Here are books through the decades!
1920s
"A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway DB 49506
Romance between American lieutenant Frederic Henry in the ambulance service in Italy during World War I and the English nurse Catherine Barkley, who tends him when he is wounded. When Catherine becomes pregnant, she refuses to marry Frederic.
"The Boxcar Children" by Gertrude Chandler DB 63706
Four orphaned children--Jessie, Henry, Violet, and Benny Alden--run away and live in an abandoned boxcar until they are found by their grandfather, Henry James Alden, who turns out to be a kind man.
1930s
"Gone with the wind" by Margaret Mitchell DB 33082
A romantic Civil War epic in which Scarlet O' Hara, a forceful and ruthless heroine, and Rhett Butler, a war profiteer, play out their tempestuous love affair against the background of the war-torn South. Pulitzer Prize
"The Good Earth" by Pearl Buck DB 37294
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Describes the rise of Wang Lung, a poor Chinese peasant. The story begins with his wedding day, as he ponders his good fortune that now he will have a woman to take over the chore of lighting a fire to heat the water for his bath. With the help and patience of his new wife, O-lan, Wang Lung becomes a rich landowner.
1940s
"The Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupery DB 44071
The narrator's plane is forced down in the African desert, where he meets the little prince from Asteroid B-612, who freely shares his experiences with the fascinated pilot.
"Animal Farm" by George Orwell DB 38959
An allegorical political satire of communism in which the animals on a farm overthrow their master and live a utopian life until the intelligent pigs take over and one establishes himself as dictator.
1950s
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury DB 34963
Social satire set in the future, when owning or reading books is a crime. Guy Montag, the fireman-hero, becomes a fugitive when he succumbs to temptation.
"Charlotte's Web" by E.B. White DB 97716
Fern, a young girl with a unique understanding of animals, shares a special friendship with her uncle's pig and Charlotte, a wise spider who weaves encouraging words in her web.
1960s
"The Outsiders" by S.E. Hinton DB 106834
Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ponyboy, a fourteen-year-old greaser, tells what it is like to come from the wrong side of the tracks and to be bullied by their traditional, upper-middle-class enemy, the Socs. And then a tragedy occurs.
"One flew over the cuckoo's nest" by Ken Kesey DB 56351
Chief Bromden, a long-term inmate of a mental institution, relates the story of a struggle for control of the ward, centering around the hateful, authoritarian Nurse Ratched and a new patient, the fiercely independent Randle Patrick McMurphy.
1970s
"Are you there God? It's Me, Margaret" by Judy Bloom DB 37405
Margaret is lonely after her parents buy a new house in Farbrook, New Jersey. Because she is from the city, the new girls expect her to be more grown up than they are, but Margaret's body hasn't begun to mature yet and she's never kissed a boy.
"The Shining" by Stephen King DB 51373
Jack and Wendy Torrance come face-to-face with terror when they become caretakers of a haunted old hotel in the snowy mountains of Colorado. Their five-year-old son Danny, who appears to have psychic powers, is the first to sense the evil in the building.
1980s
"The color purple" by Alice Walker DB 58842
Follows two black sisters--Nettie, a missionary, and Celie, raped by her father and married to a cruel man. Nettie's letters do not reach Celie, and Celie's shame is so great that she writes only to God.
"Equal rites" by Terry Pratchett DB 52704
Wizard Drum Billet is dying--in about six minutes--and wants to pass on his powers to the eighth son of an eighth son who is just being born. The wizard's staff is placed in the child's hand immediately after birth. But, the child is a girl!
1990s
"Outlander" by Dianna Gabaldon DB 118350
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord...1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" by J.K. Rowling DB 92229
: On Harry Potter's eleventh birthday, he learns that he is more than an unwanted orphan. The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry recruits him because he has inherent magical abilities. As he purchases his school supplies--robes, wand, and messenger owl--Harry looks forward to attending his new boarding school.
2000s
"The lovely bones" by Alice Sebold DB 54698
Susie Salmon, a fourteen-year-old girl murdered by a neighbor, watches over her family and friends from heaven. While adjusting to a new habitat, she reaches out to them as she observes their struggle to survive their grief.
"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins DB 68384
In a future North America, Panem's rulers maintain control through a televised survival competition pitting teens from twelve districts in a fight to the death. Sixteen-year-olds Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark are this year's girl and boy contestants from District Twelve.
2010s
"The Martian" by Andy Weir DB 78389
Six days after becoming the first man to walk on Mars, astronaut Mark Watney is caught in a windstorm. Though his support crew thinks he died, Mark survived and now faces abandonment, failed machinery, and a hostile environment.
"The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt DB 77453
At the age of thirteen, Theo Decker survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is raised by wealthy family friends. His one connection to his mother--a painting--draws Theo into New York City's underground art world as he grows older. Pulitzer Prize winner.