TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of July 7, 1974

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
WATERSHIP DOWN
Richard Adams
Cover of WATERSHIP DOWN

WATERSHIP DOWN

by Richard Adams · Macmillan

13 wks at #1 · 13 on list

A phenomenal worldwide bestseller for over forty years, Richard Adams’ spellbinding classic Watership Down is one of the best-loved novels of all time. Set in the beautiful English countryside of the Berkshire Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage, and survival follows a band of very special rabbits fleeing the destruction of their home by a developer. Led by a stout-hearted pair of brothers, they leave the safety of Sandleford Warren in search of a safe haven and a mysterious promised land, skirting danger at every turn.

2
JAWS
Peter Benchley
Cover of JAWS

JAWS

by Peter Benchley · Doubleday

18 wks on list

"Relentless terror." The Philadelphia Inquirer.The classic, blockbuster thriller of man-eating terror that inspired the Steven Spielberg movie and made millions of beachgoers afraid to go into the water. Experience the thrill of helpless horror again -- or for the first time!From the Paperback edition.

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CASHELMARA
Susan Howatch
Cover of CASHELMARA

CASHELMARA

by Susan Howatch · Simon & Schuster

7 wks on list

There were two subjects which lonely widower Edward de Salis never discussed: his dead wife and his family home in Ireland, 'matchless Cashelmara'. So when he meets Marguerite, a bright young American with whom he can talk freely about both, he is able to love again and takes her back to Ireland as his wife. But Marguerite soon discovers that married life is not what she expected, and that she has married into a troubled family bitterly divided by love and hatred. Cashelmara becomes the curse of three generations as they play out their fates in a spellbinding drama, which moves inexorably towards murder and retribution.

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BURR
Gore Vidal
Cover of BURR

BURR

by Gore Vidal · Random House

34 wks on list
8
NEW
WINTER KILLS
Richard Condon
Cover of WINTER KILLS

WINTER KILLS

by Richard Condon · Dial Press

1 wks on list

A whistleblower looks too deeply into a president's assassination in this darkly satiric conspiracy thriller from the author of The Manchurian Candidate. It has been more than a decade since the assassination of US President Timothy Kegan, who was gunned down while riding in a motorcade through the streets of Philadelphia. The "lone gunman" responsible was arrested and convicted, and the country has moved on. President Kegan's half-brother Nick tries to move on as well—until he overhears the deathbed confession of a man who claims to have been a second shooter. Suddenly Nick's embroiled in a Kafkaesque conspiracy that stretches from Washington DC to Cuba and all the way into England's Court of St. James. He's surrounded by mobsters, oil magnates, crooked cops, religious leaders, CIA "spooks," Hollywood celebrities, and international power brokers—including the renowned Washington hostess, fixer, and femme fatale, Lola Camonte—all of whom seem intent upon doing him in. And the closer Nick comes to the startling truth about the assassination, the less he really wants to know. Winter Kills is an outrageously dark and funny take on the John F. Kennedy assassination and the conspiracy furor that followed it, from the master storyteller who brought you The Manchurian Candidate and Prizzi's Honor.

9
NEW
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
James Baldwin

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

by James Baldwin · Dial Press

1 wks on list

Go Tell It on the Mountain (fiction): James Baldwin's portrayal of black people in Harlem caught up in a dramatic struggle, and of a society confronting inevitable change. The Fire Next Time (non-fiction): The powerful evocation of a childhood in Harlem that helped to galvanize the early days of the civil rights movement examines the deep consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic. If Beale Street Could Talk (fiction): A love story about two badly frightended but intensely brave, black young people.

10
NEW
I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME
Margaret Craven
Cover of I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME

I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME

by Margaret Craven · Doubleday

A young minister who has two years to live learns about the meaning of life when he is sent to an Indian parish in British Columbia. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

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