The 1960s were a period of change, living in the popular imagination as a decade of political turmoil, social unrest, and countercultural shifts. From the Vietnam War and the protests it sparked to the Civil Rights Movement and the Stonewall Riots, the 1960s in the United States were in part defined by the movements that rose up in the midst of oppression. But they were also a time of tremendous innovation and creation in arts and culture, from the dawn of Beatlemania to the first Woodstock Music and Art Fair closing out the decade in 1969. Color televisions appeared in living rooms across America, Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon, and the free love movement ushered in a new era of social liberation.
Of course, no decade can be summed up in a few sentences—which is exactly why we've compiled this list of essential books of and about the 1960s to help you dive a bit deeper. Here you'll find stories set in the 1960s and some of the most iconic books first published in the 1960s, fiction and nonfiction, which speak both to the time in which they were written and to our current moment more than six decades later.
