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THE LAST HURRAH
Edwin O'Connor
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Historical Note
The I, Libertine Hoax
In 1956, radio personality Jean Shepherd orchestrated one of the most audacious cons in publishing history. He instructed his late-night listeners to walk into bookshops and libraries and ask for a nonexistent book: I, Libertine by the equally nonexistent "Frederick R. Ewing." Demand reports from booksellers were enough to land it on regional bestseller lists — and eventually get it noticed by the NYT. Publisher Ian Ballantine called Shepherd's bluff and commissioned the book for real, hiring science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon to write it in a weekend. It was published later that year, making the hoax self-fulfilling.
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THE MANDARINS
Simone de Beauvoir
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ANDERSONVILLE
MacKinlay Kantor
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A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
Nelson Algren
A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
by Nelson Algren · Farrar, Straus and Cudahy
7 wks on list
Characters include a lesbian madam at a New Orleans bordello. Book was made into a mainstream movie. -- dm.
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THE ROSEMARY TREE
Elizabeth Goudge
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THE NINTH WAVE
Eugene Burdick
THE NINTH WAVE
by Eugene Burdick · Houghton Mifflin
5 wks on list
The rise and near-success of Mike Freesmith, who tries to gain control of California politics by exploiting the fears and hatreds of voting groups.
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DON'T GO NEAR THE WATER
William Brinkley
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COMFORT ME WITH APPLES
Peter De Vries
COMFORT ME WITH APPLES
by Peter De Vries · Little, Brown and Company
10 wks on list
A laugh-out-loud novel about teenage pretensions and adult delusions from an author whom the New York Times has called "a Balzac of the station wagon set" Chick Swallow and his best friend, Nickie Sherman, are teenage boulevardiers of Decency, Connecticut, devotees of Oscar Wilde who spend their evenings crafting perverse aphorisms in an ice-cream parlor. "There is only one thing worse than not having children," opines Chick, "and that is having them." Unrepentant aesthetes, someday soon they will be in Paris or New York, far removed from the mainstream. Then the unthinkable happens. Marriage. Family. Dinner parties. For Chick, a job at the local newspaper writing an advice column punctuated by blandly inspirational Pepigrams: "To turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones— pick up your feet." For Nickie, an unlikely career in law enforcement. But just when it seems that their lives have settled down before they could even begin, Chick begins an affair with Mrs. Thicknesse, a newspaper music critic of ample girth and means, and a whole brouhaha breaks loose: blackmail, forgery, secret sleuthing, lawsuits. There is drama in suburbia after all, and Chick and Nickie are up to their necks in it. A wild, witty tale of friendship, marriage, and infidelity, Comfort Me with Apples is full of the brilliant wordplay and delicious ironies that made Peter de Vries "one of the best comic novelists that America has ever produced" ( Commentary).
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THE ANSWER
Philip Wylie
THE ANSWER
by Philip Wylie · Rinehart and Company
Fable of the atomic age on sanity in international affairs.
Historical bestseller data sourced from the New York Times Book Review, archived by Hawes Publications.