Bestselling Books of 10, 20, 30, 40, & 50 Years Ago

One of my favorite things to do at the start of a new year is look backward. That is not especially novel, of course, but perhaps some of the things I look back at is. I love knowing what books were in the cultural zeitgeist via the bestsellers list of decades gone by. It’s an interesting time capsule, as much as it is a useful way to think about how much has changed. I highlight the YA bestsellers of yore in an early edition of the “What’s Up in YA?” newsletter, but I don’t get the chance to talk about the interesting adult books from the past. But I can do just that right here. 

Let’s get into our time travel rockets and zoom back into this moment in bookish history 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 years ago. It likely will not surprise anyone who is reading this that our bestsellers from the past are less diverse in terms of everything than they are now–they’re heavily leaning into male authors and white authors. That doesn’t mean, of course, books by people of color and women did not exist. They did. They just did not get the budgets or the time dedicated to their promotion as these heavy hitters.