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Posts Tagged ‘1960’s bestsellers’

The 1960’s — What Was America Reading?

Posted in 25 Things, Art, Authors, Books, Creative Nonfiction, Culture, Fiction, Film / TV / Video, Growing Older, I Don't Remember, Memoir, Money, Photography, Politics, Random, Reading, Spirituality, Writers, Writing, tagged , , , , , , , on August 30, 2007| 38 Comments »

BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Mnneapolis, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

BookMark, Minneapolis Central Library, downtown Minneapolis, through the rain, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

Time for another decade of bestselling books. At the end of the 1960’s, gas was 39¢ a gallon, a 1962 Jaguar XKE would set you back $4,500, and James Bond in Goldfinger grossed $23 million at the box office. Twiggy was big (I just saw her flash by the TV screen last night on America’s Top Model), along with hiphuggers, bellbottoms, collarless Nehru jackets, and cashmere turtlenecks.

People were buzzing about Foster Grants, Duncan yo-yo’s, new math, Dolby noise reduction, macrame, K-Mart, the Twist, the Chicago 8, draft dodgers, Teflon, and St. Louis’s Gateway arch, the world’s tallest monument.

The American 60’s were turbulent, violent, optimistic, free loving, and slow moving. If it was your generation you were either hip, jock, rock, or nerd. If it wasn’t, well, it lives on in the mythology that surrounds it.

The 60’s were big enough to hold Capote, Sontag, Kesey, Plath, Robbins, Baldwin, Ginsberg, Puzo, Hailey, Vonnegut, Nin, Miller, Didion, and Vidal. You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1960’s, for better or worse, here’s what America was reading.



1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

F I C T I O N

  1. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
  2. Franney and Zooey, J. D. Salinger
  3. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
  4. The Winter of Our Discontent, John Steinbeck
  5. The Reivers, William Faulkner
  6. Dearly Beloved, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  7. The Shoes of the Fisherman, Morris L. West
  8. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour–An Introduction, J. D. Salinger
  9. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré
  10. Up the Down Staircase, Bel Kaufman
  11. The Man with the Golden Gun, Ian Fleming
  12. Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
  13. All in the Family, Edwin O’Connor
  14. The Adventurers, Harold Robbins
  15. The Confessions of Nat Turner, William Styron
  16. The Chosen, Chaim Potok
  17. The Exhibitionist, Henry Sutton
  18. Airport, Arthur Hailey
  19. The Salzburg Connection, Helen MacInnes
  20. The Tower of Babel, Morris L. West
  21. Preserve and Protect, Allen Drury
  22. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
  23. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
  24. The Andromeda Strain, Michael Crichton
  25. Naked Came the Stranger, Penelope Ashe
  26. The House on the Strand, Daphne du Maurier
  27. The Love Machine, Jacqueline Susann
  28. Myra Breckinridge, Gore Vidal
  29. Christy, Catherine Marshall
  30. The Pretenders, Gwen Davis


 

Minneapolis Central Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, photo © 2007 by QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.

           Minneapolis Central Library, looking straight up, through the rain,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 2007, opened May 2006, architecture
by the design team of Cesar Pelli & Associates, photo © 2007 by
QuoinMonkey. All rights reserved.




1 9 6 0 ‘ s – B E S T S E L L E R S

N O N F I C T I O N

  1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer
  2. The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
  3. I Kid You Not, Jack Paar
  4. Between You, Me and the Gatepost, Pat Boone
  5. Better Homes and Gardens Sewing Book
  6. Calories Don’t Count, Dr. Herman Taller
  7. Sex and the Single Girl, Helen Gurley Brown
  8. Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
  9. The Joy of Cooking: New Edition, Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker
  10. Security Is a Thumb and a Blanket, Charles M. Schulz
  11. I Owe Russia $1200, Bob Hope
  12. Profiles in Courage: Memorial Edition, John F. Kennedy
  13. In His Own Write, John Lennon
  14. Reminiscences, General Douglas MacArthur
  15. A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
  16. A Day in the Life of President Kennedy, Jim Bishop
  17. How To Be a Jewish Mother, Dan Greenburg
  18. A Gift of Prophecy, Ruth Montgomery
  19. A Thousand Days, Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
  20. The Making of the President, 1964, Theodore H. White
  21. How to Avoid Probate, Norman F. Dacey
  22. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote
  23. Phyllis Diller’s Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller
  24. Misery Is a Blind Date, Johnny Carson
  25. Death of a President, William Manchester
  26. Edgar Cayce–The Sleeping Prophet, Jess Stearn
  27. The Weight Watcher’s Cook Book, Jean Nidetch
  28. The Peter Principle, Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull
  29. My Life and Prophecies, Jeane Dixon with René Noorberger
  30. Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, Linda Goodman

 

 

-posted on red Ravine, Thursday, August 30th, 2007

-Resources:  1960’s Bestsellers List at Cader Books, Writer’s Dream Tools, and The Friends of the Minneapolis Public Library

-related to posts: The 1950’s — What Was America Reading?, The 1970’s —  What Was America Reading?

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