TheBestseller
Observatory

Best Sellers

Hardcover Nonfiction

Week of April 5, 1953

FictionNonfiction
WeekMonth
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THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING
Norman Vincent Peale
Cover of THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

by Norman Vincent Peale · Prentice-Hall, Inc

22 wks on list

This is a reprint of Norman Vincent Peale's classic self-help tract, read by millions in the last half century who were inspired by Peale's belief that faith in yourself makes good things happen to you. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

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THE SIGN OF JONAS
Thomas Merton
Cover of THE SIGN OF JONAS

THE SIGN OF JONAS

by Thomas Merton · Harcourt, Brace and Company

6 wks on list

Collection of personal notes and meditations set down during about five years in the monastery of Gethsemani.

11
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THE FABULOUS FANNY
Norman Katkov

THE FABULOUS FANNY

by Norman Katkov · Alfred A. Knopf

4 wks on list

Biography of the Ziegfeld and Broadway show girl.

12
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THE SECOND SEX
Simone de Beauvoir

THE SECOND SEX

by Simone de Beauvoir · Jonathan Cape

4 wks on list

This is a masterpiece that belongs with the handful of the world's great books on sex and human personality. It deals with the development of the female body, with sexual life, with the growth of personality, with the social position of woman, and with love and marriage. Mme de Beauvoir challenges some of the interpretations of women and her destiny offered by others. She examines a number of typical myths of women. Then she depicts on a large canvas the life of contemporary woman in frank and fascinating detail, drawing on unimpeachable literary sources, diaries, and intimate journals. Finally she offers a noble and inspiring concept of woman, existent in her own right, independent, cultured, capable, and proud. -- From publisher's description.

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TALLULAH
Tallulah Bankhead
Cover of TALLULAH

TALLULAH

by Tallulah Bankhead · Harper and Borthers

25 wks on list

Her father and her uncle were U.S. congressmen. Her grandfather was a U.S. senator. Although born to privilege in Alabama and groomed in a convent school, Tallulah Bankhead resolved not to be just another southern belle. Quickly she rose to the top and became an acclaimed actress of London's West End and on the Broadway stage. Her performances in many plays of the 1920s brought her to the notice of Hollywood. She starred in such Paramount films as My Sin, Faithless, The Devil and the Deep, and Thunder Below. Even though she won a New York Film Critics Circle Award for her leading role in Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944), she never achieved the prominence in movies that she enjoyed in the theater and on radio. On the New York stage she originated the starring roles of Regina Giddens in Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes and of Sabina in Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Tallulah, like Eudora, Flannery, and Coretta, was a southern woman identifiable by her first name. Her flamboyant public personality may be the most fully realized and memorable character Bankhead ever played. She became famous for her snappy repartee, candid quotes, and scandalous lifestyle. She was disposed to remove her clothes and chat in the nude. Overfond of Kentucky bourbon and wild parties, she was a lady baritone who called everybody “Dahling.” In Tallulah, first published in 1952 and a New York Times bestseller for twenty-six weeks, Bankhead's literary voice is as lively and forthright as her public persona. She details her childhood and adolescence, discusses her dedication to the theater, and presents amusing anecdotes about her life in Hollywood, New York, and London. Along with a searing defense of her lifestyle and rambunctious habits, she provides a fiercely opinionated, wildly funny account of American stage at a time when the movies were beginning to cast theater into eclipse. This is not only a memoir of an independent woman but also an inside look at American entertainment during a golden age.

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