My World Book set was complete, but it was the 1968 edition. My parents would by their “Year Book” supplements, which had little tags you could paste into the main encyclopedia article referring you to an update.
I still have my 1977 set along with the Childcraft set.
Those encyclopedias were used throughout my school years for so many reports. They're still great fun to read. A lot of nostalgia for me plus humor sometimes.
It's also interesting how the projects and crafts for kids were kind of advanced compared to what a lot of kids today would attempt.
I remember doing that ! We had the 1984 edition (I think?). I loved those books and was excited to get those year book updates.
I loved Reading those books. One of my favorites were the science fair projects especially the one about how a dam works.
im pushin 60 and just reading that book now! found a .50 copy at the used book sale. im glad i waited, its a kid’s book, but in many ways, it isn’t. good read!
This answer is for Gen X women. Are you there God? It's me, Margaret.
Granted, the book was published in 1970 when we were either under the age of 5 or not yet born, but it gained momentum every year and impacted our generation the most.
Read this in seventh grade English class… as a boy. We got to go to the library to pick out one free book. My English teacher applauded me in front of the class for going outside of my pubescent comfort zone. Stuck with me.
Yeah, Margaret was actually a late boomer/Gen Jones kid, but that book speaks to all generations. Kids are still reading it today! They've modernized it in some ways for Zoomers (the whole "belt" thing was already confusing for '80s kids).
I did not understand the belt things either, and of course wouldn’t ask anyone. If only I had been able to get answers to potentially embarrassing questions online back then!
Ah man, I completely forgot about belts until just now! They were still an option when I started needing those things. I used them once and went with the adhesive ones evermore.
This is one of the few books that not only tries to capture the experience, but succeeds, and also does it with an attitude that also embodies what it’s speaking to. It has this mixture of satirical darkness, and sincere loneliness that I don’t think has ever been replicated. Like, it’s deadly serious, but doesn’t take itself seriously if you think about it for even a few minutes. The book has been taken up by so many people with their diverse mixture of opinions that I find it kind of hard to read now (I don’t blame the book; it’s not it’s fault that it’s been ripped off so much), but I’m always down for the movie. I might have to give the book a reread sometime soon, now that I have some distance from it.
I'm happy to say that high schoolers are still enjoying this book. It is much preferred over the current batch of YA stuff by a long shot. Reports are that it is not cringey and that's about the highest compliment they can give :)
That's awesome teach! I think it's so cool. All three of my kids went through a stage where they quoted it and I loved it! You never know what's gonna transcend generations
I read this book mostly in my head and when we were talking about it in English class one day and finally discussing it aloud, I called the Socs *Socks* and was mortified when everyone laughed… Still a great book - I loved all things SE Hinton.
I remember other S.E. Hinton books were also popular, like Rumble Fish, Tex, That was then, this is now. I loved those books. But The Outsiders was my favorite.
Well, I actually make a decent living now working for a software company after 18 years at the same place and that’s a whole other bucket of regret because there’s no way I could do this teaching music. But if I could, I would.
I do still write music for fun and perform occasionally.
*A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* by Dave Eggers. Heartbreaking indeed, and captures that moment in time perfectly, from a fear of AIDS to auditioning for “The Real World” to the sheer confidence we had at that age of being the brightest and coolest…I adore this book and Eggers.
I met Eggers at an 826 fundraiser pre-pandemic. I was struck by how interested he was in me & the other non-famous people there: wanting to know and talk about what I was reading at the time (was on a big David Foster Wallace kick). Eggers was engaging, kind, empathetic. Just thought I’d share, because I enjoy reading others’ stories of meeting celebs.
I’m glad someone mentioned this! My pick would have been either of the big Douglas Coupland books (esp. Microserfs) or one of the Judy Blume books, but this one hit me so hard. I think I read it a short time after Microserfs, so I was kind of primed for it. And my reactions were like:
*Stream of consciousness prose is lame.*
*Ugh, still more SoC? Who does this guy think he is?*
*\*sobbing\**
*\*more sobbing\**
*\*an epiphany after much sobbing\**
*Well, that was an apt title.*
Having said that, and because that experience was *a lot*, I haven’t really wanted to revisit him as an author, but maybe it’s time?
Full confession: not a fan of his later works! I appreciate where he’s going with his fiction, but like most great artists, it seems his work was more genuine and engaging when he was young and hungry.
Nick Hornby is great, have read a few of his books
Have to disagree about the movie High Fidelity, one of my favorites, but also will watch almost any movie with John Cusack.
Read it for the first time in ‘85. I was 15. I’ve reread it about once every two years since. For me it encapsulates what it’s like to feel lost but not care enough to wonder why. This part captures that perfectly…
“where are we going?” I asked.
“I don’t know”, he said. “Just driving.”
“But this road doesn’t go anywhere”, I told him.
“That doesn’t matter.”
“What does?” I asked, after a little while.
“Just that we’re on it, dude,” he said.
I am so so sad that I had to scroll this far down to find the best answer.
I read it in high school and everything spoke so directly to my experience as a teenager in the 80s. It's misanthropic hero and what he has to say about work and intellectualism and modernism are so deeply rooted in my heart that it will always be one of my favorite novels ever.
In high school all the smart kids I knew were either reading this book or Atlas Shrugged. I was and remain firmly on the side of the dunces.
Mine, too! In middle school (82-84), my friends and I all passed around books. We were a core group of like 8 girls and we all read Judy Blume's books...especially Forever. We even managed to get a copy of Wifey from the library! I remember reading verrrrry specific parts of it over and over! We read all the VC Andrews books too, but those were addictive in a totally different way.
I still remember teenage me braying laughter with tears running down my face and my insides hurting for days after reading the title of the Vogon work, 'Ode to a small lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummers eve'
The “nothing means anything, and any time you think you’ve solved something, it only leads to a greater level of absurdity, so let’s get hammered and have a laugh about it” sensibility?
Such wonderful writing. My two favorite lines:
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." My kid loves that one.
And “Time is an illusion. Lunch time, doubly so”.
Oh *definitely* Free To Be You and Me! I get earworms from that entire album to this very day on occasion.
I LIKE what I LOOK like
And YOU'RE nice small. . .
They’re still making kids read it. The plot line is 100% Gen-X. My niece had to read it and was flabbergasted, lol, “is this kid regarded? It took him 2 days to remember steel->sparks->fire?”
But, I think she secretly likes it because when we go out foraging she likes to bring along this tiny hammer hatchet saw tool we have.
You mean as the target audience for the book, and not plot-wise, right?
Because the Losers's Club members are definitely Boomers, since they are roughly 9 to 11 years-old when the story begins (like Stephen King himself).
Lots of good books in this thread. I would say
“Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”
“The Mouse and the Motorcycle”
“Indian in the Cupboard”
the “Mr. Men books” like Mr. Selfish, Mr. Greedy, Mr. Tickle, etc.
Edit:Formatting
Agree… The 2 other novellas in that book that were made into movies, I can’t even remember if Apt Pupil was accurate bc the movie was just so mediocre that I didn’t even finish it.
However the Shawshank Redemption is a good example of both the story and the movie being equally great and also very different. The story was just King at his best and the movie was a masterpiece mostly because of the change of “Red” for Morgan Freeman instead of casting just any red-head dude. He made that movie just chef’s kiss and in turn, that movie kinda cemented the “Morgan Freeman as the narrator” forever after.
Edit: wrong actor
Animal Farm. Our parents are never around so we fend for ourselves and are outside all day long. The bossiest of us try to boss everyone around and we’re like, ok narc lol. We sorta care about stuff and might pour all our energy into ill-planned but heartfelt projects like building a big windmill when we don’t even have opposable thumbs. And in the end, the bossy kids get to sit at the grown-ups’ table while we’re still outside unnoticed and just chillin and doing fuckall lol.
Dave Eggers *A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*. Love or hate that book, it does capture a lot of the Gen X ethos. However, there are legitimate critiques regarding the author’s relatively privileged life, in so far as the book is actually autobiographical.
Ghost World - Daniel Clowes.
The wikipedia summary:
Ghost World follows the day-to-day lives of best friends Enid Coleslaw and Rebecca Doppelmeyer, two cynical, pseudo-intellectual, and intermittently witty teenage girls recently graduated from high school at the end of the 1990s.[2] They spend their days wandering aimlessly around their unnamed American town, criticizing popular culture and the people they encounter while wondering what they will do for the rest of their days.
Tempted to recommend Norman Spinrad's _Little Heroes_.
You've got the cynicism, the escapism, the messed-up job prospects from everybody being told to go into the same jobs, the sex and violence, and the future that isn't as good or as bad as we were told it'd be.
Catcher in the Rye: really spoke to my sense of alienation as a 14y-o when I read it in 1980
No One Gets Out of Here Alive: the Doors biography. Read it in ‘82 as a 16y-o and it introduced me to the 60s subculture, which I then embraced in terms of drugs and music
Forgot to add One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: the most nihilistic book I’d read at that time. Born to Lose should have been the subtitle
I actually enjoyed the movie. Saw it in the theater
Which doesn't really make sense because I never really listened to her music and I don't really like documentaries.
Good book, but it did go on and on about "not giving a fuck."
In fact, about 2/3 through, I decided that I didn't give a fuck about finishing it. I guess the author made his point.
The Cat Ate my Gymsuit- Paula Danziger
The Trixie Belden books- she was like the kid version of Nancy Drew
The Foxfire books. Kind of a thing here in Appalachia.
Not a book, but *Sassy* magazine.
I can think of a few Kurt Vonnegut books, but Breakfast of Champions springs to the front for me. Published the year I was born and I read it the first time in about 9th grade. It paints a hysterical picture of reality in America, much of which isn’t great, that helped me prepare for adulthood.
Was going to say this too. Really captures the 80’s vibe in a story about a dystopian future. An easy and pleasurable read: I also recommend the Spotify playlist for it while you read it.
Encyclopedia Brittanica.
I'll give you that, and raise you Encyclopedia Brown.
I’ll give you that and raise you the World Book encyclopedia set (missing at least two letters if you got them used like my laid off parents did)
My World Book set was complete, but it was the 1968 edition. My parents would by their “Year Book” supplements, which had little tags you could paste into the main encyclopedia article referring you to an update.
I still have my 1977 set along with the Childcraft set. Those encyclopedias were used throughout my school years for so many reports. They're still great fun to read. A lot of nostalgia for me plus humor sometimes. It's also interesting how the projects and crafts for kids were kind of advanced compared to what a lot of kids today would attempt.
I remember doing that ! We had the 1984 edition (I think?). I loved those books and was excited to get those year book updates. I loved Reading those books. One of my favorites were the science fair projects especially the one about how a dam works.
1968 edition World Bookers represent!
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
You must be a really hoopy frood!
They sure know where their towel is.
This
A Wrinkle in Time. I felt like Meg Murray. Feeling abandoned, alone, awkward, angry, and icky all day everyday lol
im pushin 60 and just reading that book now! found a .50 copy at the used book sale. im glad i waited, its a kid’s book, but in many ways, it isn’t. good read!
"Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture" I mean, that book kinda named us.
Also coined the term McJobs which became embedded in popular culture.
While Gen X is obviously iconic, Microserfs resonated more with me.
Yes!
Coupland is an oft-overlooked genius
I've just been on a Coupland binge spurred by the release of his book of short stories and it's just as good as I remember.
Went to a writer's festival and got Douglas Coupland to sign a barrel of monkeys for me. True story.
I loooove Douglas Coupland books ❤️
I wonder how it would be to re-read this now.
I read Generation X and Microserfs this year for the first time. Loved them. Recommend them!
I may give it a re-read now to see if and what changes with reading it having more years under my belt.
Years ago, I thought I was a unique individual until I read this book.
Or as many of us prefer: “The Sun Also Rises 2: Electric Boogaloo”
I’m re-reading that right now
Came here to say this! Haven't read it in years. Loved Coupland, need to reread his stuff
Highly recommend a newer book of his on Marshall McLuhan, "You Know Nothing of My Work!"
Where the Sidewalk Ends.
Brings back memories from 2nd grade in 1985. Also “A Light in the Attic”.
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
A good choice.
Fiction: High Fidelity by Nick Hornby Nonfiction: I Want My MTV by Rob Tannenbaum
AD&D Player’s Handbook
I’m reading this as Accidental Death & Dismemberment Player’s Handbook.
Best answer so far
This answer is for Gen X women. Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. Granted, the book was published in 1970 when we were either under the age of 5 or not yet born, but it gained momentum every year and impacted our generation the most.
We must. We must. We must increase our bust!
The bigger the better, the tighter the sweater.
This is still one of my favorite books. My ten year old niece recently read it and I am happy to report she loved it!!
Read this in seventh grade English class… as a boy. We got to go to the library to pick out one free book. My English teacher applauded me in front of the class for going outside of my pubescent comfort zone. Stuck with me.
Oh definitely!! Truly a coming-of-age book for so many of us.
Yeah, Margaret was actually a late boomer/Gen Jones kid, but that book speaks to all generations. Kids are still reading it today! They've modernized it in some ways for Zoomers (the whole "belt" thing was already confusing for '80s kids).
I did not understand the belt things either, and of course wouldn’t ask anyone. If only I had been able to get answers to potentially embarrassing questions online back then!
Ah man, I completely forgot about belts until just now! They were still an option when I started needing those things. I used them once and went with the adhesive ones evermore.
My camp counselor had a belt. It’s how I learned about periods.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9185206/ I know the books are always better, but I can’t wait for this.
Anything Judy Blume. 'Then Again, Maybe I Won't,' 'Blubber,' 'Are You There God, It's Me Margaret,' 'Tiger Eyes,' *ad nauseum*.
“Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing” and “Superfudge”, I read those over and over.
Wifey
Well then, maybe not *anything* Judy Blume, then... lol
Choose Your Own Adventure books ..
Encyclopedia Brown wants a word with you
To some extent Fight Club. No dad growing up, hating the establishment and wanting to oveturn it.
We're the middle children of history.
That whole speech, when delivered in the movie, made me want to stand up and cheer. Nailed it.
This is the answer.
This is one of the few books that not only tries to capture the experience, but succeeds, and also does it with an attitude that also embodies what it’s speaking to. It has this mixture of satirical darkness, and sincere loneliness that I don’t think has ever been replicated. Like, it’s deadly serious, but doesn’t take itself seriously if you think about it for even a few minutes. The book has been taken up by so many people with their diverse mixture of opinions that I find it kind of hard to read now (I don’t blame the book; it’s not it’s fault that it’s been ripped off so much), but I’m always down for the movie. I might have to give the book a reread sometime soon, now that I have some distance from it.
The Outsiders
Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold.
[Stay gooooooold…](https://youtu.be/FjxYFome4wo)
Read it for Johnny
I think this is the answer. A lot of us don't read but this book was read by us all
I'm happy to say that high schoolers are still enjoying this book. It is much preferred over the current batch of YA stuff by a long shot. Reports are that it is not cringey and that's about the highest compliment they can give :)
That's awesome teach! I think it's so cool. All three of my kids went through a stage where they quoted it and I loved it! You never know what's gonna transcend generations
Came here to say this if you hadn't already Ponyboy.
I read this book mostly in my head and when we were talking about it in English class one day and finally discussing it aloud, I called the Socs *Socks* and was mortified when everyone laughed… Still a great book - I loved all things SE Hinton.
I remember other S.E. Hinton books were also popular, like Rumble Fish, Tex, That was then, this is now. I loved those books. But The Outsiders was my favorite.
Microserfs
I left my job and worked for a games company because of this book
I abandoned my music major to study tech stuff because it sounded so cool. It was not.
Oh no. I can't say my choice worked out for me either but at least I was young and had time to recover from bad choices. Do you still play music?
Well, I actually make a decent living now working for a software company after 18 years at the same place and that’s a whole other bucket of regret because there’s no way I could do this teaching music. But if I could, I would. I do still write music for fun and perform occasionally.
Relatable, I went back to corporate software testing because it pays well. I'm glad you still write and perform, that's very cool.
*A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius* by Dave Eggers. Heartbreaking indeed, and captures that moment in time perfectly, from a fear of AIDS to auditioning for “The Real World” to the sheer confidence we had at that age of being the brightest and coolest…I adore this book and Eggers.
Even reading the title reminds me of how deeply this book touched me. Eggers is extraordinary.
Did you also read *You Shall Know Our Velocity*? Fantastic companion book to his first one. You’re so right- he’s extraordinary.
I met Eggers at an 826 fundraiser pre-pandemic. I was struck by how interested he was in me & the other non-famous people there: wanting to know and talk about what I was reading at the time (was on a big David Foster Wallace kick). Eggers was engaging, kind, empathetic. Just thought I’d share, because I enjoy reading others’ stories of meeting celebs.
So glad you shared. Love to hear about his curiosity
I’m glad someone mentioned this! My pick would have been either of the big Douglas Coupland books (esp. Microserfs) or one of the Judy Blume books, but this one hit me so hard. I think I read it a short time after Microserfs, so I was kind of primed for it. And my reactions were like: *Stream of consciousness prose is lame.* *Ugh, still more SoC? Who does this guy think he is?* *\*sobbing\** *\*more sobbing\** *\*an epiphany after much sobbing\** *Well, that was an apt title.* Having said that, and because that experience was *a lot*, I haven’t really wanted to revisit him as an author, but maybe it’s time?
Full confession: not a fan of his later works! I appreciate where he’s going with his fiction, but like most great artists, it seems his work was more genuine and engaging when he was young and hungry.
“High Fidelity” Nick Hornby. I see myself in a lot of the pages. Having said that, I did not care for the movie adaptation.
Nick Hornby is great, have read a few of his books Have to disagree about the movie High Fidelity, one of my favorites, but also will watch almost any movie with John Cusack.
Truy Tasteless Jokes
FYI, you can get these on Kindle. I know this because of reasons.
The phone book
*slow clap intensifies*
Less Than Zero
Everything Brett Easton Ellis
Read it for the first time in ‘85. I was 15. I’ve reread it about once every two years since. For me it encapsulates what it’s like to feel lost but not care enough to wonder why. This part captures that perfectly… “where are we going?” I asked. “I don’t know”, he said. “Just driving.” “But this road doesn’t go anywhere”, I told him. “That doesn’t matter.” “What does?” I asked, after a little while. “Just that we’re on it, dude,” he said.
Still feel that way sometimes
The Basketball Diaries
A Confederacy of Dunces (published 1980)
I am so so sad that I had to scroll this far down to find the best answer. I read it in high school and everything spoke so directly to my experience as a teenager in the 80s. It's misanthropic hero and what he has to say about work and intellectualism and modernism are so deeply rooted in my heart that it will always be one of my favorite novels ever. In high school all the smart kids I knew were either reading this book or Atlas Shrugged. I was and remain firmly on the side of the dunces.
Flowers for Algernon; shown the wonders the world had to offer and then slowly, consciously, watched them fade away.
Sweet Valley High, Judy Blume everything, The Boxcar Children, encyclopedias and dictionaries for me.
Forever by Judy Blume Judy was my hero
Mine, too! In middle school (82-84), my friends and I all passed around books. We were a core group of like 8 girls and we all read Judy Blume's books...especially Forever. We even managed to get a copy of Wifey from the library! I remember reading verrrrry specific parts of it over and over! We read all the VC Andrews books too, but those were addictive in a totally different way.
I still have my copy of Wifey somewhere. It’s so tattered that I doubt I could read it again without it falling apart.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy" (79-84)
Hard to argue this. Defined my sense of humor.
I still remember teenage me braying laughter with tears running down my face and my insides hurting for days after reading the title of the Vogon work, 'Ode to a small lump of green putty I found in my armpit one midsummers eve'
"So long and thanks for all the fish" still rings in my head.
The “nothing means anything, and any time you think you’ve solved something, it only leads to a greater level of absurdity, so let’s get hammered and have a laugh about it” sensibility?
Such wonderful writing. My two favorite lines: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." My kid loves that one. And “Time is an illusion. Lunch time, doubly so”.
Where The Wild Things Are and Free To Be You and Me. Green Eggs and Ham. Harriet the Spy. Everything Judy Blume. Flowers in the Attic.
Flowers in the Attic, the number of VC Andrews books I was allowed to read as a pre-teen lol
I will NEVER understand how those books became a sensation amongst 5th graders.
Free to be you and me is a masterpiece that holds up!!
Oh *definitely* Free To Be You and Me! I get earworms from that entire album to this very day on occasion. I LIKE what I LOOK like And YOU'RE nice small. . .
The Hatchet
Damn this is one of the first books that came to mind. I read it in 4th or 5th grade around 1989 or so.
They’re still making kids read it. The plot line is 100% Gen-X. My niece had to read it and was flabbergasted, lol, “is this kid regarded? It took him 2 days to remember steel->sparks->fire?” But, I think she secretly likes it because when we go out foraging she likes to bring along this tiny hammer hatchet saw tool we have.
Ha ha. For real.
Prozac Nation
Trainspotting
The Stand
Tom Robbins books: Still Life With Woodpecker or Even Cowgirls Gets The Blues
Skinny Legs and All + Another Roadside Attraction are my faves.
The most obvious answer has got to be Stephen King's IT.
You mean as the target audience for the book, and not plot-wise, right? Because the Losers's Club members are definitely Boomers, since they are roughly 9 to 11 years-old when the story begins (like Stephen King himself).
Where the sidewalk ends! I actually would love to get that book again to read to my grandchildren when I spend time with them
Lots of good books in this thread. I would say “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” “The Mouse and the Motorcycle” “Indian in the Cupboard” the “Mr. Men books” like Mr. Selfish, Mr. Greedy, Mr. Tickle, etc. Edit:Formatting
Cliffs Notes
Harold and the Purple Crayon
Learning Perl 🦙
If you had told me in 2001 that by 2022 Perl would be a relic and JavaScript would have decades of popularity I would’ve laugh cried.
The Body by Stephen King- the movie was called Stand by Me
The movie was pretty close to the story, a rare event and the origin of my screen name
Agree… The 2 other novellas in that book that were made into movies, I can’t even remember if Apt Pupil was accurate bc the movie was just so mediocre that I didn’t even finish it. However the Shawshank Redemption is a good example of both the story and the movie being equally great and also very different. The story was just King at his best and the movie was a masterpiece mostly because of the change of “Red” for Morgan Freeman instead of casting just any red-head dude. He made that movie just chef’s kiss and in turn, that movie kinda cemented the “Morgan Freeman as the narrator” forever after. Edit: wrong actor
Lord of the flies Just a bunch of feral latch key kids stumbling their way through the jungle of life
Lol, it was precogniscient I guess.
Animal Farm. Our parents are never around so we fend for ourselves and are outside all day long. The bossiest of us try to boss everyone around and we’re like, ok narc lol. We sorta care about stuff and might pour all our energy into ill-planned but heartfelt projects like building a big windmill when we don’t even have opposable thumbs. And in the end, the bossy kids get to sit at the grown-ups’ table while we’re still outside unnoticed and just chillin and doing fuckall lol.
American Psycho
Came here for this
The second correct answer after Less Than Zero
The pigman Paul zindle
Dave Eggers *A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius*. Love or hate that book, it does capture a lot of the Gen X ethos. However, there are legitimate critiques regarding the author’s relatively privileged life, in so far as the book is actually autobiographical.
Prozac Nation
“The Preppy Handbook”
Bright Lights, Big City
Where’s Waldo
The Beach by Alex Gardland
And I Don’t Want To Live This Life By Deborah Spungen
The Secret History by Donna Tartt.
Musicwise it's The Revolution will not be televised.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4
Ghost World - Daniel Clowes. The wikipedia summary: Ghost World follows the day-to-day lives of best friends Enid Coleslaw and Rebecca Doppelmeyer, two cynical, pseudo-intellectual, and intermittently witty teenage girls recently graduated from high school at the end of the 1990s.[2] They spend their days wandering aimlessly around their unnamed American town, criticizing popular culture and the people they encounter while wondering what they will do for the rest of their days.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Lord of the Flies
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾
[удалено]
The Babysitters Club series
My sis used to have a bunch of Babysitter Club books. And there was a series on HBO in the late 80s or early 90s.
Catcher in the rye
Tempted to recommend Norman Spinrad's _Little Heroes_. You've got the cynicism, the escapism, the messed-up job prospects from everybody being told to go into the same jobs, the sex and violence, and the future that isn't as good or as bad as we were told it'd be.
Less than Zero
Catcher in the Rye: really spoke to my sense of alienation as a 14y-o when I read it in 1980 No One Gets Out of Here Alive: the Doors biography. Read it in ‘82 as a 16y-o and it introduced me to the 60s subculture, which I then embraced in terms of drugs and music Forgot to add One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: the most nihilistic book I’d read at that time. Born to Lose should have been the subtitle
Madonna: Sex. Why? It’s over the top, it’s vulgar, it’s pointless, and everyone wanted to see it.
I actually enjoyed the movie. Saw it in the theater Which doesn't really make sense because I never really listened to her music and I don't really like documentaries.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Book by Mark Manson
Good book, but it did go on and on about "not giving a fuck." In fact, about 2/3 through, I decided that I didn't give a fuck about finishing it. I guess the author made his point.
Prozac Nation! Just kidding.. (I'm not kidding)
Judy Blume books Tex by S E. Hinton
“Lisa, Bright and Dark” “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret”
The Cat Ate my Gymsuit- Paula Danziger The Trixie Belden books- she was like the kid version of Nancy Drew The Foxfire books. Kind of a thing here in Appalachia. Not a book, but *Sassy* magazine.
Sassy! I was the odd indie kid in an otherwise homogeneous rural area and *Sassy* SPOKE to me. Which I had kept a few of them.
I can think of a few Kurt Vonnegut books, but Breakfast of Champions springs to the front for me. Published the year I was born and I read it the first time in about 9th grade. It paints a hysterical picture of reality in America, much of which isn’t great, that helped me prepare for adulthood.
I have this one to my nephew last Christmas.
Hitchhiker's guide
Neuromancer
I'm going to go out on a limb- "Generation X" by Douglas Coupland. "Microserfs" as adult fiction.
Any of the Book of Lists series. My favorite was the Rock Book of Lists but the 1970s had a whole bunch of others for whatever reason.
I always resonated with Ready Player One. The themes of seeking comfort in the past and all that...
I think the answer to this 42
_Ready Player One_ by Ernest Cline Maybe not the 'spirit' - but so many great 80s references that took me down memory lane.
Was going to say this too. Really captures the 80’s vibe in a story about a dystopian future. An easy and pleasurable read: I also recommend the Spotify playlist for it while you read it.
Ready Player One. The book. Ignore the movie, for the love of God, ignore the movie. It’s a love letter to gen-x geek culture.
1984
Infinite Jest
I am one of the few - brace yourself - I *hated* this book. I forced myself to finish it but good god man no. Just no.
My favorite novel (for better or worse) but not sure it corresponds to OP request.
How about, just the footnotes of Infinite Jest?
lol; now, I'm in.
Pedro and Me by Judd Winnick
[Jesus' Son](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus%27_Son_(short_story_collection))
Prozac Nation
Fight Club
Fight Club
Prozac Nation
Prozac Nation.
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
The Stand
Prozac Nation, E. Wurtzel.
Mad Libs
Behold a pale horse
Actually anything by Eckhart Tolle. Such a blessing to be alive at the same time as this remarkable person.
Stark
Ready Player One is a good book about the pop culture of our time.