TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 1, 1959

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO
Boris Pasternak
Cover of DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

DOCTOR ZHIVAGO

by Boris Pasternak · Random House

26 wks at #1 · 23 on list
3
EXODUS
Leon Uris
Cover of EXODUS

EXODUS

by Leon Uris · Doubleday

21 wks on list
4
1
THE UGLY AMERICAN
William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick
Cover of THE UGLY AMERICAN

THE UGLY AMERICAN

by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick · W.W. Norton and Company

19 wks on list

The multi-million-copy bestseller that blends truth and fiction in a “devastating indictment of American policy” (New York Times Book Review). A piercing exposé of American incompetence and corruption in Southeast Asia, The Ugly American captivated the nation when it was first published in 1958. The book introduces readers to an unlikely hero in the titular “ugly American”—and to the ignorant politicians and arrogant ambassadors who ignore his empathetic and commonsense advice. In linked stories and vignettes set in the fictional nation of Sarkhan, William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick draw an incisive portrait of American foreign policy gone dangerously wrong—and how it might be fixed. Eerily relevant sixty years after its initial publication, The Ugly American reminds us that “today, as the battle for hearts and minds has shifted to the Middle East, we still can’t speak Sarkhanese” (New York Times).

15
NEW
BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S
Truman Capote
Cover of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S

by Truman Capote · Random House

9 wks on list

Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm. This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, “House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar,” and “A Christmas Memory,” which the Saturday Review called “one of the most moving stories in our language.” It is a tale of two innocents—a small boy and the old woman who is his best friend—whose sweetness contains a hard, sharp kernel of truth.

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