Four More Years: A Look at Books Released During Leap Years
It’s Leap Year Day — which means we get a whole extra day to read! I started thinking about leap years a few months ago, and then I started wondering about books that were released in leap years. I realized that the last thirty leap years were also election years. What were people reading during the years we elected presidents? What books were bestsellers?
So, just for fun, I pulled together a list to take us back in book history and see what people were reading the last ten leap years. (Spoiler: It’s a whole lot of John Grisham.) You will not be surprised to see some names from forty years ago are still on bestseller lists today, and some names will be blasts from the past. A lot of these books won major awards. Some are indicative of toxic trends, like diet books and sexist advice books. And some reflect the divisive state of the country, just like the bestsellers of today. Overall, it’s a fun walk down memory lane.
Before we start, a few things about this list: I pulled this information from Google searches, mostly Wikipedia pages, and bestseller lists from Publishers Weekly and The New York Times. The bestsellers and books mentioned only account for books released in the United States. And for the most part, the list is comprised of books for adults. (The NYT combined adult and children sales in 2012, so a few are mentioned starting that year.) Please note that the bestselling book lists have historically been dominated by cis white men, which is reflected in this post. But the good news is that you can find out about more great books by women, LGBTQ authors, and authors of color pretty much anywhere else on this site!
1984
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: Iacocca: An Autobiography by Lee Iacocca with William Novak
More bestsellers:
The Butter Battle Book by Dr. Seuss
Full Circle by Danielle Steel
Lincoln by Gore Vidal
More notable releases:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike
The Lover by Marguerite Duras
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks
The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
1988
The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure by Robert E. Kowalski
More bestsellers:
The Sands of Time by Sidney Sheldon
Zoya by Danielle Steel
The Icarus Agenda by Robert Ludlum
Alaska by James A. Michener
Till We Meet Again by Judith Krantz
The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice
To Be the Best by Barbara Taylor Bradford
One by Richard Bach
Mitla Pass by Leon Uris
I included the other nine of the top 10 that year because it’s a great example of the authors that used to dominate the bestseller lists four decades ago. Also, after having a top 10 bestseller every year since 1979, this was the first year Stephen King didn’t have a book on the list.
More notable releases:
The Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson
The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (The sequel is out this year.)
1992
Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: The Way Things Ought To Be by Rush Limbaugh
More bestsellers:
The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan
More notable releases:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Jazz by Toni Morrison
Jesus’ Son: Stories by Denis Johnson
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
1996
The Runaway Jury by John Grisham – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: Make the Connection: Ten Steps to a Better Body – and a Better Life by Bob Greene and Oprah Winfrey
More bestsellers:
Desperation by Stephen King
The Regulators by Richard Bachman (a.k.a. Stephen King)
Primary Colors by Anonymous (later revealed to be Joe Klein)
More notable releases:
Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
The Green Mile by Stephen King
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
2000
The Brethren by John Grisham – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
More bestsellers:
Journey by Danielle Steel
The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks
Roses Are Red by James Patterson
More notable releases:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
2004
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: America: The Book by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show writers
More bestsellers:
The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
The Last Juror by John Grisham
The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
Dan Brown actually had three books on the bestseller lists this year: The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, and an illustrated edition of The Da Vinci Code.
More notable releases:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
2008
The Appeal by John Grisham – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
More bestsellers:
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
I learned that The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski was the second-highest bestselling book of 2008, which makes it even more puzzling that no one is talking about the sequel, Familiaris, coming this year.
More notable releases:
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
A Mercy by Toni Morrison
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
I Was Told There’d Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale
2012
Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: Killing Kennedy by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard
More bestsellers:
This was an unusual year, with only five different authors on the list. E L James had four spots, with each of the Fifty Shades books, plus the boxed set. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins nabbed three spots, and the rest were Rick Riordan, a Wimpy Kid book, and in the last spot was Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
More notable releases:
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
Dear Life: Stories by Alice Munro
Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese
The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
How Music Works by David Byrne
Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
Glaciers by Alexis Smith
Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
2016
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
More bestsellers:
Two different editions of The Girl on the Train made the top ten, as did two different editions of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. (Both had movie tie-ins release that year.) Surprisingly, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee made the bestseller list again in 2016, possibly because the sequel Go Set a Watchman was the bestselling novel of 2015.
More notable releases:
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
2020
Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer – Fiction bestseller
Nonfiction bestseller: Untamed by Glennon Doyle
More bestsellers:
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
Seven of the top ten places on the list in 2020 were held by children’s books, including Suzanne Collins, who, like Meyer, returned to a beloved series after a long break with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
More notable releases:
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich
The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
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You can also find a full list of new releases in the magical New Release Index, carefully curated by your favorite Book Riot editors, organized by genre and release date.
