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Original poster

1980s setting

44 replies

Auntlinny · 12/04/2013 22:21

What I said in the title really. Can anyone think of a good read with an eighties setting?

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EarthtoMajorTom · 12/05/2013 23:09

Rumours of a Hurricane (the hurricane is the 1987 one that Michael Fish failed to predict). A great read about the Eighties.

Frizzybear · 09/05/2013 13:33

Not a huge Martina Cole fan but i really enjoyed The Take, very good book set in 80's East end

Suzietwo · 07/05/2013 09:44

Money!

MrsTaraPlumbing · 07/05/2013 08:03

I am thinking the first books of Minnette Walters. Crime fiction.

JackieTheFart · 06/05/2013 23:47

Sue Grafton's Alphabet Series are all set in the 80s.

The Time Traveler's Wife, a good portion set in the 80s.

The Robber Bride.

AnonYonimousBird · 02/05/2013 12:18

The Generation Game takes you right through 70-80-90's.... Enjoyable read.

AnonYonimousBird · 02/05/2013 12:17

I second What a Carve Up. Ridiculous, but an absolute hoot!

Planetofthedrapes · 02/05/2013 02:22

Peerless Flats by Esther Freud
Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz
Baby Cakes, Significant Others and Sure of You by Armistead Maupin

and now for some really trashy reads....
Princess Daisy.........Judith Krantz
Hollywood Wives......Jackie Collins

elkiedee · 02/05/2013 01:59

I'm planning to read Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd this month, apparently it's set during the miners' strike. The Cold, Cold Ground and I Hear the Sirens in the Street by Adrian McKinty are crime novels set in early 1980s Belfast, at the time of the Hunger strikes.

Lomaamina · 01/05/2013 20:04

I agree BestIsWest Nice Work is an excellent choice for an 1980s novel as it has at its heart the decline of industry contrasted with the emergence of new universities (and a great story too).

BestIsWest · 01/05/2013 16:27

Nice Work by David Lodge. I've just started re-reading it and it is the 80's very much as I remember them.

ChewingOnLifesGristle · 30/04/2013 10:48

I'm going to add to the chorus for Starter For Ten. Very funnyGrin

Colyngbourne · 30/04/2013 10:39

Like others above, I would recommend The Northern Clemency and Black Swan Green

AmandaPayneAteTooMuchChocolate · 28/04/2013 22:06

Currently reading Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt. Not a '80s novel', but it is set in the 80s and deals indirectly with the start of the AIDS epidemic so feels very of its time.

Bue · 28/04/2013 17:45

All of Anne Tyler novels that were written in the 80s are set in the 80s (go figure). They feel pretty timeless though.

Starter for Ten is brill.

Lomaamina · 28/04/2013 17:34

'City of the Mind' by Penelope Lively: www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141909967,00.html?strSrchSql=Penelope+Lively/City_of_the_Mind_Penelope_Lively

"In London?s changing heartland, architect Matthew Halland is constantly aware of the past and the present blending together. It stirs memories of his boyhood, the early years of his daughter Jane and the failed marriage that he has almost put behind him. Here too is the London of prehistory, of Georgian elegance, of the Blitz. But Matthew is occupied with constructing a new future for London in Docklands, and with it he begins to forge new, fragile yet hopeful, beginnings of his own. Lives connect and intersect in a web of connections, random and mysterious, in one of Penelope Lively?s most evocative novels. "

BestIsWest · 27/04/2013 22:32

Rumpole of the Bailey! I used to love those books .

TheSmallClanger · 19/04/2013 15:16

GB84 by David Peace, although you do need certain political sympathies and a strong stomach.

The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis - nice companion to American Psycho, less gory. Less Than Zero is also set in the 80s, but I didn't like that.

tripfiction · 19/04/2013 10:11

It's a bit like busses, no 1980s set books and then they all pop up.

Another suggestion which has rave reviews - plenty of Gallic flair in this one, set around Mitterand's hat! www.tripfiction.com/Book/3049

PeasandCucumbers · 18/04/2013 23:48

I really enjoyed Starter for Ten

tripfiction · 18/04/2013 20:14

I have just come across this:
www.tripfiction.com/Book/3046 set in the 1980s, Winner of the Mail on Sunday Novel Competition

needanewnickname · 16/04/2013 00:13

I second Black Swan Green - well observed story of a boy who is a teenager at secondary school in the 80s.

ivehadaverybadday · 15/04/2013 20:54

Horrid as it is, American Psycho is a fantastic book. I second all the Jonathan Coe, and The Line of Beauty Smile

ISpyPlumPie · 15/04/2013 20:52

Was going to suggest The Line of Beauty but was beaten to it! Also agree with What a Carve Up and the first three Aidrian Moles.

notcitrus · 14/04/2013 13:30

Secret Diary and Growing Pains of Adrian Mole are great - I reread them recently as so much of them went over my head at the time.