TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of November 17, 1946

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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2
5
EAST RIVER
Sholem Asch

EAST RIVER

by Sholem Asch · Putnam

2 wks on list
5
2
THE FALL OF VALOR
Charles Jackson
Cover of THE FALL OF VALOR

THE FALL OF VALOR

by Charles Jackson · Rinehart and Company

4 wks on list

The Fall of Valor is an unflinching portrayal of a marriage that has faded to a mere duty. John and Ethel Grandin take a summer vacation to Nantucket with the hope of recapturing the happiness they felt in the early days of their relationship. But instead the holiday blasts their marriage wider apart than ever when John falls hopelessly in love with a handsome marine captain.

6
2
MR. ADAM
Pat Frank
Cover of MR. ADAM

MR. ADAM

by Pat Frank · Lippincott

6 wks on list
10
1
THE DARK WOOD
Christine Weston
Cover of THE DARK WOOD

THE DARK WOOD

by Christine Weston · Charles Scribner.'s Sons

8 wks on list

Stella Harmon, whose husband was killed in WW2, refused to believe he was dead. Mark Bycroft returned from the war to discover that his beautiful heartless wife was through with him. When Stella met Mark his strong resemblance to her husband gave her a new lease of life.

12
1
MISTER ROBERTS
Thomas Heggen
Cover of MISTER ROBERTS

MISTER ROBERTS

by Thomas Heggen · Houghton Mifflin

10 wks on list

The novel, Mister Roberts, was an instant hit after being published in 1946 and was quickly adapted for the stage and screen. The title character, a Lieutenant Junior Grade naval officer, defends his crew against the petty tyranny of the ship's commanding officer during World War II. Nearly all action takes place on a backwater cargo ship, the USS Reluctant, that sails, as written in the play, "from apathy to tedium with occasional side trips to monotony and ennui." This irreverent, often hilarious story about the crew of the Reluctant has enjoyed wide and enduring popularity. It was subsequently adapted as a play, a feature film, a television series, and a television movie. The film version with Henry Fonda, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon is one of the most well-known movies of WWII.

13
NEW
THE RIVER
Rumer Godden
Cover of THE RIVER

THE RIVER

by Rumer Godden · Michael Joseph

1 wks on list

An account of two adolescent girls of an Anglo-Indian family in Bengal.

14
2
RHUBARB
H. Allen Smith
Cover of RHUBARB

RHUBARB

by H. Allen Smith · Doubleday

13 wks on list

A riotous, bawdy, and often slapstick story about a large yellow cat who, according to numerous complaints, had been assaulting dogs, stealing tennis balls, stalking mailmen, and attacking Macy's trucks. An eccentric millionaire who loathes all canines, is struck with admiration for any cat with the guts to go out and avenge his entire race and decides to adopt him. Thaddeus Whitcomb Banner (the dog-hating millionaire), charmed by the cat's pugnacious attitude, calls his new pet, Rhubarb, a baseball term for a violent and noisy altercation. Rhubarb takes a liking to Thad and his press secretary Eric Yaeger, but he is indifferent if not downright vicious to everyone else. When his owner dies only forty-eight hours after signing his last will and testament, Rhubarb is there, sitting in his master's lap. In his will, Thad praises Rhubarb for his unsparing love and solace and thereby leaves him his entire fortune, including ownership of a professional baseball team, the New York Loons. Eric Yaeger is appointed Rhubarb's guardian, and Thad's daughter Myra, a mean-spirited young hipster doofus, is summarily disinherited. Although initially reluctant to play baseball for a team owned by a cat, Loons players are tricked into believing that Rhubarb is a good luck charm and subsequently begin winning games. Meanwhile, Myra, not about to let a cat get away with her millions, begins a lawsuit to have the will invalidated, while her lawyer is part of a scheme to have Rhubarb murdered by a woman who has a mysterious connection to Myra. As for Eric, Rhubarb's frantic guardian -- well, Eric faces challenges only a fierce and concupiscent kitty cat can provide.

15
IN A DARK GARDEN
Frank Slaughter
Cover of IN A DARK GARDEN

IN A DARK GARDEN

by Frank Slaughter · Doubleday

2 wks on list

In 1862, having completed his medical studies in Europe, Julian Chisholm finds himself in Glasgow, penniless, but determined to return home and offer his skill as a surgeon to the cause of the Con­federacy. Through a cynical, happy-go-lucky gambler he meets lovely Jane Anderson, widow of a Confederate army officer, who needs a husband badly if she is to return to Georgia to fight for her estates. She offers Julian the price of his passage if he will marry her, and he accepts, hoping that marriage will drive away his constantly recurring thoughts of beautiful, shameless Lucy Sprague who had rejected him three years before for an untrustworthy but wealthy Yankee senator. Once in the Confederacy, Julian plunges into the hazardous work of an army field surgeon as he tries to forget both Lucy and Jane, in whom his interest has deepened. On the bloody battlefields of Vicksburg and Chickamauga he performs delicate under-fire operations, oblivious of his personal safety and concerned only with the lives of the wounded under his knife. There are detailed and accurate descriptions of Julian at work, from the scene at the primitive base hospital where he saves an adolescent boy with a dangerous head injury to the night in a sumptuous mansion where he makes medical history when he removes an appendix as a cure for typhlitis. As we follow Julian through rapidly shifting scenes of action, Jane and Lucy again cross his path and disturb his loyalties. How he resolves his personal conflict and makes his final choice between love and duty is the climax of this dramatic story of a doctor in the Civil War.

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