TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 19, 1961

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
HAWAII
James A. Michener
Cover of HAWAII

HAWAII

by James A. Michener · Random House

49 wks at #1 · 70 on list
4
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
Harper Lee
Cover of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee · J.B. Lippincott Company

33 wks on list

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever, a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025.Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American ReadHarper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatredOne of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

12
NEW
MIDCENTURY
John Dos Passos
Cover of MIDCENTURY

MIDCENTURY

by John Dos Passos · Houghton, Mifflin

1 wks on list

Billede af vor tid sammenstillede af autentiske beretninger, biografier og noveller

13
1
THE LISTENER
Taylor Caldwell
Cover of THE LISTENER

THE LISTENER

by Taylor Caldwell · Doubleday

24 wks on list

Story of inspiration, about how the desperate, the troubled, and the unloved find help and inner peace through the legacy of a wise fellow townsman.

15
NEW
THE KEY
Jun'ichiro Tanizaki
Cover of THE KEY

THE KEY

by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki · Secker, Warburg

1 wks on list

Scintillating, elegant, darkly comic, The Key is the story of a dying marriage, told in the form of parallel diaries. After nearly thirty years of marriage, a dried-up, middle-aged professor frenziedly strives for new heights of carnal pleasure with his repressed, dissatisfied wife, resorting to stimulants galore for her: brandy, a handsome young lover. During the day, they record their adventures of the previous night. When they begin to suspect each other of peeping into their respective diaries, it becomes unclear whether each spouse's confessions might not be intended for the other's eyes. Translated from the Japanese by Howard Hibbett.

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