TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of December 16, 1945

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
THE BLACK ROSE
Thomas B. Costain

THE BLACK ROSE

by Thomas B. Costain · Doubleday

17 wks at #1 · 14 on list

Walter of Gurnie, bastard son of an English peer, is forced to flee from Oxford for his part in the university riots of 1273. Inspired by Friar Bacon, he determines to travel to China. With his friend Tristam, he fights his way to the heart of the fabulous Mongol Empire, and returns famous, to find that he must choose between the first love he thought lost and the exotic flower that he found in the East.

2
CASS TIMBERLANE
Sinclair Lewis
Cover of CASS TIMBERLANE

CASS TIMBERLANE

by Sinclair Lewis · Random House

9 wks on list

Marriage of a judge and his unstable young wife in a small Minnesota town.

5
THE GAUNTLET
James H. Street
Cover of THE GAUNTLET

THE GAUNTLET

by James H. Street · Doubleday, Doran

6 wks on list

London Wingo, an ordained minister and a fourth-year student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary is struggling to reconcile his desires for further education with his financial worries that accompany many young couples awaiting the birth of their first child. When he applies for a church in Linden, Missouri, and, accepted by the deacons there, he feels that he has found security for his family. He does not realize that in return for this security the people of Linden expect him to defer to their practices and ideas and will use church law as well as social pressure to ensure conformity. The struggles of London and his wife Kathie to keep both their church and their spiritual integrity, rise to a powerful climax when Kathie becomes seriously ill. London realizes he must choose between Linden and the people who contributed to their unhappiness and a rich metropolitan parish where he might escape to a contented and more profitable life. James Street went to a Baptist seminary and had his own church for a few years before devoting himself to writing full-time. It is from his experiences as a young pastor that he can speak so well about the challenges facing London and Kathie Wingo ― discord, feuds, rigid mores, lack of privacy, balancing selfless service and a personal life, as well as the maturity and deepening that evolves as one hurls through life's obstacles

9
THE MANATEE
Nancy Bruff
Cover of THE MANATEE
13
NEW
MOST SECRET
Nevil Shute
15
NEW
YOU AND I
Myron Brinig

YOU AND I

by Myron Brinig · Farrar & Rinehart

1 wks on list

An orphan boy who is separated from his sister finally finds her in a little adobe house in New Mexico.

Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.