Lord of the Flies
1954 debut novel by Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding
1950s
The Feminine Mystique
Book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States
Invisible Man
Novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship between black identity and Marxism, and the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, as well as issues of individuality and personal identity
The Long Loneliness
Autobiography of Dorothy Day, published in 1952 by Harper & Brothers
The Ascent of Rum Doodle
Short 1956 novel by W. E. Bowman . It is a parody of the non-fictional chronicles of mountaineering expeditions that were popular during the 1950s, as many of the world’s highest peaks were climbed for the first time
Fahrenheit 451
1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury
Waiting for Godot
Play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters, Vladimir and Estragon , engage in a variety of discussions and encounters while awaiting the titular Godot, who never arrives
The Adventures of Augie March
Picaresque novel by Saul Bellow, published in 1953 by Viking Press
The Stars My Destination
Science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester
Lucky Jim
Novel by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz