Something from 30 years ago falls in an uncomfortable spot between feeling current and yet not so at the same time. Many of the themes and concerns and even way of living will be similar, yet also just unfamiliar enough.

Contemporary fiction from 60 years ago however feels just as much like a "period piece" as the victorian classics now do. Reading "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" I was most struck by passages containing things that were so normal back then they needed no explanation or elaboration, yet are so alien to us now I had to read up a lot more about what they were talking about.