Books that shaped a decade

For the first half of the 1940s Britain was in the grip of war, followed, once the war ended, by years of austerity and hardship. So what about reading habits during those years? Was there still an attraction in the escapism offered by a good book? It seems the answer was ‘Yes’. Despite paper rationing, labour shortages and even the difficulties of censorship, people were still keen to read. Here is a snapshot of ten books published during the 1940s that – according to Goodreads – helped to shape that decade.

• 1984 by George Orwell
• Animal Farm by George Orwell
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• A Streetcar named Desire by Tennessee Williams
• Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• For the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
• A Tree…