1930s
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1940s
Native Son by Richard Wright
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1984 by George Orwell
1950s
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
1960s
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
1970s
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Roots by Alex Haley
The World According to Garp by John Irving
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
1980s
Smiley's People by John le Carre
Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
1990s
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Truman by David McCullough
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Left Behind by Tim LaHaye
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
2000s
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown
The 9/11 Commission Report