Bestsellers of the Century!

Thanks to Books on the Nightstand for pointing me to this list of bestsellers across the decades, compiled from Publishers Weekly by the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet. It doesn't include this last decade though, I suppose because we are still in 2010. What's interesting to me is how few I've read (only three!) and even more, how few I've heard of! The lists include nonfiction for the last 50 years but only fiction for the first 50. Which is a pity because the nonfiction list is funnier. It's fascinating how many of these books are not an author's most famous book. I have 1 on my TBR list (The Burden of Proof) but most of these I don't particularly want to read (possible exceptions: Kon-Tiki and Hawaii). I did use this as an excuse to finally watch the movie of The French Lieutenant's Woman which had been saved on my TiVo for months. How many have you read?

update: these are not lists of the full decade, but just a list from every 10 years. So the list from 1990 is only the top 10 from that year. Now I wonder why there was no 2000 list included, since they could easily have done that one without 2010 data.

1990
FICTION
1. The Plains of Passage, Jean M. Auel
2. Four Past Midnight, Stephen King
3. The Burden of Proof, Scott Turow
4. Memories of Midnight, Sidney Sheldon
5. Message from Nam, Danielle Steel
6. The Bourne Ultimatum, Robert Ludlum
7. The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition, Stephen King
8. Lady Boss, Jackie Collins
9. The Witching Hour, Anne Rice
10. September, Rosamunde Pilcher

NONFICTION
1. A Life on the Road, Charles Kuralt
2. The Civil War, Geoffrey C. Ward with Ric Burns and Ken Burns
3. The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Heritage: Recipes You Should Have Gotten from Your Grandmother, Jeff Smith
4. Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book
5. Financial Self-Defense: How To Win the Fight for Financial Freedom, Charles J. Givens
6. Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child, John Bradshaw
7. Wealth Without Risk: How To Develop a Personal Fortune Without Going Out on a Limb, Charles J. Givens
8. Bo Knows Bo, Bo Jackson and Dick Schaap
9. An American Life: An Autobiography, Ronald Reagan
10. Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990s, John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene


1980
FICTION
1. The Covenant, James A. Michener
2. The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum
3. Rage of Angels, Sidney Sheldon
4. Princess Daisy, Judith Krantz
5. Firestarter, Stephen King
6. The Key to Rebecca, Ken Follett
7. Random Winds, Belva Plain
8. The Devil’s Alternative, Frederick Forsyth
9. The Fifth Horseman, Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre
10. The Spike, Arnaud de Borchgrave and Robert Moss

NONFICTION:
1. Crisis Investing: Opportunities and Profits in the Coming Great Depression, Douglas R. Casey
2. Cosmos, Carl Sagan
3. Free to Choose: A Personal Statement, Milton and Rose Friedman
4. Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient, Norman Cousins
5. Thy Neighbor’s Wife, Gay Talese
6. The Sky’s the Limit, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
7. The Third Wave, Alvin Toffler
8. Craig Claiborne’s Gourmet Diet, Craig Claiborne with Pierre Franey
9. Nothing Down, Robert Allen
10. Shelley: Also Known as Shirley, Shelley Winters


1970
FICTION
1. Love Story, Erich Segal
2. The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles
3. Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway
4. The Crystal Cave, Mary Stewart
5. Great Lion of God, Taylor Caldwell
6. QB VII, Leon Uris
7. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, Jimmy Breslin
8. The Secret Woman, Victoria Holt
9. Travels with My Aunt, Graham Greene
10. Rich Man, Poor Man, Irwin Shaw

NONFICTION
1. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex but Were Afraid To Ask, David Reuben, M.D.
2. The New English Bible
3. The Sensuous Woman, "J"
4. Better Homes and Gardens Fondue and Tabletop Cooking
5. Up the Organization, Robert Townsend
6. Ball Four, Jim Bouton7. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, William Morris
8. Body Language, Julius Fast
9. In Someone’s Shadow, Rod McKuen
10. Caught in the Quiet, Rod McKuen


1960
FICTION
1. Advise and Consent, Allen Drury
2. Hawaii, James A. Michener
3. The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa
4. The Chapman Report, Irving Wallace
5. Ourselves To Know, John O’Hara
6. The Constant Image, Marcia Davenport
7. The Lovely Ambition, Mary Ellen Chase
8. The Listener, Taylor Caldwell
9. Trustee from the Toolroom, Nevil Shute
10. Sermons and Soda-Water, John O’Hara

NONFICTION
1. Folk Medicine, D. C. Jarvis
2. Better Homes and Gardens First Aid for Your Family
3. The General Foods Kitchens Cookbook
4. May This House Be Safe from Tigers, Alexander King
5. Better Homes and Gardens Dessert Book
6. Better Homes and Gardens Decorating Ideas
7. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer
8. The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater
9. I Kid You Not, Jack Paar
10. Between You, Me and the Gatepost, Pat Boone


1950
FICTION
1. The Cardinal, Henry Morton Robinson
2. Joy Street, Frances Parkinson Keyes
3. Across the River and into the Trees, Ernest Hemingway
4. The Wall, John Hersey
5. Star Money, Kathleen Winsor
6. The Parasites, Daphne du Maurier
7. Floodtide, Frank Yerby
8. Jubilee Trail, Gwen Bristow
9. The Adventurer, Mika Waltari
10. The Disenchanted, Budd Schulberg

NONFICTION
1. Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book
2. The Baby
3. Look Younger, Live Longer, Gayelord Hauser
4. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, Frank Bettger
5. Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl
6. Mr. Jones, Meet the Master, Peter Marshall
7. Your Dream Home, Hubbard Cobb
8. The Mature Mind, H. A. Overstreet
9. Campus Zoo, Clare Barnes Jr.
10. Belles on Their Toes, Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey


1940
FICTION
1. How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn
2. Kitty Foyle, Christopher Morley
3. Mrs. Miniver, Jan Struther
4. For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Nazarene, Sholem Asch
6. Stars on the Sea, F. van Wyck Mason
7. Oliver Wiswell, Kenneth Roberts
8. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
9. Night in Bombay, Louis Bromfield
10. The Family, Nina Fedorova


1930
FICTION
1. Cimarron, Edna Ferber
2. Exile, Warwick Deeping
3. The Woman of Andros, Thornton Wilder
4. Years of Grace, Margaret Ayer Barnes
5. Angel Pavement, J. B. Priestley
6. The Door, Mary Roberts Rinehart
7. Rogue Herries, Hugh Walpole
8. Chances, A. Hamilton Gibbs
9. Young Man of Manhattan, Katharine Brush
10. Twenty-Four Hours, Louis Bromfield


1920
FICTION
1. The Man of the Forest, Zane Grey
2. Kindred of the Dust, Peter B. Kyne
3. The Re-Creation of Brian Kent, Harold Bell Wright
4. The River’s End, James Oliver Curwood
5. A Man for the Ages, Irving Bacheller
6. Mary-Marie, Eleanor H. Porter
7. The Portygee, Joseph C. Lincoln
8. The Great Impersonation, E. Phillips Oppenheim
9. The Lamp in the Desert, Ethel M. Dell
10. Harriet and the Piper, Kathleen Norris


1910
FICTION
1. The Rosary, Florence Barclay
2. A Modern Chronicle, Winston Churchill
3. The Wild Olive, anonymous (Basil King)
4. Max, Katherine Cecil Thurston
5. The Kingdom of Slender Swords, Hallie Erminie Rives
6. Simon the Jester, William J. Locke
7. Lord Loveland Discovers America, C. N. and A. M. Williamson
8. The Window at the White Cat, Mary Roberts Rinehart
9. Molly Make-Believe, Eleanor Abbott
10. When a Man Marries, Mary Roberts Rinehart