Books Set in the 1920s

I decided I’m going to do an entire time periods recommendations tag starting with the 1920s because I’m about to pick up the Diviners by Libba Bray! I decided to share descriptions of only three books because this post would be way too long if I shared all of the ones mentioned. If any of these are wrong, feel free to let me know! I’m pretty quick to change them. :-)

• The Diviners by Libba Bray (GREAT rep for tons of things btw)

“Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.

Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.

As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.”

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald 

“Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach. Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing, and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby—young, handsome, and fabulously rich—always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret: a silent longing that can never be fulfilled. And soon this destructive obsession will force his world to unravel.”

• Bright Young Things by Anna Godbersen

Letty Larkspur and Cordelia Grey escaped their small Midwestern town for New York’s glittering metropolis. All Letty wants is to see her name in lights, but she quickly discovers Manhattan is filled with pretty girls who will do anything to be a star….

Cordelia is searching for the father she’s never known, a man as infamous for his wild parties as he is for his shadowy schemes. Overnight, she enters a world more thrilling and glamorous than she ever could have imagined — and more dangerous. It’s a life anyone would kill for…and someone will.

“The only person Cordelia can trust is ­Astrid Donal, a flapper who seems to have it all: money, looks, and the love of Cordelia’s brother, Charlie. But Astrid’s perfect veneer hides a score of family secrets.”

• The Paris Wife by Paula Mclain
• Speak Easy, Speak Love by McKelle George
• the Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell
• a Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Dalloway
• Z by Zelda Fitzgerald

if you want more, feel free to check out the Goodreads list I found!

---

Books Set in the 1930s

• I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith

❝Through six turbulent months of 1934, 17-year-old Cassandra Mortmain keeps a journal, filling three notebooks with sharply funny yet poignant entries about her home, a ruined Suffolk castle, and her eccentric and penniless family. By the time the last diary shuts, there have been great changes in the Mortmain household, not the least of which is that Cassandra is deeply, hopelessly, in love.❞

• The Game of Love and Death by Martha Brockenbrough

❝Antony and Cleopatra. Helen of Troy and Paris. Romeo and Juliet. And now… Henry and Flora.

For centuries Love and Death have chosen their players. They have set the rules, rolled the dice, and kept close, ready to influence, angling for supremacy. And Death has always won. Always.

Could there ever be one time, one place, one pair whose love would truly tip the balance?

Meet Flora Saudade, an African-American girl who dreams of becoming the next Amelia Earhart by day and sings in the smoky jazz clubs of Seattle by night. Meet Henry Bishop, born a few blocks and a million worlds away, a white boy with his future assured—a wealthy adoptive family in the midst of the Great Depression, a college scholarship, and all the opportunities in the world seemingly available to him.

The players have been chosen. The dice have been rolled. But when human beings make moves of their own, what happens next is anyone’s guess.❞

• Black No More by S.S. Schuyler 

❝What would happen to the race problem in America if black people turned white? Would everybody be happy? These questions and more are answered hilariously in Black No More, George S. Schuyler’s satiric romp. Black No More is the story of Max Disher, a dapper black rogue of an insurance man who, through a scientific transformation process, becomes Matthew Fisher, a white man. Matt dreams up a scam that allows him to become the leader of the Knights of Nordica, a white supremacist group, as well as to marry the white woman who rejected him when he was black. Black No More is a hysterical exploration of race and all its self-serving definitions. If you can’t beat them, turn into them.❞

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinback 
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 
• Their Eyes Were Eye Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker 

Here’s a full list on Goodreads.

---

Books Set in the 1950s

• Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
• Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
• On the Road by Jack Kerouac
• Strings Attached by Judy Blundell 
• Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys 
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Books Set in the 1960s

ｄｅｃａｄｅ ｒｅｃｏｍｍｅｎｄａｔｉｏｎｓ 

• Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett 
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
• 11/23/63 by Stephen King
• Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks
• The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon 
• The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
• The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
• Sekret (#1) by Lindsay Smith
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Books Set in the 1940s

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

❝It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery …

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist – books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.❞

• Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

❝Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.❞

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously–and at great risk–documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

• Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

❝World War II is drawing to a close in East Prussia, and thousands of refugees are on a desperate trek toward freedom, almost all of them with something to hide. Among them are Joana, Emilia, and Florian, whose paths converge en route to the ship that promises salvation, the Wilhelm Gustloff. Forced by circumstance to unite, the three find their strength, courage, and trust in one another tested with each step closer toward safety.

Just when it seems freedom is within their grasp, tragedy strikes. Not country, nor culture, nor status matter as all ten thousand people aboard must fight for the same thing: survival.❞

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doeer 

• Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

• City of Thieves by David Benioff

• Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

• Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli 

---

Here’s a list on Goodreads of YA books set in the 1940s and here’s a general list of books set in the 1940s as well.

find any of these books on Amazon | Book Depository | Books-A-Million | Barnes & Noble!