Bestselling books of the twentieth century

[carbonel]

I've read just over a quarter of the Publisher's Weekly list, though it's actually a slightly higher percentage of the total, since a couple of them were listed for two years.

To some extent, this percentage, especially from the 1960s through the 1980s, represents my parents' reading tastes, because a lot of these were books that were available at home.

(1929) All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
(1931) The Good Earth, Pearl S. Buck
(1936) Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
(1939) The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
(1942) The Song of Bernadette, Franz Werfel
(1952) The Silver Chalice, Thomas B. Costain
(1954) Not as a Stranger, Morton Thompson
(1959) Exodus, Leon Uris
(1962) The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
(1964) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré
(1965) The Source, James A. Michener
(1966) Valley of the Dolls, Jacqueline Susann
(1968) Airport, Arthur Hailey
(1969) Portnoy's Complaint, Philip Roth
(1970) Love Story, Erich Segal
(1971) Wheels, Arthur Hailey
(1972) Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
(1974) Centennial, James A. Michener
(1977) The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien
(1978) Chesapeake, James A. Michener
(1980) The Covenant, James A. Michener
(1981) Noble House, James Clavell
(1982) E.T., William Kotzwinkle
(1985) The Mammoth Hunters, Jean M. Auel
(1990) The Plains of Passage, Jean M. Auel
(1996) The Runaway Jury, John Grisham

I assume it would be much lower for younger-than-me readers, which is an increasingly higher percentage of the population every year, but I'd be interested in seeing how that shakes out.

Comments

[landofnowhere]

My list is a (much smaller) subset of yours; I've read GWTW, three of the four Michener books, and The Silmarillion.

[athenais]

Many listed here were either school reading assignments for me or parental choices (either mine or what the parents of kids I was babysitting had lying around). But I loved James Michener in junior high and high school and read everything by him. This is now somewhat inexplicable to me, but the school library had all of his stuff so maybe access was most important. And a nice long book!

[mrissa]

I, a younger-than-you reader, have read 34 of these titles. Astute observers may point out that I may not be the most typical of younger-than-you readers.

I felt like the 1920s were a sea change from "I have only heard of this if I have a special interest in the author/subject matter" to "oh yes, these are books people know, or at least authors people know," and I would be interested to find out when people start to feel that way, whether it's my lifelong interest in the interwar period that does it or the timing of my birth or what. Like...does everyone feel like 60 years prior to their birth is the time that happens, or the 1920s, or something else completely?

Well!

[lsanderson]

Imma gonna guess that (1977) The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien; Christopher Tolkien may have sold well but remains often unread or at least uncompleted.

[pameladean]

My parents had a lot of these too. Some I read in school. The Yearling and All Quiet on the Western Front for sure, and I think How Green was My Valley and a bunch of others. I sampled all of the ones my parents had, but bounced off quite a few. I remember going nuts for Thomas B. Costain's works and getting them out of the library repeatedly. I thought his prose was great. Even then I was side-eyeing the religious stuff, but the historical details and the lumbering romance really got to me. I bought cheap used copies when an amazing used bookstore opened in Omaha. Then, some time after moving to Minneapolis, I picked up The Black Rose to reread and all the magic had fallen off it. I couldn't read more than a few paragraphs.

P.

[naomikritzer]

That is an interesting list to look at.

1900-1909: I had heard of none of the books and none of the authors and was very startled to discover by googling them that there was an American novelist (extremely famous in his era!) named Winston Churchill.

1910-1919: I have heard of Zane Grey and know approximately what he wrote (westerns); I am actually familiar with H.G. Wells although I don't think I've read any of his work in its original form (I've read/watched countless adaptations and remixes and I think I read some of his books edited for children).

1920-1929: I am familiar with Sinclair Lewis and Thornton Wilder, though I haven't read Main Street, Elmer Gantry, or The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I feel bad about the fact that I've never read All Quiet on the Western Front, I recognize that as one of the Great Books I am supposed to have read.

1939-1939: suddenly it's full of things I've read! I have read The Good Earth and The Grapes of Wrath for school; I read The Yearling and Gone With the Wind on my own. (I have a moderately funny story about how I came to pick up GWTW.)

1940-1949: Nothing I've read or particularly recognize. I think I know the name The Song of Bernadette because it got made into a movie, maybe.

1950-1959: I have heard of Herman Wouk and I've heard of Doctor Zhivago. I have read Exodus (and also saw the movie starring Paul Newman -- I e-mailed a podcast I like, Bad Hasbara, to ask if they've done any episodes talking about the lingering influence of that book and movie).

1960-69: I've read The Source. Most of the titles sound familiar to me in a "oh yes, saw those on the bookshelves of adult people when I was a kid" kind of way. I am familiar with Le Carre but I don't think I ever READ any of his books -- I did watch the Masterpiece Theater miniseries of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as a child with my dad. (I found it hard to follow.)

1970-79: I attempted to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull and bounced off extremely hard (it was in my library as a kid and maybe also on the shelves on my school? It's one of those titles that elicits a sort of "fuck that book" hostility because I remember it being everywhere, I tried to read it and found it stupid, and yet it remained absolutely everywhere instead of something I might have actually liked.) (Apologies to the JLS fans, who must be out there.) I didn't like The Source enough to read any more Michener. I owned a used copy of Trinity but couldn't get into it (apparently I could only overlook Uris's glaring flaws as a writer when he was writing about Jews). I have heard of E.L. Doctorow and I have obviously heard of the Silmarillion but never read it (I did read Lord of the Rings).

1980-89: I owned, read, and treasured the Star Wars storybook but I think by the time Jedi came out I was reading novelizations of movies with a lot of enthusiasm but not generally the storybook versions. I also read the novelization of ET but not the storybook version (can't tell which made the list). I continue to not have read the Michener; I have read very little Stephen King because I found horror scary as a child and depressing as an adult; I read The Mammoth Hunters when it came out (I was 12); I am familiar with Tom Clancy but have read zero of his books.

1990-99: I read The Plains of Passage, also right when it came out. I remember the news coverage of Scarlett: The Sequel to Gone with the Wind, but had zero impulse to read it (I did read The Wind Done Gone a few years later). Never read Bridges of Madison County (or saw the movie) and I have read zero John Grisham.

So 8 or 9.

[naomikritzer]

My somewhat amusing story about GWTW: the person who convinced me to read it (it was dauntingly long) was my friend Melanie. Melanie was (a) British and (b) biracial (her father was Jamaican). Given the incredible levels of racism in that book, I am honestly uncertain why she was so into it, but I think the fact that she was British probably helped? (We were besties during the year I lived in the UK, age 13-14.)

[bibliofile]

I'm just a few years younger than you, so maybe not enough to make a huge difference?

For the first few decades, I've seen the movies but not read the books (e.g. Doctor Zhivago, From Here to Eternity, )

All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque -- so good, helped confirm that I was opposed to war
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck -- for school, but still so good
The Silver Chalice, Thomas B. Costain -- after I was into medieval things but before I'd read lots of historic fiction
Advise and Consent, Allen Drury -- my dad liked this one, and he hardly ever read fiction. Saw the movie too.
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, John Le Carré == I read all the original Smiley books
Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach -- this was hard to miss for an omnivore reader in middle school at the time
Ragtime, E. L. Doctorow -- but not until after I read Garp, I think
Exodus, Leon Uris -- parts of which made me very angry, so that was the last book I read by him; I don't recall which other one(s) I read before that.
Noble House, James Clavell -- after I read Shogun and Tai Pan
The Talisman, Stephen King and Peter Straub -- my first Peter Straub, but not the last
The Mammoth Hunters, Jean M. Auel -- after reading the first two
Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy
The Runaway Jury, John Grisham

Note that I worked in a mostly-used bookstore in the early 1980s, which was where I found lots of former bestsellers in paperback for 39 and 69 cents apiece.

Never did read ET, though I love William Kotzwinkle. I was quite averse to some things because they were enormously popular, in the early '80s.

[quadong]

Of those, I've read The Silmarillion because I wanted to, and The Good Earth and The Grapes of Wrath because my high school English teacher said so. Of the remainder, only a small minority of the titles are even familiar. Bestseller don't always stand up to the test of time. Have I missed anything that's still considered important/good?

[a_t_rain]

Huh, interesting. I don't think I've ever even heard of most of the specific books from the 1900s-1910s, although I knew some of the authors, and the only one from the 1920s I've read is The Bridge of San Luis Rey. From the 1930s, I've read The Good Earth, Gone With the Wind, and The Grapes of Wrath, but then there's another really big gap where I haven't read any of the ones from the 1940s-1960s. After that: Ragtime, Return of the Jedi Storybook (!), I think one of the Jean Auel books but I can't remember which one, and that's it. Apparently I fail at bestsellers...

[selenite0]

Well, this drives home that most of my reading is genre rather than mainstream.

I read All Quiet on the Western Front, Grapes of Wrath, and The Good Earth for school. The Silmarillion and the two Tom Clancy books were for fun.