PEOPLE Picks the Best Books From the 1980s, From Nora Ephron to Toni Morrison

Mar. 15, 2025

Our favorite books from the 1980s.Photo:Amazon

Amazon

No matter how old you are, we’ve all got those books that have made a lasting impression on us. Whether it’s the book your mom read to you at night when you were a kid, one a beloved English teacher introduced you to or one that opened your mind and heart at an important point, some books really stand the test of time.In celebration of 50 years of PEOPLE, we polled our staff about the books from decades past that made a difference in their lives or the culture at large. Here are our picks from the 1980s.

No matter how old you are, we’ve all got those books that have made a lasting impression on us. Whether it’s the book your mom read to you at night when you were a kid, one a beloved English teacher introduced you to or one that opened your mind and heart at an important point, some books really stand the test of time.

In celebration of 50 years of PEOPLE, we polled our staff about the books from decades past that made a difference in their lives or the culture at large. Here are our picks from the 1980s.

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Perhaps the most widely read book about mothers and daughters, this luminous novel follows four mothers and daughters whose histories shift depending on who’s doing the telling. When a quartet of Chinese immigrant women begin meeting in 1949 to talk, play and bear each other up, they ascribe to the idea that “to despair was to wish back for something already lost. Or to prolong what was already unbearable.” It’s a beautiful book that later becamean equally lovely filmof the same name.

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Even decades after its release, readers will recognize the sense of doom and foreboding that arrives with an “airborne toxic event” that looms over this prescient novel. On the surface, it’s about a family dealing with an environmental disaster, but it’s also a commentary on technology, culture and the intersection of the two.

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Food and love go together like peanut butter and jelly in this first novel from the brain behindSleepless in SeattleandWhen Harry Met Sally.It follows a pregnant Rachel who discovers her husband is in love with a woman with “a neck as long as an arm and a nose as long as a thumb and you should see her legs.” As she hilarious tries to woo him back, she also shares enough mouthwatering recipes to have you running for a snack. Stock the pantry accordingly.

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is a gorgeous and impactful graphic novel often hailed as the best ever written. It recounts the ordeal of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as frightened mice and Nazis as menacing cats. It shows up frequently on banned book lists, and should be on everyone’s to-read list, too.

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You’ve never read New York like the way Wolfe writes it. This is the story of Sherman McCoy, a hot young investment banker who has a freak accident in the Bronx. That sets off a horde of prosecutors, politicians, press, police, clergy and hustlers all clamoring for a piece of the action. It’s 1980s New York at its best and worst, and later became a film starringTom Hanks,Bruce Willis,Melanie GriffithandMorgan Freeman.

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You’ll never forget the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove or its cast of heroes and outlaws, ladies of the night and of the front parlor, settlers and Native Americans. It’s dramatic, occasionally hilarious and an unequivocal example of the Frontier epic.

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Many don’t even realize thechilling filmstarringJodie FosterandAnthony Hopkinswas a bestselling novel first. It’s all about the serial murderer known as Buffalo Bill, the depraved psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter and the young FBI trainee sent to get a peek into his mind. Pour yourself a nice Chianti and read the book before rewatching the movie.

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Precocious bookworms everywhere found a kindred spirit in Matilda, a little girl with neglectful parents and a loving teacher who takes on a terrorizing headmistress with her special powers. It’s also a beloved film and aNetflix musical, so kids of all ages can rediscover the magic.

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This classic Booker Prize winner from the Nobel Prize in Literature-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro is the story of a butler named Stevens. He’s at the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, and as he reflects on his time serving the “great gentleman” Lord Darlington, begins questioning just how great he is.

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A sweeping tale of love across the decades, this classic follows Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza as they fall passionately in love, until Fermina marries someone else. Florentino spends the next 50 years, nine months and four days rising through society (and having 622 affairs) until he gets another chance to declare his love for Fermina.

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source: people.com