I use IBooks so I'll see if it's on there first, but if not that'll be another reason to get a Bard account.
Stephen King's "hearts in Atlantas" is divided into four books, and the first two (especially the second (hearts in atlantis") depict pretty well the early sixties.)
James Mitchener wrote a book called "Kent State" which is the best descriptions of those times that I've seen.
Sorry, but I don't agree about the Drury books. I read two of them, and couldn't take the anticommunist crap. Too reminiscent of Joe McCaarthy.
By the way, I went to college during the sixties ('64 to '70), and think your book is a great idea. If I can help in any way, send a pm or email etc.
Thanks.
Bob
If you use BARD, how about checking out books by singers, actors, comedians, etc.who were getting started in the business in the 60's or even the 50's. Reading autobiographies like that can tell you a lot about the times.
Thanks Becky and Bob, I'll let you guys know if I need help with anything with Bard. All good ideas.
The Help
by Kathryn Stockett
11/22/63
by
Steven King
The Drifters
by James A. Michener
Go Ask Alice
by Beatrice Sparks
Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders
by Vincent Bugliosi
I googled it and found this website. HTH
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/9458.Best_Novels_about_the_1960s
Great suggestions. I loved The Help, and it certainly does describe how things were in the South for blacks in those days, but I don't know if things were quite as bad in the North. Still, a great book for gaining insight into those times.
Check out
http://chicago68.com/
Hope that works, if not the url is http://chicago68.com/
It's about the riot that, in my opinion, set the stage for the seventies and onward.
Bob
I'd reccommend Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, though it does not take place in the US (it takes place in Japan), it's a great read, and talks a bit about the culture. I'd also reccommend The Things They Carried, it's a memoir about the Vietnam war.
Thank you Matt Musician for the suggestions. A great deal of the book I am writing will have to do with the Vietnam War as the main character was drafted and entered the Marine Corps. That continual part of the era is the most interesting to me, and it seems like it is the easiest topic to research about thus far.
Ryan, I don't know if you like Stephen King, but there is a book by him called Hearts in Atlantis that contains four interconnected stories about friends growing up in the 60's and some of them do go to Vietnam.
Bob I was not bragging about my own generation. Far from it. The young people now are embroiled in controversies we who grew up in the 1980s never at all got involved with. That was not bragging about my own generation, that was probably an indictment against Gen X, but in support of the millennials. How my prior post could have been seen otherwise is a mystery to me.
They are the ones, not us, who are using social networks to topple regimes in the Middle East and in Africa.
Again, what I said earlier was in support of the millennials as a history making generation, possibly just like Bob and Becky's. And if anything, it was an indictment against my own.
Anyway Ryan I wish you the best on this, and perhaps rather than seeing the 60s as a golden age, you will see the similarities between then and now. You young people are breaking barriers for gay, Lesbian and transgendered people, reporting voter fraud via social networks, and bringing groups together who had formerly been separated.
I was not alive in the 60s, granted. And too young to care during most of the 70s. But from what I have read, there do seem to be some parallels between the 60s generation and the millennials. Might be something interesting to explore in your writing if you care to.
Leo, I'm not sure where I accused you of bragging about your generation, but I appologize if I did.
Actually, your points about the current generation are great. Never thought of it, but I think you might be right.
Bob
Hey- ReadCHRONICLES VOLUME I by Bob Dylan. SWEET JUDY BLUE EYES: MY
LIFE IN MUSIC by Judy Collins. These are autobios by Folkies. You must, of
course write about the anti-war part of the story. There is also Harper Lee's TO
KILL A MOCKINGBIRD which was written in the 60s. Also read Leonard Cohen's
novel, Beautiful losers. And read up about the Chicago 7. Joan Baez's memoir,
AND A VOICE TO SING WITH is also interesting though politically charged.
Send me a PM and I can supply you with some of this stuff.
To Kill a Mocking Bird may have been written in the 60's, although I'm not sure about that, the story was about a time several decades earlier.
To Kill a Mockingbird was written in 1960, but covers the years from about 1933-35.