1966

These books are no longer big, but #1 was a big buzz in the U.S. when it came out.

1. Valley of the Dolls : a novel by Jacqueline Susann has 699 owners and 11 reviews. (roman a clef). Her biggest hit.

2. The Adventurers by Harold Robbins has 42 owners and 1 review. (About a South American playboy)

3. The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton has 35 owners and 1 review. (Italy in WWII)

4. Capable of Honor by Allen Drury has 31 owners and no reviews. (political)

5. The Double Image by Helen MacInnes has 45 owners and no reviews. (thriller) Her Assignment in Brittany is somewhat better known with 67 owners.

6. The Fixer by Bernard Malamud has 360 owners and 2 reviews. (Jewish) This won a Pulitzer Prize.

7. Tell no man by Adela Rogers St. Johns has only 7 owners, no reviews. There are 808 copies in worldcat, so it's not disappearing yet in major libraries. (clergy memoir/relgious awakening).

8. Tai-pan by James Clavell has 626 owners and 7 reviews. His Sho-gun : a novel of Japan is more famous with 1,327 owners and 22 reviews.

9. The Embezzler by Louis Auchincloss has 18 owners and 1 review. (business) His Rector of Justin is more famous.

10, All in the family by Edwin O'Connor has 11 owners, no reviews (political story of a novelist). The Last Hurrah, about corrupt Massachusetts (i.e. Boston) politics is more famous at 81 owners.

I have read none of these, but have a different Helen MacInnes in the house somewhere. Perhaps it shall earn a place on the TBR shelves.

I was just in second grade when Valley of the Dolls came out and just beginning to read. I remember my aunt and cousin passing the book back and forth, which was a grown up book, not for me. I can still see the cover, though I've never read and probably won't ever read it. It was an interesting commentary on the times and who can forget Patti Duke's performance in the movie version?

I can claim only to have read Valley of the Dolls (a good airplane book) and heard of none of the other books, although I know some of the authors.

Have read the following;
The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton I bought this book at a yard sale because I enjoyed the movie years ago, and I discovered a treasure. The charaters are much more complex and not so black and white ( good or evil ) but all the shades of gray.The story is more of survival then protecting the wine.

Tai-pan by James Clavell read most of his stuff King Rat is my favorite of his.
Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann a book that everone read back then but hid the cover from view.
The Adventurers by Harold Robbins

usnmm2,
I loved that film, too! So now I am going to hunt down a copy of the book, thanks!

I have read other books by Auchincloss, O'Connor and Rogers St. John and Shogun by Clavell, after seeing the mini-series.

marise,
you will like the book . It's a little darker than the movie. Bombollini is not such a fool as he is in the movie. But a passionate student of The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. He turns to it to find answers to all his problems like some else would turn to the Bilble. Just a warning it is not a light hearted book like the movie.

Thanks for the warning, but I am still intrigued enough to try it!

marise,
If you do like The Secret of Santa Vittoria I would also recomend A bell for Adano by John Hersey which won a Pulitzer in 1945.
It's about the military goverment in a small town in Sicily that is liberated. It was made into a movie the same year .staring
Gene Tierney, William Bendex, Harry Morgan (yes a very young Col. Potter of M.A.S.H.)

I've read 2 of Harold Robbins books in which both were turned into movies: The Lonely Lady and The Betsy. I don't think I've come across The Adventurers yet. I have mixed emotions about Robbins' writing.

I have seen the film of that book also. Wasn't John Hodiak also in it? I thought it was a very good story and will look for the book, thanks!

marise,
Yes. John Hhodiak was the Major in charge. It's a hard movie to get hold of .

I think I saw it on Turner Classic Movies. It has been a while, though and I could be wrong.

I thought Harry Morgan was Spring Byington's son-in-law.

He also had a great supporting role in one of my favorite movies, The Oxbow Incident.

>14 geneg:
Or Cara Williams' husband, Pete! ;)

I read Tai-Pan and promptly forgot it. I've probably also read the Helen MacInnes, as I was reading a lot of her stuff for a while, but I honestly don't know for sure.

The Double Image was good, but then I liked all of Helen MacInnes' books--some I read more than once. I remember starting Valley of the Dolls and not being impressed, the same with The Adventurers.

US Non-Fiction

1. How to Avoid Probate, Norman F. Dacey 3 copies on LT

2. Human Sexual Response, William Howard Masters and Virginia E. Johnston 30 copies

3. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote 4,907 copies

4. Games People Play, Eric Berne, M.D. 525 copies

5. A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. 207 copies

6. Everything but Money, Sam Levenson 27 copies

7. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 165 copies

8. Rush to Judgment, Mark Lane 55 copies

9. The Last Battle, Cornelius Ryan 225 copies

10. Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, Phyllis Diller 13 copies

In Cold Blood was famous when it came out and still is for using novelistic techniques in describing a crime. Looking at the works page, 177 people have actually tagged it fiction, vs 453 tagging it non-fiction. And to confuse matters more, 21 have tagged it as a 'non-fiction' novel. It has 84 reviews in LT and its rating is 4.25, which is fairly high.

Certainly some other significant non-fiction: Human Sexual Response, Games People Play (transactional analysis), A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy..., and the Random House Dictionary of the English Language.

Sam Levenson was popular for a good while, and I know we had that in our home.

The only book I have on shelf now is the dictionary.

Oh, I love this group! I just stumbled across it. I started with 1966 because it is my birth year. I haven't read any of the books on the list besides Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints. Just kidding -- In Cold Blood is the only one I've read.

But I read a lot of old pop fiction, mostly because books can sit on my shelves for decades before I get around to reading them. Throw in Hubby's books and books I got from my parents and there is a lot of outdated, all but forgotten literature sitting in my house.

Take Helen MacInnes for example. I don't have The Double Image, but I have several others by her in my library. I remember that my mom always liked her books, so when I found Prelude to Terror in a box of Hubby's high school books, I read it and really liked it. Now I snag her books at library sales and my other haunts. I love the Cold War atmosphere and all the heroines dodging bullets in high heels and little Jackie-O suits.

Another Phyllis Diller book. Hmm.

I've read Auchincloss but not this one. I'm a little surprised that his work was popular.

Number One nonfiction was How to Avoid Probate?

I am one of the seven here on LT who have a copy of Tell No Man in their collections. I think the best descriptive summary is that the book tells of a young stockbroker in Chicago who has a conversion experience and the repercussions of that experience on his life, his marriage and his friendships. Hank, the protagonist, is based at least in part on Peter Marshall, the Senate chaplain whose wife, Catherine Marshall wrote Christy. The ending of Tell No Man is not wholly satisfactory, as I recognized even when I read it at the age of 12, but the story has stayed with me for my entire adult life.

More about this book on my blog:
http://individualtake.blogspot.com/2007/08/tell-no-man-in-my-book-collection-on....

I'm pulling a blank here.

Zilch for me :(

I read Valley of the Dolls, The Fixer, and Tai-Pan (also Sho-Gun). That indiscriminate teenage reader thing again - I wouldn't bother with any of them today.

On the nonfiction side, In Cold Blood and A Thousand Days. A Thousand Days is the only one I still own.

I read Tai-Pan and liked it but I agree with the person who said that King Rat is Clavell's best book.

I avidly read Human Sexual Response and also read Games People Play.

I've read The Fixer and In Cold Blood. And, you know, the dictionary.

It's interesting that the dread of probate caused a big bestseller in 1966, with the top non-fiction place of How to Avoid Probate. This is a much less concern today because inheritance is much less taxed. This book now has 11 owners in LT, still the lowest of all the books in this thread. (Note, Tell No Man now has 23 owners -- most old books have had significant increases in numbers in the last two years or so in LT.)

1966 - The year I graduated from h.s. The only books I can recall reading from this batch are Valley of the Dolls and In Cold Blood. Oh, and I have that particular dictionary (though not sure if it's 1966 edition) but haven't actually read it, just, you know, leafed through it from time to time.

Helen MacInnesis one of those authors I always find in used store bins. I have no idea what she wrote about but she seems to have been extremely popular at one point in time and a lot of her books are now being given away. I guess I should buy one next time.
I loved reading Harold Robbins. A Stone for Danny Fisher (not on this list) was one of my favourite childhood books. It wasn't just the sex, I found the whole thing so dramatic and intriguing.

#31, Helen MacInnes wrote spy thrillers. She was a consistent bestseller in the 1960s. Several of her books have been reviewed here, so I guess she still has a following; but yeah, she's a regular guest at library booksales.

I read one of her books. I'd just had my appendix out and a volunteer group at the hospital brought around a few books for me to take my pick. I didn't like it much, but I didn't like anything right about then!!

I have read Valley of the Dolls and Tai-pan and probably The Adventurers too, and I own most of Helen MacInnes' books. I firmly believe that Harold Robbins did a lot of damage to male-female relationships with his unrealistic portrayals of sexual prowess. He and lots of other wishful-thinking authors. I read those books when I was a kid and I'm glad I had Helen MacInnes and Mary Stewart and Mary Roberts Rinehart to balance things out. What a difference!

The only one of these I own is Valley of the Dolls - a real classic. Not well written or a work of literary genius but well worth owning all the same.

I started listening to Helen MacInnes novels on books on tape that I got from my library. I like them so much I started collecting them at used book sales. In the spirit of reading books off my shelves, I just read The Double Image. I like spies, exotic places, old books and a bit of romance. Helen MacInnes ticks all those boxes for me. It's the only one I've read on this list.

MacInnes is an uneven author, in my opinion. Here is what I read by her:

127. Assignment in Brittany, by Helen MacInnes (read __ ___ 1943)
128. Above Suspicion, by Helen MacInnes (read __ ___ 1943)
2099. Cloak of Darkness, by Helen MacInnes (read 13 Sep 1987)
2556. Prelude to Terror, by Helen MacInnes (read 28 Nov 1993)
2583. The Salzburg Connection, by Helen MacInnes (read 19 Feb 1994)
3242. The Snare of the Hunter, by Helen MacInnes (read 8 Sep 1999)
3249. Neither Five Nor Three, by Helen MacInnes (read 4 Oct 1999)
4086. Rest and Be Thankful, by Helen MacInnes (read 31 Oct 2005)
4486. North From Rome, by Helen MacInnes (read 18 Sep 2008)

Some of these I enjoyed greatly. But if there is a more boring book than Rest and Be Thankful I don't know what it is. Here is my comment after I read it:

This book published in 1949 is a total bore, having no similarity to the others. Apparently it was a result of a visit to Wyoming and the story tells of two ladies who lived in Europe and stumbled onto a ranch, bought a house there, invited some New York writers to visit, and tells of the non-exciting things done and said duirng the month-long visit, ending up with one of the women marrying the ranch owner. A total boring book which I never would have finished if I stopped reading a book after I started it.

<36 Friends and Lovers from 1947 is even worse. Not only is there no spying or anything else interesting happening but the main characters are dull and unpleasant. Fortunately she seems to have stuck to spy novels after those two. Some of her spy novels get bogged down in political rants.

5 Best Books of the 20th Century: Source: Goodreads

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, 46,195 copies/835 reviews

2. 1984 by George Orwell, 49,483 copies/720 reviews

3. The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien - 1,2,3

4. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J K Rowling- Book 1 of 7 books\

Other books:

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/6

A list of 100 titles of all sorts to browse.

Check the best books of 1966:

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/5480.Best_Books_of_1966

A list of 63 titles of all sorts to browse.

Some titles are still popular after being published nearly 50 years ago.

Popular titles published 987 years ago.
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1414

(a list of 10 books)

from 1001 AD to 1100 AD

Happy Reading.

We had a thread under Bestsellers about 6 years ago: http://www.librarything.com/topic/36145 , which looked at another list of books that covered more than one year.

Valley of the Dolls, which most consider "pop" culture and trashy, is one of my favorite all-time books. Normally I read only classics, a few best sellers, and hard historical fiction. However, a friend gave me this book and I read it. I was blown away by the way Susanne was able to convey loss and grief so clearly that I could feel it.