I’m a sucker for books like Must Read: Rediscovering American Best Sellers. If you glance at the Table of Contents below, you’ll see the essays that explore the best sellers of the past. My favorite essay was on The Godfather which I’ve always thought was undeservingly dismissed as “trash.” The essays with the most surprises (for me, at least) was the publishing history of Peyton Place. If you’re interested in the history of publishing, Must Read will delight you. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Must Read: Rediscovering American Bestsellers
Sarah Churchwell and Thomas Ruys Smith
2. Missing Numbers: The Partial History of the Bestseller
Sarah Garland
3. The History of Charlotte Temple (1791) as an American Bestseller
Gideon Mailer
4. ‘Like Beads Strung Together’: E.D.E.N. Southworth and the Aesthetics of Popular Serial Fiction
Rachel Ihara
5. Ten Nights in a Bar-Room (1854) and the Visual Culture of Temperance
William Gleason
6. ‘The Man Without a Country’ (1863): Treason, Expansionism, and the History of a ‘Bestselling’ Short Story
Hsuan Hsu
7. Exhilaration and Enlightenment in the Biblical Bestseller: Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur, A Tale of the Christ (1880)
James Russell
8. ‘Absolutely Punk’: Queer Economies of Desire in Tarzan of the Apes (1912)
J. Michelle Coghlan
9. Ornamentalism: Desire, Disavowal and Displacement in E.M. Hull’s The Sheik (1919)
Sarah Garland
10. Small Change? Emily Post’s Etiquette (1922-2011)
Grace Lees-Maffei
11. Blockbuster Feminism: Peyton Place (1956) and the Uses of Scandal
Ardis Cameron
12. Crimes and Bestsellers: Mario Puzo Path to The Godfather (1969)
Evan Brier
12. Master of Sentiment: The Romances of Nicholas Sparks
Sarah Churchwell
13.The Kite Runner Transnational Allegory: Anatomy of an Afghan-American Bestseller
Georgiana Banita
14. The Fiction of History: The Da Vinci Code (2003) and the Virtual Public Sphere
Stephen Mexal
George, thanks very much for bringing this book to my notice. A surprise essay for me would be “The Kite Runner Transnational Allegory” which I think is contemporary given the title of the book, though I’m sure there’s more to it than Khaled Hosseini’s 21st century bestseller.
Prashant, you’ll find the essay on THE KITE RUNNER very insightful.
Reminds me of one of my favorite diversions: reading the book and movie reviews in old old numbers of TIME or SATURDAY REVIEW. Faascinating to see what books seemed meaningful then and are forgotten now . . . .
Dan, a number of these essays on forgotten books make you want to drop everything and read them.
Judging by the titles of the essays, these appear to be contemporary writings about what are, in most cases, much older books. I think it might be more fun to read what original reviews had to say about the books in question.
Btw, Peyton Place is well worth reading–as is a biography of its author, Grace Metalious, who was very much a square peg in a round hole, lived a rather sad life (much exacerbated by drinking) and died at a very young age.
Deb, the essay on PEYTON PLACE and Grace Metalious was one of my favorite essays in this book. I barely remember reading the book (secretly) back in the Fifties. But I had no idea of what a tortured person Metalious became despite her success. It was an eye-opening essay!
THis sounds somewhat similar to James W. Hall’s HIT LIT: CRACKING THE CODE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY’S BESTSELLERS, which I (and I think you) read last year. Will look for it.
I know Hall also covered PEYTON PLACE and THE GODFATHER.
Jeff, MUST READ overlaps HIT LIT in a few cases. But both books bring new information about best sellers that I didn’t know. Both books are well worth reading!
I reserved it. Other than GONE WITH THE WIND and PEYTON PLACE the Hall book was mostly newer items. Besides, every author has his or her own interpretation. Another one I liked – for the British perspective – was Claud Cockburn’s BESTSELLER. (I bought the paperback in England in 1975.) To say Cockburn had an interesting personal life is an understatement:
Claud Cockburn married three times: all three of his wives were also journalists. 1: to Hope Hale Davis; with whom he fathered Claudia Cockburn Flanders (wife of Michael Flanders); 2: to Jean Ross (part model for Christopher Isherwood’s Sally Bowles of Cabaret fame); with whom he fathered Sarah Caudwell Cockburn, author of detective stories; 3: to Patricia Byron in 1940 (née Patricia Evangeline Anne Arbuthnot (17 March 1914 – 6 October 1989), daughter of Major John Bernard Arbuthnot and Olive Blake),[10] (author of The Years of the Week and Figure of Eight); with whom he fathered Alexander, Andrew (husband of Leslie Cockburn), and Patrick.
I’ll have to check out BESTSELLER, Jeff! Thanks for the heads-up!
George, where the hell are we supposed to send our FFBs? Patti is out of town.
Please email me with the e-address of BV Lawson if you have it.