Here are the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years
(And What Everyone Read Instead)
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Jean M. Auel, The Plains of Passage
2. Stephen King, Four Past Midnight
3. Scott Turow, The Burden of Proof
4. Sidney Sheldon, Memories of Midnight
5. Danielle Steel, Message from Nam
6. Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Ultimatum
7. Stephen King, The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition
8. Jackie Collins, Lady Boss
9. Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
10. Rosamunde Pilcher, September
Also published that year:
A. S. Byatt, Possession
Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park
James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential
Charles Johnson, Middle Passage
Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia
Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty
Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Alexandra Ripley, Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind
2. Tom Clancy, The Sum of All Fears
3. Stephen King, Needful Things
4. Danielle Steel, No Greater Love
5. Danielle Steel, Heartbeat
6. Sidney Sheldon, The Doomsday Conspiracy
7. John Grisham, The Firm
8. Ken Follet, Night Over Water
9. Barbara Taylor Bradford, Remember
10. Mary Higgins Clark, Loves Music, Loves to Dance
Also published that year:
Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Martin Amis, Time’s Arrow
Douglas Coupland, Generation X
Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho
Diana Gabaldon, Outlander
David Gates, Jernigan
Ben Okri, The Famished Road
Norman Rush, Mating
Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
Art Spiegelman, Maus II
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne
2. John Grisham, The Pelican Brief
3. Stephen King, Gerald’s Game
4. Danielle Steel, Mixed Blessings
5. Danielle Steel, Jewels
6. Sidney Sheldon, The Stars Shine Down
7. Anne Rice, Tale of the Body Thief
8. James A. Michener, Mexico
9. Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale
10. Mary Higgins Clark, All Around the Town
Also published that year:
Jung Chang, Wild Swans
Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
Donna Tartt, The Secret History
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
2. John Grisham, The Client
3. Robert James Waller, Slow Waltz at Cedar Bend
4. Tom Clancy, Without Remorse
5. Stephen King, Nightmares and Dreamscapes
6. Danielle Steel, Vanished
7. Anne Rice, Lasher
8. Scott Turow, Pleading Guilty
9. Laura Esquivel, Like Water for Chocolate
10. Robert Ludlum, The Scorpio Illusion
Also published that year:
Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides
Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying
Lois Lowry, The Giver
Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Chamber
2. Tom Clancy, Debt of Honor
3. James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy
4. Danielle Steel, The Gift
5. Steven King, Insomnia
6. James Finn Garner, Politically Correct Bedtime Stories
7. Danielle Steel, Wings
8. Danielle Steel, Accident
9. Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County
10. Michael Crichton, Disclosure
Also published that year:
John Berendt, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Rick Moody, The Ice Storm
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Rainmaker
2. Michael Crichton, The Lost World
3. Danielle Steel, Five Days in Paris
4. Richard Paul Evans, The Christmas Box
5. Danielle Steel, Lightning
6. James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy
7. Stephen King, Rose Madder
8. Mary Higgins Clark, Silent Night
9. James Finn Garner, Politically Correct Holiday Stories
10. Nicholas Evans, The Horse Whisperer
Also published that year:
Richard Ford, Independence Day
Nick Hornby, High Fidelity
Javier Marías, A Heart So White (English translation)
Kenzaburo Oe, Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (English translation)
Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
Philip Roth, Sabbath’s Theater
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Runaway Jury
2. Tom Clancy, Executive Orders
3. Stephen King, Desperation
4. Michael Crichton, Airframe
5. Richard Bachman, The Regulators
6. Danielle Steel, Malice
7. Danielle Steel, Silent Honor
8. Anonymous, Primary Colors
9. Patricia Cornwell, Cause of Death
10. James Redfield, The Tenth Insight
Also published that year:
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Junot Díaz, Drown
Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’ Diary
Alex Garland, The Beach
George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Partner
2. Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
3. Danielle Steel, The Ghost
4. Danielle Steel, The Ranch
5. Danielle Steel, Special Delivery
6. Patricia Cornwell, Unnatural Exposure
7. Sidney Sheldon, The Best Laid Plans
8. Mary Higgins Clark, Pretend You Don’t See Her
9. James Patterson, Cat & Mouse
10. Patricia Cornwell, Hornet’s Nest
Also published that year:
Daniel Clowes, Ghost World
Don DeLillo, Underworld
Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm
Chris Kraus, I Love Dick
George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (English translation)
Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon
Philip Roth, American Pastoral
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
José Saramago, Blindness (English translation)
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Street Lawyer
2. Tom Clancy, Rainbow Six
3. Stephen King, Bag of Bones
4. Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full
5. Danielle Steel, Mirror Image
6. Danielle Steel, The Long Road Home
7. Danielle Steel, The Klone and I
8. Patricia Cornwell, Point of Origin
9. Toni Morrison, Paradise
10. Mary Higgins Clark, All Through the Night
Also published that year:
Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn (English translation)
The best-selling fiction of the year:
1. John Grisham, The Testament
2. Thomas Harris, Hannibal
3. Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, Assassins
4. Terry Brooks, Star Wars: Episode 1, The Phantom Menace
5. Michael Crichton, Timeline
6. Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
7. Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, Apollyon
8. Stephen King, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
9. Danielle Steel, Irresistible Forces
10. Maeve Binchy, Tara Road
Also published that year:
J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
Ha Jin, Waiting
Jhumpa Lahiri, The Interpreter of Maladies
Jonathan Lethem, Motherless Brooklyn
Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Colson Whitehead, The Intuitionist
