Back to the '80s

Books published in the 1980s

Updated February 24, 2023
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The Lord God made them all
Herriot, James
Paper Book
"The war is over, the RAF uniform has been handed in and James Herriot goes back to where he ought to be - at work in the dales around Darrowby. ... Much has changed, but the blunt-spoken Yorkshie folk and the host of four-legged patients are still the same. So is their vet, who doesn't yet know...
Cujo : a novel
King, Stephen
Paper Book
The #1 national bestseller for Stephen King's rabid fans, Cujo "hits the jugular" (The New York Times) with the story of a friendly Saint Bernard that is bitten by a sick bat. Get ready to meet the most hideous menace ever to savage the flesh and devour the mind. "Once...
The pillars of the earth
Follett, Ken
Paper Book
#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The "extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece" (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett's already phenomenal career--and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning<...
Neuromancer
Gibson, William
Paper Book
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards, Neuromancer is a science fiction masterpiece--a classic that ranks as one of the twentieth century's most potent visions of the future. Case was the sharpest data-thief in the matrix--until he crossed the wrong people...
The cider house rules : a novel
Irving, John
Paper Book
First published in 1985, The Cider House Rules is John Irving's sixth novel. Set in rural Maine in the first half of this century, it tells the story of Dr. Wilbur Larch--saint and obstetrician, founder and director of the orphanage in the town of St. Cloud's, ether addict and abortionist. It is...
What we talk about when we talk about love : stories
Carver, Raymond
Ebook
The most celebrated story collection from "one of the true American masters" (The New York Review of Books)--a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one's way through the dark that includes the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award...
Lonesome Dove : a novel
McMurtry, Larry.
Paper Book
The Pulitzer Prize­-winning American classic of the American West that follows two aging Texas Rangers embarking on one last adventure. An epic of the frontier, Lonesome Dove is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the...
Geek love
Dunn, Katherine
Paper Book
National Book Award Finalist * Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek family whose matriarch and patriarch have bred their own exhibit of human oddities--with the help of amphetamines, arsenic, and radioisotopes. One of The Atlantic's Great...
Howl's moving castle
Jones, Diana Wynne.
Paper Book
This entrancing classic fantasy novel is filled with surprises at every turn. An international bestseller, this much-loved book is the source for the Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature. Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to...
A brief history of time
Hawking, Stephen
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A landmark volume in science writing by one of the great minds of our time, Stephen Hawking's book explores such profound questions as: How did the universe begin--and what made its start possible? Does time always flow forward? Is the universe...
White noise
DeLillo, Don
Paper Book
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER * An "eerie, brilliant, and touching" (The New York Times) modern classic about mass culture and the numbing effects of technology. "Tremendously funny . . . A stunning performance from one of our most intelligent novelists."--The New...
The handmaid's tale
Atwood, Margaret
Paper Book
Love in the time of cholera
García Márquez, Gabriel
Paper Book
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER * "A love story of astonishing power" (Newsweek), the acclaimed modern literary classic by the beloved Nobel Prize-winning author. In their youth, Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza fall passionately in love. When Fermina eventually chooses to marry...
The bonfire of the vanities
Wolfe, Tom.
Paper Book
Vintage Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style. "No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review)
The remains of the day
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Paper Book
From the Nobel Prize-winning author, here is an elegant Everyman's Library hardcover edition of the universally acclaimed novel--winner of the Booker Prize, a bestseller, and the basis for an award-winning film--with full-cloth binding, a silk ribbon marker, a chronology, and an introduction by...
Blood meridian, or, The evening redness in the West
McCarthy, Cormac
Audiobook
Author of the National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas...
The color purple
Walker, Alice
Paper Book
Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, now in a beautiful Penguin Vitae edition...
Pet sematary
King, Stephen
Paper Book
Stephen King's #1 New York Times bestseller is a "wild, powerful, disturbing" (The Washington Post Book World) classic about evil that exists far beyond the grave--among his most iconic and frightening novels. When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job and moves his...
Cosmos
Sagan, Carl
Paper Book
Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan's classic bestseller that "dives into the past, present, and future of science, dealing with the mind-staggering enormity of the cosmos in which we exist" (Associated Press)--with an Introduction by Ann Druyan and a Foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson  ...
The Joy Luck Club
Tan, Amy.
Paper Book
"The Joy Luck Club is one of my favorite books. From the moment I first started reading it, I knew it was going to be incredible. For me, it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime reading experiences that you cherish forever. It inspired me as a writer and still remains hugely...
Midnight's children
Rushdie, Salman.
Paper Book
'BEST OF THE BOOKER' AWARD WINNER * This towering classic of international literature is at once a riveting family saga and an astonishing evocation of a vast land and its people.   "One of the most important books to come out of the English-speaking world in this...
The clan of the cave bear
Auel, Jean M.
Paper Book
This novel of awesome beauty and power is a moving saga about people, relationships, and the boundaries of love. Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read Through Jean M. Auel's magnificent storytelling we are...
Redwall
Jacques, Brian.
Paper Book
Soon to be a Netflix original movie! One of TIME Magazine's 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time   The book that inspired a legend--the first novel in the beloved, bestselling Redwall saga. Welcome to Mossflower Wood,...
The silence of the lambs
Harris, Thomas
Paper Book
A serial murderer known only by a grotesquely apt nickname-Buffalo Bill-is stalking women. He has a purpose, but no one can fathom it, for the bodies are discovered in different states. Clarice Starling, a young trainee at the FBI Academy, is surprised to be summoned by Jack Crawford, chief of the...
A prayer for Owen Meany
Irving, John
Paper Book
"A remarkable novel. . . . A Prayer for Owen Meany is a rare creation. ... An amazingly brave piece of work ... so extraordinary, so original, and so enriching. . . . Readers will come to the end feeling sorry to leave [this] richly textured and carefully wrought world." --STEPHEN KING,...
V for vendetta
Moore, Alan
Paper Book
The graphic novel that inspired the hit Warner Bros. motion picture from the Wachowskis, the directors of THE MATRIX films and SPEED RACER. In the near future, England has become a corrupt, totalitarian state, opposed only by V, the mystery man wearing a white porcelain mask who...
The prince of tides
Conroy, Pat.
Paper Book
"A big, sprawling saga of a novel" (San Francisco Chronicle), this epic family drama is a masterwork by the revered author of The Great Santini.   Pat Conroy's classic novel stings with honesty and resounds with drama. Spanning forty years, it's the story of...
Time to kill
Grisham, John.
Paper Book
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The master of the legal thriller probes the savage depths of racial violence in this searing courtroom drama featuring the beloved Jake Brigance. "John Grisham may well be the best American storyteller writing today."--The Philadelphia...
Hyperion
Simmons, Dan
Paper Book
A stunning tour de force filled with transcendent awe and wonder, Hyperion is a masterwork of science fiction that resonates with excitement and invention, the first volume in a remarkable epic by the multiple-award-winning author of The Hollow Man. On the world...
Patriot games
Clancy, Tom
Paper Book
Don't Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski! Tom Clancy reveals Jack Ryan's origins in this electrifying #1 New York Times bestselling thriller that pits the former Marine turned family man against a vicious group of...
Batman, the Dark Knight returns
Miller, Frank
Paper Book
The comics masterpiece Batman: the Dark Knight Returns is back in hardcover, with a new cover designed by Chip Kidd.The Batman has not been seen in ten years, some now consider him more myth than reality, but crime and violence have continued in Gotham City. Bruce Wayne had reached a point in his...
The accidental tourist
Tyler, Anne.
Paper Book
Meet Macon Leary--a travel writer who hates both travel and strangeness. Grounded by loneliness, comfort, and a somewhat odd domestic life, Macon is about to embark on a surprising new adventure, arriving in the form of a fuzzy-haired dog obedience trainer who promises to turn his life around....
Cold Sassy tree
Burns, Olive Ann.
Paper Book
The one thing you can depend on in Cold Sassy, Georgia, is that word gets around - fast. When Grandpa E. Rucker Blakeslee announces one July morning in 1906 that he's aiming to marry the young and freckledy milliner, Miss Love Simpson - a bare three weeks after Granny Blakeslee has gone to her...
Bridge to Terabithia
Paterson, Katherine.
Paper Book
Jess and Leslie, competitors at first, then unlikely friends who create a magical land called Terabithia, are the unforgettable protagonists in one of the most celebrated children's novels of all time.
Sphere
Crichton, Michael
Paper Book
Crichton keeps us guessing at every turn in his best work since The Andromeda Strain. Los Angeles Times In the middle of the South Pacific, a thousand feet below the surface of the water, a huge vessel is discovered resting on the ocean floor. It is a spaceship of phenomenal dimensions,...
Crossing to safety
Stegner, Wallace
Paper Book
Called a “magnificently crafted story . . . brimming with wisdom” by Howard Frank Mosher inThe Washington Post Book World,Crossing to Safetyhas, since its publication in 1987, established itself as one of the greatest and most cherished American novels of the twentieth century. Tracing...
Beloved : a novel
Morrison, Toni.
Paper Book
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER * NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A spellbinding novel that transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. With a new afterword by the author.  This "brutally powerful, mesmerizing story" (...
Presumed innocent
Turow, Scott.
Ebook
NOW AN APPLE ORIGINAL SERIES  FROM APPLE TV+ STARRING JAKE GYLLENHAAL From #1 New York Times bestselling author and hailed as the most suspenseful and compelling novel in decades, this story brings to life our worst nightmare: that of an ordinary citizen...
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Adams, Douglas
Paper Book
Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, soon to be a Hulu original series! "A madcap adventure . . . Adams's writing teeters on the fringe of inspired lunacy."--United Press International Back on Earth with...
Wyrd sisters
Pratchett, Terry.
Paper Book
In Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters, Granny Weatherwax teams with two other witches--Nanny Ogg and Margat Garlick--as an unlikely alliance to save a prince and restore him to the throne of Lancre, in a tale that borrows--or is it parodies--some of William Shakespeare's best-loved works.<...
Mort : a novel of Discworld
Pratchett, Terry.
Paper Book
New York Times bestselling author Sir Terry Pratchett makes Death a central character in Mort, his fourth sojourn to Discworld, the fantasy cosmos where even the angel of darkness needs some assistance.  Death comes to everyone eventually on Discworld. And now he's come to Mort with...
Gorky Park
Smith, Martin Cruz
Paper Book
“Brilliant . . . enough enigmas within enigmas within enigmas to reel the mind.” –The New Yorker A triple murder in a Moscow amusement center: three corpses found frozen in the snow, faces and fingers missing. Chief homicide investigator Arkady Renko is...
Foucault's pendulum
Eco, Umberto.
Paper Book
International bestselling and award-winning author Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is "an intellectual adventure story, as sensational, thrilling, and packed with arcana as Raiders of the Lost Ark or The Count of Monte Cristo" (The Washington Post Book World). Bored with...
The blue sword
McKinley, Robin.
Paper Book
Read this modern classic of young adult fantasy from award-winning, New York Times bestselling author Robin McKinley Harry Crewe is an orphan girl who comes to live in Damar, the desert country shared by the Homelanders and the secretive, magical Free Hillfolk. When...
Like water for chocolate : a novel in monthly installments, with recipes, romances, and home remedies
Esquivel, Laura
Ebook
Like Water for Chocolate (SparkNotes Literature Guide) by Laura Esquivel Making the reading experience fun! Created by Harvard students for students everywhere, SparkNotes is a new breed of study guide: smarter, better, faster.  ...
Downbelow station : or the company wars
Cherryh, C. J.
Paper Book
The Hugo Award-winning classic sci-fi novel, now available in a trade edition. The Beyond started with the Stations orbiting the stars nearest Earth. The Great Circle the interstellar freighters traveled was long, but not unmanageable, and the early Stations were emotionally and...
The snow queen
Vinge, Joan D.
Paper Book
This reissue of a modern classic of science fiction, the Hugo and Locus Award-winning and Nebula-nominated The Snow Queen, marks the first time the book has been reprinted in fifteen years. The imperious Winter colonists have ruled the planet Tiamat for 150 years,...
Dawn
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
One woman is called upon to rebuild the future of humankind after a nuclear war, in this revelatory post-apocalyptic tale from the award-winning author of Parable of the Sower. When Lilith lyapo wakes from a centuries-long sleep, she finds herself aboard the...
Wild seed
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
Doro is an entity who changes bodies like clothes, killing his hosts by reflex -- or design. He fears no one -- until he meets Anyanwu. Anyanwu is a shapeshifter who can absorb bullets and heal with a kiss...and savage anyone who threatens those she loves. She fears no one -- until she meets...
Bendigo Shafter
L'Amour, Louis
Paper Book
At what point does a group of strangers become a community? When young Bendigo Shafter and a ragtag bunch of travelers settle in the rugged Wyoming mountains, they quickly come to depend on a toughness and wisdom many of them never knew they possessed. Led by the beautiful and...
A great deliverance
George, Elizabeth
Audiobook
To this day, the low, thin wail of an infant can be heard in Keldale's lush green valleys. Three hundred years ago, as legend goes, the frightened Yorkshire villagers smothered a crying babe in Keldale Abbey, where they'd hidden to escape the ravages of Cromwell's raiders. Now into...
Knots and crosses
Rankin, Ian.
Paper Book
Knots and Crosses introduces gifted mystery novelist Ian Rankin, a fascinating locale and the most compellingly complex detective hero at work today. Inspector John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an...
The house on Mango Street
Cisneros, Sandra.
Paper Book
A TODAY SHOW #ReadWithJenna BOOK CLUB PICK NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A coming-of-age classic about a young girl growing up in Chicago * Acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world-...
Jacob have I loved
Paterson, Katherine.
Paper Book
Katherine Paterson's remarkable Newbery Medal-winning classic about a painful sibling rivalry, and one sister's struggle to make her own way, is an honest and daring portrayal of adolescence and coming of age.  A strong choice for independent reading, both for summer reading...

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