Community Bookgroup - the 50s
1950
Barabbas - Par Lagerkvist
Helena - Evelyn Waugh
Strangers on a Train - Patricia Highsmith
The Third Man - Graham Greene
A Murder is Announced - Agatha Christie
The Great Escape - Paul Brickhill
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - C S Lewis
The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing
The Rat Race - Jay Franklin
A Town Like Alice - Neville Shute
Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy
1951
Come in Spinner - Dymphna Cusack
The Cruel Sea - Nicholas Monsarrat
Five on a Hike Together - Enid Blyton
From Here to Eternity - James Jones
My Cousin Rachel - Daphne du Maurier
The Grass Harp - Truman Capote
Prince Caspian - C. S. Lewis
Requiem for a Nun - William Faulkner
The Teahouse of the August Moon - Vern Sneider
The End of the Affair - Graham Greene
Siddartha - Hermann Hesse
The Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger
The Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham
The Caine Mutiny - Herman Wouk
Sparticus - Howard Fast
1952
Charlotte's Web - E. B. Brooks
Coins in the Fountain - John Hermes Secondari
The Borrowers - Mary Norton
To Catch a Thief - David Dodge
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison - Charles Shaw
The Natural - Bernard Malamud
The Bridge Over the River Kwai - Pierre Boulle
The Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
East of Eden - John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway
Men at Arms - Evelyn Waugh
Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
Mrs McGinty's Dead - Agatha Christie
They Do it With Mirrors - Agatha Christie
1953
The Adventures of Augie March - Saul Bellow
After the Funeral - Agatha Christie
Battle Cry - Leon Uris
Casino Royale - Ian Fleming
Farnenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Go Tell it on the Mountain - James Baldwin
A Kiss Before Dying - Ira Levin
The Night of the Hunter - Davis Grubb
Ring for Jeeves - P.J. Wodehouse
Legion of the Damned - Sven Hassel
Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids - Isaac Asimov (as Paul French)
The Rebel - Albert Camus
The Second Sex - Simone de Beauvoir
Zen in the Art of Archery - Eugene Herrigel
Nine Stories - J.D. Salinger
Junkie - William S Burroughs
The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley
1954
The Bad Seed - William March
The Forgotten Planet - Murray Leinster
I am Legend - Richard Matheson
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Live and Let Die - Ian Fleming
My Brother's Keeper - Marcia Davenport
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Amos Tutuola
Pictures from an Institution - Randall Jarrell
A Spy in the House of Love - Anais Nin
Story of O - Pauline Reage
The Man Who Planted Trees - Jean Giono
The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley
Under the Net - Iris Murdoch
The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkein
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
1955
Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis
The Bodysnatchers - Jack Finney
The Ginger Man - J. P. Donleavy
The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit - Sloane Wilson
Marjorie Morningstar - Herman Wouk
Moonraker - Ian Fleming
The Mouse that Roared - Leonard Wibberley
The Talented Mr Ripley - Patricia Highsmith
The Return of the King - J.R.R.Tolkein
The Tree of Man - Patrick White
Waiting for the Mahatma - R.K. Narayon
The Quiet American - Graham Greene
Surprised by Joy - C.S. Lewis
Lolita - Vladimir Nabakov
Officers and Gentlemen - Evelyn Waugh
Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie
1956
Bang the Drum Slowly - Mark Harris
Beyond the Black Stump - Nevil Shute
Daimonds are Forever - Ian Fleming
The House of Sixty Fathers - Meindirt deJong
The Hundred and One Dalmations - Dodie Smith
The Naked Sun - Isaac Asimov
The Nun's Story - Kathryn Hulme
Old Yeller - Fred Gipson
Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
A Walk on the Wild Side - Nelson Agren
The Art of Loving - Enrich Fromm
Death in Cyprus - M. M. Kaye
That Uncertain Feeling - Kingsley Amis
Seize the Day - Saul Bellows
1957
Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
Bunny Lake is Missing - Merriam Modell (as Evelyn Piper)
A Death in the Family - James Agee
The Guns of Navarone - Alistair MacLean
Justine - Lawrence Durrell
Lucky Starr and the Moons of Jupiter - Isaac Asimov
Mandingo - Kyle Onstott
Odd Girl Out (lesbian pulp) - Ann Bannon (as Ann Weldy)
On the Beach - Nevil Shute
Room at the Top - John Braine
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Voss - Patrick White
The World of Suzie Wong - Richard Mason
The Town - William Faulkner
1958
Around the World with Auntie Mame - Patrick Dennis (pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner III)
Balthazar - Lawrence Durrell
The Big Country - Donald Hamilton
The Candle in the Wind - T.H. White
The Dhama Bums - Jack Kerouac
Exodus - Leon Uris
Hornblower in the West Indies - CS Forester
The League of Gentlemen - John Boland
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Alan Stillitoe
The Once and Future King - T. H. White
Mrs 'arris Goes to Paris - Paul Gallico
Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Alan Stillitoe
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
The Young Lions - Irwin Shaw
A Summer Place - Sloan Wilson
The Subterraneans - Jack Kerouac
If This is Woman - Primo Levi
Dr Zhivago - Boris Peasternak
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote
The Leopard - Guisepe Tomasi di Lampedusa
To the Islands - Randolph Stow
1959
Cat Amongst the Pigeons - Agatha Christie
The Cool World - Warren Miller
Danny Dunn and the Weather Machine (series) - Raymond Abrashkin and Jay Williams
The Devils Advocate - Morris West
Hawaii - James Michener
The Hustler - Walter Tevis
I am a Woman - Ann Bannon (lesbian pulp fiction)
Madeline and the Gypsies - Ludwig Bemelmans
The Manchurian Candidate - Richard Condon
Naked Lunch - William S Burroughs
Psycho - Robert Bloch
Return to Peyton Place - Grace Metalious
Starship Troopers - Robert A. Heinlein
To Sir, With Love - E.R. Braithwaite
The Unknown Shore - Patrick O'Brien
Walkabout - James Vance Marshall
Wolfbane - Frederick Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth
The Tin Drum - Gunter Grass
Through the 50s -
Enid Blyton's Famous Five, Noddy, Secret Seven
Agatha Christie
P.G Wodehouse
The rise of Science Fiction
Note how many were made into films and how many inspired songs!