1varielle
U.S. Fiction
1. Green Light, Lloyd C. Douglas 23 copies on LT
2. Vein of Iron, Ellen Glasgow 23 copies on LT
3. Of Time and the River, Thomas Wolfe 128 copies
4. Time Out of Mind, Rachel Field 8 copies
5. Good-Bye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton 351 copies
6. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel 96 copies
7. Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder 30 copies
8. Lost Horizon, James Hilton 792 copies
9. Come and Get It, Edna Ferber 10 copies
10. Europa, Robert Briffault 6 copies
N O N F I C T I O N
1. North to the Orient, Anne Morrow Lindbergh 53 copies
2. While Rome Burns, Alexander Woollcott 59 copies
3. Life with Father, Clarence Day 121 copies
4. Personal History, Vincent Sheean 9 copies
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence 1,067 copies
6. Francis the First, Francis Hackett 17 copies
7. Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, Stefan Zweig 90 copies
8. Rats, Lice and History, Hans Zinsser 171 copies
9. R. E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman 45 copies
10. Skin Deep, M. C. Phillips 0 copies
I tried to plow through 7 Pillars of Wisdom once, but didn't make it. The movie of Life with Father was pretty cute.
1. Green Light, Lloyd C. Douglas 23 copies on LT
2. Vein of Iron, Ellen Glasgow 23 copies on LT
3. Of Time and the River, Thomas Wolfe 128 copies
4. Time Out of Mind, Rachel Field 8 copies
5. Good-Bye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton 351 copies
6. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, Franz Werfel 96 copies
7. Heaven's My Destination, Thornton Wilder 30 copies
8. Lost Horizon, James Hilton 792 copies
9. Come and Get It, Edna Ferber 10 copies
10. Europa, Robert Briffault 6 copies
N O N F I C T I O N
1. North to the Orient, Anne Morrow Lindbergh 53 copies
2. While Rome Burns, Alexander Woollcott 59 copies
3. Life with Father, Clarence Day 121 copies
4. Personal History, Vincent Sheean 9 copies
5. Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence 1,067 copies
6. Francis the First, Francis Hackett 17 copies
7. Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles, Stefan Zweig 90 copies
8. Rats, Lice and History, Hans Zinsser 171 copies
9. R. E. Lee, Douglas Southall Freeman 45 copies
10. Skin Deep, M. C. Phillips 0 copies
I tried to plow through 7 Pillars of Wisdom once, but didn't make it. The movie of Life with Father was pretty cute.
2vpfluke
I won Lost Horizon, but haven't read it.
4aviddiva
I've read Lost Horizon, but I've never won it! Also Good-bye Mr. Chips.
Yes, do tell us the story!
Yes, do tell us the story!
7aviddiva
Maybe WE should have a contest, and send a copy of Lost Horizon to the person who has owned or read the most books on the 1935 best seller lists.
9Pawcatuck
I read Of Time and the River in high school and loved it. I couldn't ever get through it again, nor anything else by Thomas Wolfe, so I guess that one just hit me at a particular time in my life.
At one point in my youth I tried to read Life With Father and was kinda traumatized; I thought Father was a creepy patriarch.
There are 300 copies on LT of Hitty, her first hundred years by Rachel Field.
At one point in my youth I tried to read Life With Father and was kinda traumatized; I thought Father was a creepy patriarch.
There are 300 copies on LT of Hitty, her first hundred years by Rachel Field.
10LouisBranning
There was a period of a couple of years, back in the mid-90s, when I was a semi-serious book collector, and acquired several first editions of Thomas Wolfe's work, including a near perfect copy of Of Time and the River, its dustjacket pristine in mylar for decades, practically stealing it from an estate-sale for 40 bucks. Of Time and the River is great as a stand-alone, but despite Wolfe's changing the names and a few details, it's essentially a continuation of Eugene Gant's story from Look Homeward, Angel (1929), and I think a good part of its appeal relies on the reader's fondness and appreciation of that earlier novel. Of course I've always loved LH,A, so there'll always be a soft spot for Of Time and the River.
11LouisBranning
Here's a portion of Michael Korda's comments from Making the List on the 1935 bestsellers:
"1935 proved that Lloyd Douglas was in for the long haul, with Green Light at #1, and introduced to the bestseller list a major American talent with Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River, and was memorable for the publication of James Hilton's Lost Horizon, a book that has never lost its appeal, particularly for moviemakers. Repeaters included Edna Ferber, still going strong, and Thornton Wilder. Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh had been a hugely successful European bestseller and became one here, too.
The nonfiction list included Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence, a huge, expensive, and fairly difficult book and a tribute to the public relations legend that had been built up around the figure of Lawrence of Arabia, as well as Clarence Day's timeless Life with Father, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's North to the Orient, and Douglas Southall Freeman's monumental R.E. Lee.
Once again, this is a list of books that would probably be bestsellers today, though it is worth noting that it took seventy years from the surrender at Appomattox Court House for a big biography of Lee to hit the yearly bestseller list, demonstrating that the Civil War had at last become "history", as the last of its surviving veterans died off, rather than still a partisan and sectional subject."
"1935 proved that Lloyd Douglas was in for the long haul, with Green Light at #1, and introduced to the bestseller list a major American talent with Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River, and was memorable for the publication of James Hilton's Lost Horizon, a book that has never lost its appeal, particularly for moviemakers. Repeaters included Edna Ferber, still going strong, and Thornton Wilder. Franz Werfel's The Forty Days of Musa Dagh had been a hugely successful European bestseller and became one here, too.
The nonfiction list included Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence, a huge, expensive, and fairly difficult book and a tribute to the public relations legend that had been built up around the figure of Lawrence of Arabia, as well as Clarence Day's timeless Life with Father, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's North to the Orient, and Douglas Southall Freeman's monumental R.E. Lee.
Once again, this is a list of books that would probably be bestsellers today, though it is worth noting that it took seventy years from the surrender at Appomattox Court House for a big biography of Lee to hit the yearly bestseller list, demonstrating that the Civil War had at last become "history", as the last of its surviving veterans died off, rather than still a partisan and sectional subject."
12rocketjk
I've read Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon.
I own The Seven Pillars of Wisdom but haven't read it. Yet.
I own The Seven Pillars of Wisdom but haven't read it. Yet.
13geneg
I read The Seven Pillars of Wisdom a couple of years after first seeing and falling in love with "Lawrence of Arabia" and expected the book to follow along, more or less, (the naivete of the young). I was enthralled by the book, even more than the movie. I enjoyed it heartily.
14adpaton
I read Lost Horizon when I was quite young and really enjoyed it - far superior to the film. I seem to recall they even made a musical version with Olivia Hussey in the 70s. Shudder.
15vpfluke
There is finally one copy of Skin Deep; the truth about beauty aids by M. C. Phillips on LT.
16PatrickMurtha
New here. Pocket bio: Retired humanities teacher, residing in Tlaxcala, Mexico, with two dogs and six indoor cats. Passionate about literature, history, philosophy, classical music and opera, jazz, cinema, and similar subjects. Nostalgic guy. Politically centrist. BA in American Studies from Yale; MAs in English and Education from Boston University. Born in northern New Jersey. Have lived and worked in San Francisco, Chicago, northern Nevada, northeast Wisconsin, South Korea.
Just finished and highly recommended: Edna Ferber’s Come and Get It. Having greatly enjoyed the 1936 movie version, I took up the novel and was interested to discover that it is very different in many respects and covers a much longer time-span than even the two generations of the movie. A rich and wonderful reading experience, completely absorbing. One startling development that is not in the film knocked me right off my chair.
I especially relate to this novel because I have lived on its Northern Wisconsin turf. “Butte des Morts” is Neenah in the northeast, close to where I resided in Little Chute. “Iron Ridge” is Hurley in the northwest, the great northwoods area that I often visited. The timber and paper industries are at the core of the narrative.
Ferber is adept at what critics call “solidity of specification”, description of exterior elements as in Balzac. You always know how the rooms are furnished, how the characters are dressed. (I was surprised to have it pointed out that Trollope, even writing at the length he does, doesn’t much bother with this, and it is true.)
Just finished and highly recommended: Edna Ferber’s Come and Get It. Having greatly enjoyed the 1936 movie version, I took up the novel and was interested to discover that it is very different in many respects and covers a much longer time-span than even the two generations of the movie. A rich and wonderful reading experience, completely absorbing. One startling development that is not in the film knocked me right off my chair.
I especially relate to this novel because I have lived on its Northern Wisconsin turf. “Butte des Morts” is Neenah in the northeast, close to where I resided in Little Chute. “Iron Ridge” is Hurley in the northwest, the great northwoods area that I often visited. The timber and paper industries are at the core of the narrative.
Ferber is adept at what critics call “solidity of specification”, description of exterior elements as in Balzac. You always know how the rooms are furnished, how the characters are dressed. (I was surprised to have it pointed out that Trollope, even writing at the length he does, doesn’t much bother with this, and it is true.)
