What's your favourite book from 60s/70s/80s?

[ArmsClary]

Either written in or set in?

Open to childhood favourites as well

I've been taking great comfort in 'simpler-times' fiction recently and have loved the following:

The House in Norham Gardens (Penelope Lively)
Black Swan Green (David Mitchell)
A Traveller in Time (Allison Uttley) although think this is set in the 1930s.

I love how much comfort these books bring me during these monotonous weeks and love to escape to the past.

Any recommendations or old favourites? Even willing to stretch to the 90s

Man at the Helm by Nina Stibbe is set in the 70s and is very funny.

Not fiction, but Where did it all go right (growing up normal in the 70s) by Andrew Collins is fab.

Just finished reading Black Swan Green about an hour ago. One of the best books I've read in a long time. A rare thing:- well written and a page turner!

Childhood favourites:

The Little White Horse - although that was first published in the 40s!
The Dark is Rising series of novels, published in the 60s-70s.
The Malcolm Saville Lone Pine stories, which began in the 40s.
Monica Edwards pony stories - which again began in the 40s. I think lots of the books I loved in childhood must have been passed on to me by my mum. I love them - so comforting. Hard to get hold of some of them these days though!

I think you would like 'The Hand That First Held Mine' by Maggie O'Farrell. Also anything by Muriel Spark, and Mary Wesley - both give me that comfort feeling

I quite often go back to books I read as a child. The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (Penelope Lively), Ordinary Jack (and the rest of the Bagthorpe Saga, by Helen Cresswell), Are you there God? It's me, Margaret (Judy Blume) all from the 70s. Goodnight Mister Tom (Michelle Magorian) from the 80s

I read The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher for the first time recently - written in the 1980s but a long saga from the 1940s to the 80s

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. Loved the most of the series although thought the last one she had run out of steam.

I love the early Jilly Coopers - Emily, Prudence, Harriet etc - written in the 70s but I read them in the early 80s. Everyone seemed so glamorous in them!

Also other bonkbuster such as Lace and Scruples for a real 80s throwback

Anne of Greengables -first read this as a teen

Little Woman

Spencer Mountain - read this recently. It was the book that inspired The Waltons tv series. It would fit your ‘simpler times’ theme, and I really enjoyed it.

35 Years on the Job, a Very funny anthology of Patrick Campbell's work.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons.
Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey.
The early Adrian Moles.

The L Shaped Room by Lynne Reid Banks
Room at the Top - John Braine
A King of Loving - Stan Barstow
Up The Junction - Nell Dunn

These were all "kitchen sink dramas" - realism.

Later, I enjoyed Fay Weldon. Early Jilly Cooper when I was in my early twenties for a bit of light relief. I also liked the "bonkbusters" as they were known - Jackie Collins stuff - again easy, light but absorbing reads.

But the ones are remember are the ones I first mentioned.

Lynne Reid Banks - haven’t heard her name for yo is.

Just looked her up, she’s 91 now, and has had a really interesting life.

LRB

My favourite is the greatest literary work of the early 80s, you will not find a better example. It is...

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4

The book was brilliant, I was laughing so much reading it in bed one night, my mum came in because she thought I was crying, all because Adrian was told a joke "what do you call a man with 50 rabbits up his bum? ..... Warren"

Lace and Scruples for a real 80s throwback

Wow, they take me back!

Standrewsschool
I loved One More River and My Darling Villain and later The L Shaped Room.
Thanks for the link, I listened to her voice too, she didn't sound 80!

I think you'd like Clare Chambers, Learning To Swim.

A Crime in the Neighbourhood by Suzanne Berne was written in the 90s but is a coming of age story set in the 70s. So nostalgic, loved it.

A Long Way From Verona by Jane Gardam