Bestseller

November 1, 2018

McParland (English, Felician Coll.;{amp}nbsp;Beyond Gatsby: How Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Writers of the 1920s Shaped American Culture) discusses U.S. reading habits from the 1890s to the present through a review of titles on various best seller lists. Beginning with an overview of the 1890s{amp}ndash;1930s, each following chapter covers a single decade. McParland gathers his data through a composite study of best seller lists, both national (e.g., the New York Times, Publishers Weekly) and regional (e.g., the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post). Admirably, he discusses both literary works and those considered "lowbrow," formulaic productions, providing summaries of certain books and biographical details of writers. It's important to note that this is more of a fun discussion than a serious study of what the reading habits mean socially, politically, or culturally. Although McParland does mention current events of each time period, it's often not clear how the events correspond to the discussion of the titles themselves. VERDICT This volume will mostly appeal to general readers interested in a breezy history of reading and books in the United States.{amp}mdash;Stacy Russo, Santa Ana Coll. Lib., CA

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2018
McParland serves a sumptuous feast for booklovers in this unfailingly lively, perceptive, and informative look at 118 years of best-selling books in America. Beginning with the history of the best-seller lists we still scrutinize today, McParland combines publishing and literary history as he considers what makes a book a best-seller and what best-sellers say about reading tastes and society. For all the research involved, McParland keeps his narrative quick-footed as he sets the historical context for each year, names and describes the best-sellers and their appeal, and offers cameo portraits of the authors, moving fluidly from now classic literary works to forgotten pulp fiction, serious historical investigations to trendy diet books. Each year offers a robust and telling variety. Take the best-selling fiction of the Watergate year 1973, for example; it includes Gore Vidal's Burr, Jacqueline Susann's Once Is Not Enough, Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow, and Sidney Sheldon's The Other Side of Midnight. From The Virginian (1902) to today's explosion of political nonfiction, McParland's best-seller chronicle is a richly intriguing and illuminating resource.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)