Published in 1967:
The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Set in the 1940’s, two Jewish teens, one Hasidic and the other orthodox, but less strict in his observance, develop a friendship that survives the vicissitudes of adolescence and changing times.
Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander. In this children’s fantasy novel, the fourth of five volumes in the series Chronicles of Prydain, based on Celtic/Welsh mythology, Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper, searches for his true heritage. The book is a classic coming-of-age story set in the fantasy kingdom of Prydain.
Endless Night by Agatha Christie. One of my favorite Christie novels, this mystery/suspense story features neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple, but rather stands on its own with its own fascinating characters. The title comes from a poem by William Blake.
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. Ms. Hinton wrote this classic YA novel when she was only sixteen years old.
Christy by Catherine Marshall. A wonderful, wonderful book that I have been unable to “sell” any of my young adult children on reading. Christy is an eighteen year old innocent idealist when she goes to the mountains of Appalachia to teach school in a one-room schoolhouse. By the end of the story she’s a grown-up woman who’s experienced friendship, grief, and love. I don’t know why I can’t get my urchins to read it.
White Mountains and The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher. I read these classic science fiction/dystopian novels when I was a kid of a girl. I remember them being quite chilling. Perhaps they’re due for a republishing in light of the current popularity of dystopian fiction.
Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin. I remember when everyone was talking about the movie version of this horror novel. Major elements of the story were inspired by the publicity surrounding Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan which had been founded in 1966. The eponymous Rosemary basically conceives a child with Satan.
Where Eagles Dare by Alistair McLean. World War II action adventure. The movie based on this book, starring Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton, is one of Engineer Husband’s favorites.
100 Years of Solitude, Cien años de soledad by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Garcia Marquez was a pioneer in the genre of “magical realism”, a style that has since become quite popular in all sorts of literature. (Magical realism: an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world.) I need to go back and read this book in English because when I read it in college in Spanish I couldn’t tell the magical elements from my lack of fluency in the language.
Nicolas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. Nonfiction biography of the last Romanov rulers of Russia. For more books about this tragic family, see my post on Reading About the Romanovs.

February, 1967. The U.S. launches Operation Junction City, its biggest assault yet against the Vietcong in Vietnam.

April, 1967. General George Papadopoulos takes over the government of Greece in a military coup.

April 9, 1967. The first Boeing 737, a twin-engine narrow-body jet airliner, takes its maiden flight. As of December 2011, Boeing had built 7010 of this model airliner for use around the world.

May 22-27, 1967. Egyptian President Nasser declares the Straits of Tiran , between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas separating the Gulf of Aqaba from the Red Sea, closed to Israeli shipping. He says, “”Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel. The Arab people want to fight.”

May 30, 1967. Colonel Ojukwu of the Ibo tribe in eastern Nigeria proclaims the region to be the independent republic of Biafra. European and U.S. citizens flee Biafra as Nigerian troops attack the breakaway republic.

June, 1967. China detonates its first H-bomb in Xiang Jang, a remote area of southwestern China.

June 5-10, 1967. The Six Day War. The Israeli air force launches surprise air strikes against Arab forces. In a decisive victory, Israel takes control of the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, and the Golan Heights from Syria.

June 27, 1967. The first automatic cash machine is installed, in the office of the Barclays Bank in Enfield, England.

October 10, 1967. Ernesto “Che” Guevarra, Cuban revolutionary hero who helped Fidel Castro overthrow the Batista regime in Cuba, is shot to death by the Bolivian army while on a mission to spread the communist revolution to the rest of the world.

December, 1967. The first successful heart transplant is performed by Dr. Christian Barnard in South Africa.

January 12, 1966. President Lyndon Johnson says the US should stay in South Vietnam until communist aggression ends.

January 15-17, 1966. A bloody military coup is staged in Nigeria, deposing the civilian government. The Nigerian coup is overturned by another faction of the military, leaving a military government in power. This is the beginning of a long period of military rule.

January 19, 1966. Indira Ghandi, daughter of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is elected prime minister of India. She pledges to “strive to create what my father used to call a climate of peace.”

February, 1966. While President Nkrumah of Ghana is on a state visit to North Vietnam and China, his government is overthrown in a military coup. Nkrumah is best known politically for his strong commitment to and promotion of Pan-Africanism, a movement that seeks to unify African people or people living in Africa, into a “one African community”. He never returns to Ghana, living the remainder of his life in exile.

April 8, 1966. In a reshuffling of power at the Kremlin, Leonid Brezhnev becomes the apparent leader of the Soviet Union. As General Secretary of the Communist Party in Russia, Brezhnev appears to be the real power behind the government in the USSR.

June, 1966. The U.S. unmanned spacecraft Surveyor is the first craft to land on the moon.

August, 1966. Mao Zedong launches the Cultural Revolution in China. The movement is led by thousands of students organized into bands called “Red Guards.” Teachers, artists, and other intellectuals are humiliated in the streets. Mao’s dictum to his young army is: “Revolution is not writing an essay or painting a picture . . . Revolution is an act of violence when one class overthrows another.”

November, 1966. In China, the Red Guard demands the dismissal of heads of state Lui Shaopi and Deng Xiaoping.

During the year 1966:
Botswana, Lesotho, and Guyana become independent states within the British Commonwealth.

Tension between the United Kingdom and the rebel state of Rhodesia in southern Africa continues. The United Nations authorizes sanctions against Rhodesia, and the British Navy enforces a blockade on oil shipments to Rhodesia.

February 18, 1965. The Gambia becomes independent from the United Kingdom.

March 20, 1965. The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 begins. This conflict becomes known as the Second Kashmir War fought by India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir, the first having been fought in 1947.

March 31, 1965. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson sends 3500 Marines to protect the South Vietnamese air base at Da Nang from attacks by the communist Vietcong.

April 24-28, 1965. Civil war breaks out in the Dominican Republic. President Lyndon B. Johnson sends U.S. troops to the Caribbean nation “for the stated purpose of protecting U.S. citizens and preventing an alleged Communist takeover of the country”, thus thwarting the possibility of “another Cuba”.

April 29, 1965. Australian government announces it will send troops to Vietnam.

July 28, 1965. U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson announces his order to increase the number of United States troops in South Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000, and to more than double the number of men drafted per month – from 17,000 to 35,000.

August 9, 1965. Singapore is expelled from the Federation of Malaysia, which recognizes Singapore as a sovereign nation. Lee Kuan Yew announces Singapore’s independence and assumes the position of Prime Minister of the new island nation.

October, 1965. An attempted communist coup fails in Indonesia. In response to the attempted government takeover, the Indonesian army sweeps through the countryside and are aided by locals in killing suspected communists. The number of people killed across Indonesia is anywhere from 78,000 to one million. President Sukarno remains in power, but the events of 1965 lead to his downfall in 1967.

November 11, 1965. The (white) Rhodesian Government, led by Prime Minister Ian Smith, severs its links with the British Crown. Mr. Smith makes the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. His address to the people of Rhodesia says he has taken the action, “so that dignity and freedom of all may be assured.” Over four million black Rhodesians will have no power in the new government.

December 30, 1965. Ferdinand Marcos is inaugurated as president of the Philippines.

Cost of Living in 1965
Average Cost of new house $13,600.00
Average Income per year $6,450.00
Gasoline per Gallon 31 cents
Average Cost of a new car $2,650.00
Loaf of bread 21 cents

February 5, 1964. The government of India declares the province of Kashmir in northern India to be a part of india without holding a vote for the people of Kashmir to declare their wishes in the matter. Pakistan protests Indian control of Kashmir.

March 31, 1964. The military overthrows Brazilian President Joao Goulart in a coup, starting 21 years of military dictatorship in Brazil.

April 26, 1964. The nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.

June, 1964. South African lawyer Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage and plotting to overthrow the government. Mandela is the leader of the banned political group, the African National Congress (ANC), a group fighting against the apartheid laws in South Africa.

July 6, 1964. Malawi declares its independence from the United Kingdom.

July 31, 1964. U.S. satellite Ranger 7 sends back to earth the first close-up photographs of the moon.

August 5, 1964. Aircraft from carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation bomb North Vietnam in retaliation for strikes against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.

October 1, 1964. The new Shinkansen high-speed passenger rail service opens in Japan, between the cities of Tokyo and Osaka.

October 14-15, 1964. Nikita Khrushchev is deposed as leader of the Soviet Union; Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin assume power.

November 3, 1964. The Bolivian government of President Victor Paz Estenssoro is overthrown by a military rebellion led by General Alfredo Ovando Candi­a, commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The National Book Award goes to The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter.
Some other nominees were:
John Knowles for A Separate Peace
Harper Lee for To Kill a Mockingbird
Wright Morris for Ceremony in Lone Tree
Flannery O’Connor for The Violent Bear It Away
John Updike for Rabbit, Run
Interesting choice with that sort of line-up.

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee wins the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Ivo Andric wins the Nobel Prize for Literature. (Who’s he?)

Published in 1961:
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I’m not a Dahl fan, but this one and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory are still quite popular.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. I read some Heinlein when I was a teenager, including this one, I think, but I don’t remember much about it. I do know that Heinlein’s book is the origin of the term “grok” that became somewhat popular in the 60’s and 70’s, In Stranger in a Strange Land, “grok” literally means “to drink” and figuratively means “to comprehend”, “to love”, and “to be one with”. “I grok you” means “I get it” or “I’m with you.”
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Set during World II, the title also introduced a new term to popular parlance: “catch-22”. The catch-22 is explained to be how any pilot requesting a psych evaluation hoping to be found not sane enough to fly, and thereby escape dangerous missions, would thereby demonstrate his sanity. If you’re sane enough not to want to fly combat missions, the army air corps says you’re sane enough to fly them.
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. We read Phantom Tollbooth aloud last year in school. I highly recommend it.
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Eldest Daughter really appreciates Walker Percy. I’m not there yet. I just don’t grok him.
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone. On the other hand, I think Irving Stone is underestimated as a writer. I remember liking this one, a biographical novel of Michaelangelo, and Lust for Life, about da Vinci. Stone also wrote one of my favorite nonfiction history books, Men To Match My Mountains, about the opening and settlement of the far western United States.
Mila 18 by Leon Uris. Wonderfully compelling novel about the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II.