The 75 Best Books of the Past 75 Years

This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.

About this list

Parade Magazine, 88 Books

A list of voted on by 17 employees(book sellers) at Parnassus Books in Nashville, TN for Parade Magazine.

This list was originally published in 2016 and was added to this site over 9 years ago.

View: List Grid Table
Rank Book Authors Year Country Language Actions
141 Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh 1945 British English
2624 The Hero with a Thousand Faces Joseph Campbell 1949 American English
176 The End of the Affair Graham Greene 1951 British English
600 Nine Stories J. D. Salinger 1953 American English
2803 Mastering the Art of French Cooking Julia Child, Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle 1961 American English
103 The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath 1963 American English
190 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams 1979 British English
1104 Maus Art Spiegelman 1980 American English
236 Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone J. K. Rowling 1997 British English
1842 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire J. K. Rowling 2000 British English
2232 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows J. K. Rowling 2007 British English
1755 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince J. K. Rowling 2005 British English
1017 Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban J. K. Rowling 1999 British English
1910 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix J. K. Rowling 2003 British English
2144 Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets J. K. Rowling 1998 British English
1265 On Writing Stephen King 2000 American English
1907 Consider The Lobster David Foster Wallace 2005 American English
9127 My Name Is Lucy Barton Elizabeth Strout 2016 American English
244 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn Betty Smith 1943 American English
149 All the King's Men Robert Penn Warren 1946 American English
361 Foundation Isaac Asimov 1951 American English
102 Charlotte's Web E. B. White 1952 American English
36 Invisible Man Ralph Ellison 1952 American English
54 The Old Man and the Sea Ernest Hemingway 1952 American English
150 Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury 1953 American English
161 The Long Goodbye Raymond Chandler 1953 American English
208 A Good Man Is Hard to Find Flannery O'Connor 1953 American English
14 Lolita Vladimir Nabokov 1955 American English
167 Giovanni's Room James Baldwin 1956 American English
483 The Civil War Shelby Foote 1958 American English
286 The Once and Future King T. H. White 1958 British English
598 Night Elie Wiesel 1958 French French
174 Rabbit, Run John Updike 1960 American English
686 Rabbit Is Rich John Updike 1981 American English
668 Rabbit Redux John Updike 1971 American English
784 Rabbit at Rest John Updike 1990 American English
16 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 1960 American English
182 The Moviegoer Walker Percy 1961 American English
154 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Ken Kesey 1962 American English
162 Silent Spring Rachel Carson 1962 American English
417 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn 1962 American English
293 A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle 1962 American English
1588 The Guns of August Barbara Wertheim Tuchman 1962 American English
320 Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak 1963 American English
306 The Autobiography of Malcolm X Alex Haley 1965 American English
109 In Cold Blood Truman Capote 1966 American English
304 The Double Helix James D. Watson 1968 American English
84 Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut 1969 American English
558 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown 1970 American English
1685 Burr Gore Vidal 1973 American English
260 Song of Solomon Toni Morrison 1977 American English
1089 Suttree Cormac McCarthy 1979 American English
539 So Long, See You Tomorrow William Maxwell 1980 American English
1379 The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty Eudora Welty 1980 American English
331 Housekeeping Marilynne Robinson 1980 American English
2586 A People's History of the United States Howard Zinn 1980 American English
1485 A Perfect Spy John le Carré 1986 British English
648 The Things They Carried Tim O'Brien 1990 American English
2697 All Over But The Shoutin' Rick Bragg 1997 American English
279 The Secret History Donna Tartt 1992 American English
1697 The Stone Diaries Carol Shields 1993 Canadian English
5255 The Collected Stories Grace Paley 1994 American English
4520 Last Train to Memphis Peter Guralnick 1994 American English
2022 The Color of Water James McBride 1995 American English
1774 Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri 1999 American English
3506 Speak Laurie Halse Anderson 1999 American English
380 American Pastoral Philip Roth 1997 American English
1261 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood 2000 Canadian English
2523 Old Filth Jane Gardam 2004 British English
8498 Collected Poems Jane Kenyon 2005 American English
266 Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro 2005 British English
5357 Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin 2005 American English
6980 We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live Joan Didion 2006 American English
2847 What Is the What Dave Eggers 2006 American English
2650 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie 2007 American English
396 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Diaz 2007 Dominican English
6467 The Lion and the Mouse Jerry Pinkney 2009 American English
397 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel 2009 British English
7105 Brother, I'm Dying Edwidge Danticat 2007 Haitian English
1285 Selected Stories of Alice Munro Alice Munro 1996 Canadian English
7001 Collected Poems Jack Gilbert 2012 American English
1460 Never Mind Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
2849 Bad News Edward St Aubyn 1992 British English
2949 Some Hope Edward St Aubyn 1994 British English
3135 Mother's Milk Edward St Aubyn 2005 British English
5279 At Last Edward St Aubyn 2011 British English
3216 Brown Girl Dreaming Jacqueline Woodson 2014 American English
3234 When Breath Becomes Air Paul Kalanithi 2016 American English