1990s – Books for All Ages

Here you’ll find a list of books that are either set in the 1990s or were written during this time. This list is broken down by age but there are many books that can be enjoyed by some or all of the age groups. This list is just a sample of the thousands of books that we can access through the county-wide system. Some descriptions were taken from the catalog, others from our Literature database; Novelist (click to access from home.)

Click on Titles to be taken to the Catalog

ADULT FICTION AND NON-FICTION BOOKS (SOME MAY BE SUITABLE FOR TEENS OR EVEN CHILDREN. PLEASE ASK A LIBRARIAN FOR HELP WITH DETERMINING AGE SUITABILITY) 

The Devil’s Teardrop: a Novel of the Last Night of the Century By: Deaver, Jeffery – An emotionless assassin programmed to wreak havok on Washington, D.C. at four-hour intervals until midnight on New Year’s Eve, 1999, is pursued by retired FBI agent and top forensic document examiner in the country, Parker Kincaid.

Gods in Alabama By: Jackson, Joshilyn – Ten years after leaving, Arlene Fleet finds she still has not escaped Possett, Alabama, when an old classmate turns up asking questions about a crime Arlene committed in her youth, forcing her into a confrontation with her past.

The Human Stain By: Roth, Philip – A college professor with a sexual indiscretion in his past is hounded from his job by academic enemies who label him a racist.

The Man of My Dreams By: Sittenfeld, Curtis – Hannah Gavener’s fantasies about family, romance, and love collide headlong with the challenges, complexities, and realities of adult life and relationships.

Prague By: Phillips, Arthur – Five American expatriates living in Budapest in the early 1990s seek to establish themselves and make their fortunes in a city still haunted by the tragedies of its Communist past.

Sex and the City By: Bushnell, Candace – Presents a collection of essays selected from the author’s column in the New York Observer, concerning the interpersonal relationships of the “young and beautiful” residents of New York City.

A Small Death in Lisbon By: Wilson, Robert – When Inspector Ze Coelho investigates the murder of a young girl living in Portugal, he discovers that the crime is somehow linked to Nazi misdeeds six decades earlier.

Time and Again By: Roberts, Nora – After time traveler Caleb Hornblower crash-lands in the twentieth century, he relies on Liberty Stone to help him survive; and Jacob Hornblower heads back into the past to rescue his stranded brother, only to find himself falling for Sunbeam Stone.

Timequake By: Vonnegut, Kurt – After the universe decides to back up ten years and all humans must live through the 1990s again, author Kurt Vonnegut finds himself trying to write a book called Timequake, which he knows he will never finish since he already did not finish it.

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day By: Cleage, Pearl – HIV-positive Ava Johnson returns to the Michigan town where she grew up, and finds that what she thought might be the end is, in fact, a beginning.

CHILDREN & TEEN FICTION AND NON-FICTION BOOKS (ADULTS CAN LIKE THESE TOO!)

After Tupac and D Foster By: Jacqueline Woodson – D Foster showed up a few months before Tupac got shot that first time and left us the summer before he died. The day D Foster enters Neeka and her best friend’s lives, the world opens up for them. D comes from a world vastly different from their safe Queens neighborhood, and through her, the girls see another side of life that includes loss, foster families and an amount of freedom that makes the girls envious. Although all of them are crazy about Tupac Shakur’s rap music, D is the one who truly understands the place where he’s coming from, and through knowing D, Tupac’s lyrics become more personal for all of them.

The Day Gogo Went to Vote: South Africa, 1994 By: Sisulu, Elinor – Thembi and her beloved great-grandmother, who has not left the house for many years, go together to vote on the momentous day when black South Africans are allowed to vote for the first time.


Girl of Kosovo
By: Meade, Alice
– Although Zana, an eleven-year-old Albanian girl, experiences the turmoil and violence of the 1999 conflict in her native Kosovo, she remembers her father’s admonition to not let her heart become filled with hate.

Miseducation of Cameron Post By: Danforth, Emily M. – In the early 1990s, when gay teenager Cameron Post rebels against her conservative Montana ranch town and her family decides she needs to change her ways, she is sent to a gay conversion therapy center.

Peace, Locomotion By: Woodson, Jacqueline – Through letters to his little sister, who is in a different foster home, Lonnie, also known as “Locomotion,” keeps a record of their lives while they are apart, describing his own foster family, including his foster brother who returns home after losing a leg in the Iraq War.

Perks of Being a Wallflower By: Chbosky, Stephen – This is the story of what it’s like to grow up in high school. More intimate than a diary, Charlie’s letters are singular and unique, hilarious and devastating. We may not know where he lives. We may not know to whom he is writing. All we know is the world he shares. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends.

The Rifle By: Paulsen, Gary – A priceless, handcrafted rifle, fired throughout the American Revolution, is passed down through the years until it fires on a fateful Christmas Eve of 1994.

Smoky Night By: Bunting, Eve and Diaz, David – During a night of rioting in Los Angeles, fires and looting force neighbors–who have always avoided one another–to come together. David Diaz was awarded the Caldecott Medal for his bold acrylic paint and photo-collage illustrations.

Solider Mom By: Mead, Alice – Eleven-year-old Jasmyn gets a different perspective on life when her mother is sent to Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War, leaving her and her baby half-brother behind in Maine in the care of her Mother’s boyfriend.