Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 336
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-5381-0999-1 • Hardback • December 2018 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
978-1-5381-1000-3 • eBook • December 2018 • $42.50 • (£35.00)
Robert McParland is professor of English and chair of the Department of English at Felician College. He is the author of several books on American literature including Beyond Gatsby: How Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Writers of the 1920s Shaped American Culture (2015), Citizen Steinbeck: Giving Voice to the People (2016), and From Native Son to King’s Men: The Literary Landscape of 1940s America (2017), all published by Rowman & Littlefield.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Reaching the Top of the Shelf: Discovering a Century of Bestsellers
Chapter One: Birth of the Bestseller: 1890s thru the 1930s
Chapter Two: 1940s: All the Books Fit to Sell
Chapter Three: 1950s: Cold War Anxiety: From Holden Caulfield to James Bond
Chapter Four: 1960s: New Frontiers: From Harper Lee to Kurt Vonnegut
Chapter Five: 1970s: The Age of Narcissism
Chapter Six: 1980s: The Rise of the Superstar Author
Chapter Seven: 1990s: Means of Ascent: Publisher Consolidation, Superstores, and the Internet
Chapter Eight: 2000s: E-Books and the New Millennium
Chapter Nine: 2010s: James Patterson, Inc. and The Soul of America
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
McParland serves a sumptuous feast for booklovers in this unfailingly lively, perceptive, and informative look at 118 years of best-selling books in America.
— Booklist
McParland discusses U.S. reading habits from the 1890s to the present through a review of titles on various best seller lists . . . Admirably, he discusses both literary works and those considered “lowbrow,” formulaic productions, providing summaries of certain books and biographical details of writers.
— Library Journal
In the introduction, the author examines the history of popular fiction in the US; this continues in the first chapter, in which he tracks the growing popularity of the best seller concept in the early 20th century. Each of the subsequent chapters covers a decade of best sellers year by year, from the 1940s through the 2010s, contextualizing the works in the US zeitgeist of the time.
— Choice Reviews
Bestseller: A Century of America's Favorite Books is a top recommendation for readers who want an in-depth probe of the history, psychology, and social impact of book-reading in this country.
— Donovan’s Literary Services