• Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years

    (And What Everyone Read Instead)

    1960

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

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

    Also published that year:

    John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
    Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet
    Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
    Edna O’Brien, The Country Girls
    John Updike, Rabbit, Run

    1961

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy
    2. J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
    3. Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
    4. Leon Uris, Mila 18
    5. Harold Robbins, The Carpetbaggers
    6. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
    7. A. A. Milne, Winnie Ille Pu, trans. Alexander Lenard
    8. Morris West, Daughter of Silence
    9. Edwin O’Connor, The Edge of Sadness
    10. John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent

    Also published that year:

    Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
    Joseph Heller, Catch-22
    V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas
    Tillie Olsen, Tell Me a Riddle
    Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
    Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
    Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road

    1962

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools
    2. Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Dearly Beloved
    3. Allen Drury, A Shade of Difference
    4. Herman Wouk, Youngblood Hawke
    5. J. D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
    6. Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, Fail-Safe
    7. Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, Seven Days in May
    8. Irving Wallace, The Prize
    9. Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy
    10. William Faulkner, The Reivers

    Also published that year:

    J. G. Ballard, The Drowned World
    Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths
    Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
    Shirley Jackson, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
    James Jones, The Thin Red Line
    Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
    Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
    Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

    1963

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Morris L. West, The Shoes of the Fisherman
    2. Mary McCarthy, The Group
    3. J. D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and Seymour—An Introduction
    4. James A. Michener, Caravans
    5. John O’Hara, Elizabeth Appleton
    6. Taylor Caldwell, Grandmother and the Priests
    7. John Rechy, City of Night
    8. Daphne du Maurier, The Glass-Blowers
    9. Richard McKenna, The Sand Pebbles
    10. Rumer Godden, The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

    Also published that year:

    John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
    John Fowles, The Collector
    Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers (English translation)
    Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
    Thomas Pynchon, V.
    Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

    1964

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. John Le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
    2. Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Candy
    3. Saul Bellow, Herzog
    4. Leon Uris, Armageddon
    5. Irving Wallace, The Man
    6. Louis Auchincloss, The Rector of Justin
    7. Richard E. Kim, The Martyred
    8. Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice
    9. Mary Stewart, This Rough Magic
    10. Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, Convention

    Also published that year:

    Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
    Ken Kesey, Sometimes a Great Notion
    Hubert Selby Jr., Last Exit to Brooklyn

    1965

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. James A. Michener, The Source
    2. Bel Kaufman, Up the Down Staircase
    3. Saul Bellow, Herzog
    4. John Le Carré, The Looking Glass War
    5. Robin Moore, The Green Berets
    6. Irving Stone, Those Who Love
    7. Ian Fleming, The Man with the Golden Gun
    8. Arthur Hailey, Hotel
    9. Morris West, The Ambassador
    10. Herman Wouk, Don’t Stop the Carnival

    Also published that year:

    Frank Herbert, Dune
    Jerzy Kosinski, The Painted Bird
    John Williams, Stoner

    1966

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls
    2. Harold Robbins, The Adventurers
    3. Robert Crichton, The Secret of Santa Vittoria
    4. Allen Drury, Capable of Honor
    5. Helen MacInnes, The Double Image
    6. Bernard Malamud, The Fixer
    7. Adela Rogers St. Johns, Tell No Man
    8. James Clavell, Tai-Pan
    9. Louis Auchincloss, The Embezzler
    10. Edwin O’Connor, All in the Family

    Also published that year:

    Julio Cortazar, Hopscotch (English translation)
    John Fowles, The Magus
    Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
    Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
    Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

    1967

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Elia Kazan, The Arrangement
    2. William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner and Chaim Potok, The Chosen (tie)
    4. Leon Uris, Topaz
    5. Catherine Marshall, Christy
    6. Thornton Wilder, The Eighth Day
    7. Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby
    8. Irving Wallace, The Plot
    9. Mary Stewart, The Gabriel Hounds
    10. Henry Sutton, The Exhibitionist

    Also published that year:

    Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita (English translation)
    S. E. Hinton, The Outsiders
    Anna Kavan, Ice
    Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock
    Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman
    James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime

    1968

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Arthur Hailey, Airport
    2. John Updike, Couples
    3. Helen MacInnes, The Salzburg Connection
    4. John Le Carré, A Small Town in Germany
    5. Taylor Caldwell, Testimony of Two Men
    6. Allen Drury, Preserve and Protect
    7. Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge
    8. Fletcher Knebel, Vanished
    9. Catherine Marshall, Christy
    10. Morris L. West, The Tower of Babel

    Also published that year:

    Richard Brautigan, In Watermelon Sugar
    Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey
    Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

    1969

    The best-selling fiction of the year:

    1. Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
    2. Mario Puzo, The Godfather
    3. Jacqueline Susann, The Love Machine
    4. Harold Robbins, The Inheritors
    5. Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain
    6. Irving Wallace, The Seven Minutes
    7. Penelope Ashe, Naked Came the Stranger
    8. Chaim Potok, The Promise
    9. Gwen Davis, The Pretenders
    10. Daphne du Maurier, The House on the Strand

    Also published that year:

    Philip K. Dick, Ubik
    John Fowles, The French Lieutenant’s Woman
    Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
    Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
    << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Full Page >>


    Emily Temple
    Emily Temple
    Emily Temple is the managing editor at Lit Hub. Her first novel, The Lightness, was published by William Morrow/HarperCollins in June 2020. You can buy it here.
    https://www.emilytemple.net/





    Read More

    What It Was Like to Work With Julian Assange on Publishing Wikileaks

     In January 2010, Hillary Clinton, then US Secretary of State, made a rather good speech at the Newseum in Washington D.C....

    Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member: Because Books Matter

    For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience, exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag. Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

    Become a member for as low as $5/month

    Dismiss without supporting Lit Hub
    x