Bestseller Lists , compiled from Publisher's Weekly lists. Valley of the Dolls topped the list the year I was born.
We had quite a good thunderstorm this morning around 4. I reset the bedside clock immediately. I forgot that a flicker to the power shuts down the window a/c unit entirely. I sat here in humid stillness thinking, That thing will click on any second, now. Be patient. Don't mess with it. (What's the emoticon for rolling eyes at one self?)
5 comments:
Is it a bad thing that, of all the bestsellers for my birth-year, I haven't read any, and I've only seen one movie-version? (and by that one rather unimpressed...)
P.
Remember, they are bestsellers, not titles with Lasting Impact, etc. How many current bestseller have you read? See list here.
On my own blogplanet, this evening, I addressed the idea of things gone with the fashion wind--in my case, toys. Popular books fall into a similar category. "Valley of the Dolls," which seemed very Real and Addressed Serious Issues in '65, is now a classic of goof rather than literature.
In the mid '20s, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Michael Arlen addressed Flaming Youth with their efforts "The Great Gatsby" and "The Green Hat." One has become one of the great icons of AmLit, the other is a dated piece of silliness. A few years later, Stark Young and Margaret Mitchell both wrote romantic epics of the War between the States: how many people in recent memory have ever read "So Red the Rose?"
Props to Earl Gregg Swem and his excellent W&M library, for giving me the opportunity to actually read both "So Red the Rose" and "The Green Hat."
--Dan "Can do seventy-six if you like" Gibbs
I've been in Stark Young's home in Oxford, Mississippi -- does that count?
Interesting article in today's Washington Pots about Flannery O'Connor. Young was mentioned, as well...
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