My Favorite Book of the Year: 1969-1960

image

I am really enjoying this series, though in a couple decades I’m going to have to be reading a lot of new books to fill in the years I haven’t read a single book I liked in. Anyway, for those just coming to this post, this is a series where I share my favorite book published in a particular year. And we’re going back in time. If you’re curious to read more in this series, check out my previous decades.

My Favorite Book of The Year: 2019-2010
My Favorite Book of The Year: 2009-2000

My Favorite Book of the Year: 1979-1970

Ah, now we reach the 60’s, a time of mini-skirts, the Vietnam War, and the movie Psycho (great movie). Anyway, let’s get straight into it!

1969

The Shivering Sands

This book falls under the genre of gothic romance. My mother read a lot of this when she was younger and, wanting to read her favorite authors, I’ve read a few too. However, most of them have interesting mysteries and extremely annoying protagonists. This is the only one I’ve read where I enjoyed both the romance and the story.

1968

A Wizard of Earthsea

I read this book for a class in college, and it remains one of my favorite classical fantasy books. I’m actually surprised I’ve never continued on in the series, because I loved the first book. Maybe one of these days I’ll read on.

1967

Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

This is the same author as the Amelia Peabody mystery series, which I also love. But Mertz also avidly researched Ancient Egypt, producing two nonfiction books about it, one of which is this one. Just the detailed understanding of how daily life would have been at the time is fascinating.

1966

Big Sister and Little Sister

This book is especially near and dear to my heart, because I identified with the younger sister, as I have an older sister. Growing up, we would argue, but we were also incredibly close, just like these two. This book is an adorable children’s book.

1965

Dune (Dune Chronicles, #1)

This book I have slightly mixed feelings about. The world is great, but the plot is pretty boring until the ending. Saying that, this book is such a rarity among classical sci-fi, inspiring generations of sci-fi authors.

1964

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I remember reading this when I was about eleven or so, and it has remained one of my favorites, prompting my imagination as well as my sensibilities of practicality. Few book surely can present such a magical world and at the same time give real life lessons.

1963

Where the Wild Things Are

This is another classical children’s book. I enjoyed this story when I was younger, though I do remember having mixed feeling of the new movie.

1962

Something Wicked This Way Comes (Green Town, #2)

I have a feeling Ray Bradbury will be on these lists (and all my positive lists in general) quite a lot. He’s currently in my top ten favorite authors, though that may change once I exhaust his extensive reading list. Anyway, this was the first book I read by him, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For being a book centered around children, there is this incredible maturity about it.

1961

Beorn the Proud

This was my favorite book I was assigned to read in middle school (or elementary school, I can’t remember). It tells the story of a Christian girl captured by Vikings who befriends the son of a powerful Viking chief. It is a comparison of ideals, pagan and Christian, and I absolutely loved this book. I should really try rereading it again.

1960

A Man for All Seasons

Both this and To Kill a Mockingbird came out in 1960, and I really cannot decide which I like better. I settled on this one just because it’s a play, and I haven’t mentioned many plays on my lists so far. This tells of the final conflict between King Henry VIII and Thomas More, after which Henry executed More for disagreeing with his divorce with Catherine and his break with the Catholic Church.

Another decade gone and next month we’re onto the 50’s, which is also the decade my mother was born. Have you read any of the these books? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments, follow my blog for more musings and, as always,

Best wishes in your life full of adventure,

Madame Writer

13 thoughts on “My Favorite Book of the Year: 1969-1960

  1. This series is great! I have the book Dune but I haven’t read it. I leaf through it and it’s a little dense for me. Some comments on 豆瓣(a Chinese website like Goodreads) also say the plot is boring…

    Liked by 1 person

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s