TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Fiction

Week of March 2, 1986

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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1
1
LAKE WOBEGON DAYS
Garrison Keillor
Cover of LAKE WOBEGON DAYS

LAKE WOBEGON DAYS

by Garrison Keillor · Viking Press

6 wks at #1 · 27 on list

“Lake Wobegon Days is about the way our beliefs, desires and fears tail off into abstractions--and get renewed from time to time. . . this book, unfolding Mr. Keillor's full design, is a genuine work of American history.” —The New York Times “A comic anatomy of what is small and ordinary and therefore potentially profound and universal in American life…Keillor’s strength as a writer is to make the ordinary extraordinary.” —Chicago Tribune “Keillor’s laughs come dear, not cheap, emerging from shared virtue and good character, from reassuring us of our neighborliness and strength….His true subject is how daily life is shot with grace. Keillor writes a prose that can be turned to laughter, to tears…to compassion or satire, to a hundred effects. He is a brilliant parodist.” —San Francisco Chronicle

3
THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
Jean M. Auel
Cover of THE MAMMOTH HUNTERS
5
TEXAS
James A. Michener
Cover of TEXAS
6
NEW
THE HANDMAID'S TALE
Margaret Atwood
Cover of THE HANDMAID'S TALE

THE HANDMAID'S TALE

by Margaret Atwood · Houghton Mifflin

1 wks on list

"This visionary novel. in which God and Government are joined, and America is run as a Puritanical Theoracy, can be read as a companion volume to Orwell's 1984-its verso, in fact. It gives you the same degree of chill, even as it suggests the varieties of tyrannical experience; it evokes the same kind of horror even as its mordant wit makes you smile." E.L.Doctorow.

7
1
ANGELS OF SEPTEMBER
Andrew M. Greeley
Cover of ANGELS OF SEPTEMBER

ANGELS OF SEPTEMBER

by Andrew M. Greeley · Bernard Geis/Warner

3 wks on list

Ann Reilly is a 50-ish art gallery owner, beautiful, competent and decent. After two disastrous marriages, she falls in love with Mike Casey, a top Chicago cop and former schoolmate. But Anne's lifelong Catholicism riddles her with guilt and she's loath to marry again. An exhibit of Breughel-like paintings by a dead mad priest begins to take on fiendish vividness and Anne's life and sanity are in peril. Casey's cousin, the urbane Cathedral rector, Father "Blackie" Ryan, joins with his psychiatrist sister to fight Anne's demons.

9
STONE 588
Gerald A. Browne
Cover of STONE 588

STONE 588

by Gerald A. Browne · Arbor House

4 wks on list

This "dazzling" New York Times bestseller about a flawed diamond with healing power that drives people to theft and murder is "an ingenious thriller" ( Daily News, New York). Phillip Springer has been grading diamonds since he was eight years old. His eyes are as sharp as any magnifying glass, and he has used them to turn the family diamond business into a global concern. Besides their love of diamonds, the Springers have another interest: the occult, ESP, and the mystical power of gems. Phillip has never fully believed in such superstition, but a sudden death in his family forces him to contemplate things he thought impossible. Among Phillip's inheritance is Stone 588, a flawed diamond that the family was never able to sell but that his sister claims has the power to heal—and the power to save Phillip's dying son. But before the boy can be cured, the stone is stolen. To save his child, Phillip must recover the rock, and he will kill to get it back.

10
3
THE LEBARON SECRET
Stephen Birmingham
Cover of THE LEBARON SECRET

THE LEBARON SECRET

by Stephen Birmingham · Little, Brown

4 wks on list

An aging California vintner is determined to protect her empire from a hostile family takeover and the dark secrets that could destroy everything she loves At age seventy-four, Assaria "Sari" LeBaron is still a force to be reckoned with. For decades, she has run the Baronet Vineyards, one of California's largest and most successful wine producers, maintaining sole control even after a suspicious accident left her permanently crippled. And now, in her golden years, the formidable Sari refuses to relinquish power to her own children, a decision that has only served to increase tensions among her already emotionally damaged family members. But Sari's ambitious son, Eric, is no longer willing to play a subservient role, and has begun working behind the scenes to take over the business, forming alliances within and outside the family in his effort to dethrone the unyielding matriarch. The most difficult fight of Sari LeBaron's long and eventful life has begun; a heartbreaking struggle that will pit loved one against loved one and expose long-hidden secrets that could destroy both Sari's business and her family. The LeBaron Secret is another riveting excursion into a world of privilege that Stephen Birmingham knows intimately. It is a breathtaking tale of secrets and lies, shady double-dealings, family skeletons, and the inner turmoil of the fabulously wealthy as only the bestselling author of "Our Crowd" and The Auerbach Will could tell it.

11
2
THE SEVENTH SECRET
Irving Wallace
Cover of THE SEVENTH SECRET

THE SEVENTH SECRET

by Irving Wallace · Dutton

5 wks on list

Research notes (typewritten) and photocopies of excerpts from published works.

12
NEW
PRIVATE AFFAIRS
Judith Michael
Cover of PRIVATE AFFAIRS

PRIVATE AFFAIRS

by Judith Michael · Poseidon Press

1 wks on list

Judith Michael has millions of loyal fans. Her first two novels, Deceptions and Possessions, were coast-to-coast hardcover and paperback bestsellers. Now with Private Affairs, she is sure to have her most successful paperback yet!

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