Fun Friday–Bestsellers When You Were Born
I saw this on agent Steve Laube’s blog this week and thought it would make a fun diversion for Friday. Oh, and in case you didn’t see it on Twitter or Facebook . . . I’M HOME!!! But just for the weekend so I can participate in the Manchester/Coffee County Public Library‘s author-day event on Saturday. If you can make it to Manchester on Saturday between 10 and 2, I’d love to see you there!
So . . . what were the Best Sellers when you were born? Click the logo below, enter your birth date, and find out—then come back here and let us know! (Be sure to enter your date in the day-month-year order they ask for.)
The #1 fiction bestseller for the week I was born is one I’ve never heard of (title or author): Passions of the Mind by Irving Stone. The two on the list that I did recognize title/author were Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Agatha Christie’s Passenger to Frankfort.
The #1 nonfiction bestseller for the week I was born is one I’m very familiar with: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. I’ve never read it, but I have heard of it (unlike everything else on the list).
What are yours?
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KayeDacus.com 
Yikes! My birthdate number one fiction best-seller title is “Cujo” by Stephen King! Number two is “Noble House” by James Clavell. I haven’t read either of those two. In the nonfiction cateogory number one is “The Beverly Hills Diet” by Judy Mazel.
By the way. I ran across a picture of a young actress who reminds me a little of Olivia Hallinan who you have planned for a character in your next historical series. She doesn’t look exactly like her, but there’s something about her mouth and expression that makes me think of her. This girl is Amanda Fairbank-Hynes. Does Honora Woodriff have a sister? Actually, she has a slight resemblance to Kimberly Nixon too.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0265459/
http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/amanda-fairbank-hynes//gallery/?image=3260
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I hope you have fun this weekend at home. I’m sure it feels good!
The #1 book was The Source by James Michener. Non-fiction #1 was The Making of the President by Theodore H. White. Probably about JFK. (I was born in, ahem, 1965.)
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In the Michener book “The Source” he uses an interesting device. The book involves an archaelogical dig. He alternates between a story line in the present time revolving around the dig team and a reverse story line of the past as each layer is revealed going back in time. One of the few books I’ve kept since I read it – my favorite of all his books and I’ve read most of them.
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Wouldn’t you know it…the bestseller the week I was born…”The Godfather”! Yeah, yeah…leave the gun, take the cannolli…timely advice in any decade. And “go to the mattresses”. Both quotes I can live with, simply because they also appear in my favorite movie, You’ve Got Mail!
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That’s odd…it told me there were no bestsellers listed for the week I was born.
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To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Hawaii by James Michener:) What delights me and puts all this book biz in perspective is that I’ve never heard of 90% of those on the list!
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Fiction: Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy.
Nonfiction: Fatherhood by Bill Cos.
I’ve never heard of either (although I have heard of Tom Clancy) and doubt I’ll ever read them. Too bad they weren’t ones I had more interest in. It would be cool to say I’d read the bestsellers from the day I was born.
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Bill Cosby’s “Fatherhood” is a comical look at being a father. A fun read.
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Red Storm Rising is the only book Clancy’s written that doesn’t fit into the Ryan/Clark stuff. It’s my dad’s favorite of his.
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Cool site! Number 1 Fiction the week I was born was “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” by John le Carre. Number 10, however was “The Living Reed” by Pearl S. Buck. I’d heard of 1 and 10, but not the rest! What I found very interesting, though, was that at least 6 of the top 10 NONfiction titles were about JFK. Number one was “Four Days” published by the UPI and American Heritage Magazine. Yep. I was born Spring of 1964.
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Elisabeth, were we born in the same week? I got that message too. Still, it’s a fun site so I’m sharing it on my weekly roundup post tomorrow. I was surprised that none of my kids had a Harry Potter book on the bestselling list during the weeks in which they were born, especially the last two who are 8 and 5.
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My 40th was yesterday so these are January 13, 1971:
Fiction #1: Erich Segal’s “Love Story”
Hemingway’s “Islands In The Stream” was #2.
Non-Fiction #1: Charles Reich’s “The Greening of America”
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August 1984
Fiction:
1 ”. . . AND LADIES OF THE CLUB ” Helen Hooven Santmyer
2 LINCOLN Gore Vidal
3 FIRST AMONG EQUALS Jeffrey Archer
4 THE AQUITAINE PROGRESSION Robert Ludlum
5 FULL CIRCLE Danielle Steel
6 THE BUTTER BATTLE BOOK Dr. Seuss
Non-fiction:
1 THE KENNEDYS: An American Drama, Peter Collier and David Horowitz author info
2 IN GOD’S NAME David A. Yallop
3 WIRED Bob Woodward
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Fiction 1 How Green Was My Valley, Richard Llewellyn
Fiction 2 Kitty Foyle, Christopher Morley
Fiction 3 Mrs. Miniver, Jan Struther
Fiction 4 For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway
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Non-Fiction 1 I Married Adventure, Osa Johnson
Non-Fiction 2 How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler
Unlike fiction category I didn’t recognized authors or titles.
Love the titles of these 2.
Enjoyed reading all the comments!
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I checked out the bestsellers the week I was born (Dec 11, 1951). What a great way to understand the world I entered. The number 1 fiction bestseller was The Caine Mutiny by Herman Woulk and the non-fiction number 1 bestseller was by Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us. Over half the books included in the 16 titles for each categories were books and authors I know, such as The Catcher in the Rye, From Here to eternity, A Man Called Peter, Kon-Tiki, and authors Irving Stone, Graham Greene, Thomas Mann and Winston S. Churchill. It was a world trying to heal from World War II through words and stories. It was a world beginning to stretch beyond the ordinary and willing to stand against authority. It was a world that valued a good love story. It was world reaching to understand its resources. It was a world seeking its God. All in all a pretty interesting place in which to be born.
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Born in 1982, a lot of mine are–surprise surprise–science fiction! Including the novelization of ET. There’s only one name in the fiction top 10 I don’t recognize, Jean Auel.
Fiction:
1: Space, James Michener
2: 2010: Odyssey Two, Arthur C. Clarke
3: ET
4: Foundation’s Edge, Asimov
11: Life, The Universe, and Everything, Douglas Adams
Non-fiction:
Jane Fonda (ick!), Andrew Rooney, Shel Silverstein, William F. Buckley, Jr., Jimmy Carter.
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When it gave me an error with my birthdate I clicked on the calendar – there are lots and lots of years missing from the list – hence why many of us are getting errors when we try to look our birthdates up.
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Ok, this is SO weird, I just clicked back and _now_ it shows 1979….what on earth?
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