Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller, 1900-1999

by Michael Korda

Using the annual hardcover best seller lists from "The Bookman" and then "Publishers Weekly," examines twentieth-century American social, cultural, and historical trends through the lens of popular literature.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Reference

228 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2001

About the author

is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-Chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.

Reviews

[Cathy DuPont · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Korda points out that he could be on a list of published authors who were also editors. Korda's second book Power! went to #1 on the best seller list and another Queenie went to #2 hard cover and #1 paperback. However, there's no such list but a great way to let the reader know that Korda knows his books.

Korda was at Simon and Schuster for forty-three years and wrote 13 books. He began as an editor who reads the unsolicited books and retired as editor-in-chief of the well known publishing company.

In my search of Korda on the Web I didn't find an obit so I assume he's still alive.

The book Making the List was published in 2001. Korda does mention Ebooks and Amazon. But he doesn't spend time predicting how ebooks and/or Amazon will change the world of publishing. (Who can predict the future so I'm not criticizing at all.)

At the time, 2001, Amazon was just finding its groove and although independent book stores were still around, it was apparent at the time that Barnes and Noble and Borders were shutting the indies down across America. Remember the movie You've Got Mail?

The introduction was chocked full of interesting little pieces of information we 'know' but never know how we know. For instance Bennett Cerf the co-founder of Random House, was asked to create the title of a sure thing best seller. Lincoln's Doctor's Dog was the name he gave to the questioner. The reading public in America are drawn to the following subjects in no particular order: dogs (animals), the Civil War, and doctors (staying healthy through dieting and exercise.) According to Korda these three subjects mean money to publishing houses and the formula is and has been a given in publishing circles, well, forever.

Broken into decades, Korda writes a synopsis of each decade which reads much like a cultural/sociological highlight of the 10 decades from 1900 to 1999. (I just happen to love those subjects, especially sociology.)

Introducing the decade of the 1970's, Korda remarked on the best sellers of 1970, "Better sex, more sex, plus tabletop cooking, says something about the priorities of Americans in the first year of Richard Nixon's presidency, or at any rate the ones who were buying books." Apparently we didn't want to hear anything about Vietnam which we read about in the newspaper each morning. (Newspapers were still being delivered by newspaper delivery boys on bikes.)

The books on the best seller list that year that Korda was talking about was Love Story with, he says, the "sappiest line" ever in a romance best seller; Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Afraid to Ask, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Body Language, The Sensuous Woman, and Better Homes and Gardens Fondue and Tabletop Cooking. Ok, ok, the sappiest line is "Love means you never have to say you're sorry." I agree with Mr. Korda. I don't and won't read romance.

Most of the early years I don't recognize any titles or authors. However, from time to time a title will shine through the myriad of published books that American readers devoured enough for the book to make the best seller list. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier making the best seller list in 1939 is an example as is Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

This book is only for those nerds who happen to enjoy lists and particularly book lists. Especially people who read, those kind of nerds...like me.

I loved the easy to read book especially Korda's take on the culture for any particular decade. He's not hesitant to say why we might find trashy books on the best seller's list. Books that I wouldn't brag about reading to someone I just met. You're a friend so I'll say Harold Robbins for one.

As previously mentioned, this was before Amazon and, of course, Kindle so I got a kick out of his describing the books he took on vacation one year. He mentioned a number of publishing related non-fiction books and for pleasure and enjoyment, five or six of the Dave Robicheaux series by James Lee Burke. My opinion of Korda shot up 20 points when I read that. Boy, oh boy, Korda and I, we know good fiction. And I think I know good non-fiction and this book was one.

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author thinks a little highly of himself. He frequently name drops some of the authors he publishes and mentions his own success on the bestseller list. I didn't feel that he really told us anything we didn't already know about why certain books end up being successful. I probably wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

[Jackie Clary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. While I've read a lot on the history of favorite industries like music and TV, I'd never read one on books and publishing. Michael Korda pops upon my screen at work from time to time .. I'm glad I finally took the time too look him up and read one if his books.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

By someone who's been there and done that

Michael Korda's easy and agreeable style is the heart and soul of this very pretty and interesting recollection of one hundred years of book biz top dogs. Korda, who is intimately connected with the list, having been there both as a writer (nonfiction: Power! How to Get It, How to Use It (1975) and a novel from 1985: Queenie) and as an editor with Simon & Schuster (Jacqueline Susann The Love Machine, and others, including books by Irving Wallace, Richard M. Nixon and Carlos Castaneda), presents the lists from Publisher's Weekly by decade. He introduces each decade with a modest essay, focusing on some of the books and authors, and--most characteristically--noting trends and how the business has changed from decade to decade. The prose flows as smooth as graphite (I read the book in a single setting) partly because Korda is a very good writer and partly because the type is double-spaced throughout (which I think might represent a trend he does not mention, namely that of publishing attractive hard cover books with fewer words per page).

Originally just the top ten fiction titles appeared on PW's list. It is only in recent decades that both the top 15 fiction and the top 15 nonfiction titles appear. Nonetheless, perusing these lists really does, as Korda asserts, provide a kind of insight into the American psyche and how it has changed over the last hundred years--or, more saliently, how it hasn't. Korda identifies cyclical trends, with, for example, the popularity of the women's novel, ebbing and flowing, as has the historical romance. And in nonfiction Korda identifies the nearly constant popularity of self-help books, especially diet books and cook books. He chronicles the liberalization of sexuality from a Victorian prudishness in the early part of the century to an easing in the forties signaled by the "bodice ripper" Forever Amber (1944) by Kathleen Winsor to Peyton Place (1956) by Grace Metalious to Nabokov's Lolita (1958) to D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover (1959) to Henry Miller and beyond.

Korda also traces the changes in the business practices, beginning in the Depression when publishers first allowed book stores to return unsold copies, a practice thought to be temporary that became institutionalized. Later came the book clubs and the chain stores and the mass marketing and the death of the small book shop, and finally the Internet (which Korda mentions briefly in the Epilogue). Along the way there was an evolution away from the care and cultivation of promising authors to blockbuster promotion and the care and feeding of bestselling authors who could put a new one up every year, until by the eighties most of the fiction bestsellers were by authors who had been there before. On the nonfiction list the trend was to books by celebrity authors, retired US presidents, show biz people, the Duchess of York, mavens of industry (e.g., Lee Iacocca and Bill Gates), generals (Yeager and Schwarzkopf) even the Pope and the Dali Lama.

But it would be a mistake, at least from my point of view, to put too much stock in the bestseller list as a mirror to the American psyche. As Korda points out on page 77, the list doesn't include tabulations of mass-market books, which in the beginning were not even sold in bookstores, but in liquor stores and drugstores. Perhaps these titles would have revealed our hopes, dreams and fears better than the titles on the hard cover lists. Also increasingly the list became a self-creation of the big publishers who put their money into promoting books that they believed warranted the outlay, an increasingly narrow list of popular, mass-market novels and sure-fire self help books and celebrity tell-alls. By the late sixties, it is my belief that the real psyche of America as reflected in its book-buying habits could only be discerned by looking further down the list. By the eighties the bestseller lists reflected the mentality of the big corporate publishing houses and their merchandising schemes while the entire universe of production from the academic presses, and the middle and the small houses is not represented at all.

I would like to note too that the best writing being done today is by writers who do not appear on the best seller list. One might say, wasn't it ever thus? but in truth there was a time before the blockbuster complex that works of literature regularly made the list. One only has to recall Thomas Wolfe, Sinclair Lewis, Aldous Huxley, and even Virginia Woolf from the thirties, and John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, William Saroyan, and John O'Hara from the forties to realize that something has changed. What we have now on the bestseller fiction list, at any rate, are almost exclusively entertainments for the mass mind and not an Edith Wharton (#4 in 1921 with The Age of Innocence) nor a Thornton Wilder (#1 in 1928 with The Bridge of San Luis Rey) in sight.

Regardless, for anyone interested in bestseller phenomena, Korda's book will make for an absorbing and informative read.

--Dennis Littrell, author of the mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”

[Kathy KS · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rounded up to 2.5* because I like the yearly lists included. But these can also be found elsewhere.

As a librarian, I have studied and presented programs on bestsellers, especially from 1895-1945. I've also read and/or purchased many of these books. Korda's book covers much of the same territory, updating beyond that time.

Unfortunately, like some other works on the topic I've read, it seems like many authors of this type of work tend to have a natural bias toward the view that reading must be "good" literature or important informational needs. Korda isn't blatant about it, and I think he sincerely is trying to share trends in our society, but I felt he was actually looking down on those that might read for fun or comfort, etc.

He had some interesting points about the cyclical nature of reading tastes (or, actually, buying tastes for the bestseller lists). But my main concern about his choices of examples is what he doesn't include. For each decade he talks about the trends and authors and then follows with the yearly top 10-15 with lists of both fiction and nonfiction. He tends to mention the same authors often and the same topics, sometimes adding in someone or something new. But when you compare the essay with the lists readers begin to notice that some authors are never mentioned or topics discussed, even in passing.

The first example that jumped out at me was that he did not even mention the fact that Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was on the list. Personally, I feel the fact that so many people actually purchased the book enough to make the top ten shows that it struck a chord during that difficult time and should show impact on our society. After that I started noticing that some of the authors of fiction that weren't mentioned in the essays were persons of color. Yes, he did mention a few of the biggest names usually recognized as authors of "literary" fiction, but some who write lighter, but popular fiction weren't mentioned.

So, I really don't feel this one adds much to our discussion of cultural trends and bestsellers. It's not bad, but it seems lightweight if you want actual insights into American reading/buying habits over the years. I will admit that I was reminded of some of the older titles that I would like to go back and read...

[Mizloo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Moderately interesting, since Korda was a publisher and author with a personal and professional interest in best-seller lists. I found the most interest in the first chapters about the emergence and evolution of such lists. The decade by decade analysis was less interesting than an evaluation by eras would have been. By the time I got to the 60's & 70's I was already familiar with the titles (since I had read most of them) and the decade by decade tediousness really sapped my interest. Since the 90's were the last period addressed in the book, the obsolescence of his rumination and questions about the emergence of e-books - well at this point I was just skimming.

But those first 5 or 6 chapters were quite insightful and added to my understanding of cultural change.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick impressions: I liked the book as for me it was an easy read. The chapters are not long, so you can pick the book up, read a chapter here or there, and you're done with the book before you know it. If you like reading about books and reading culture, with an American focus, this may be for you.

(Full review with reading notes available on my blog soon.)

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read to note how many bestsellers I’ve read.

[Caitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed this for Korda's voice and his insights, but it should have been a long article not a book. Interesting if you're in the book publishing business.

[Victoria Marie Lees · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Michael Korda’s Making the List, A Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900-1999 an interesting read. In addition to providing the reader with yearly lists of bestselling fiction, and eventually both fiction and nonfiction, Korda provides facts about the publishing industry.

I learned the difference between the “big novel” and the “Great American Novel.” “Big” novels require a “big subject, and a strong point of view about that subject,” according to Korda; whereas the “Great American Novel implied a big, long, multigenerational novel that at once illuminated and explained American life and was written by an American.” [p-82]

Books became returnable during the Depression. Discounted titles started in the 1960’s. Korda talks about how publishing became more of a gamble and how authors needed to help promote their books.

Korda’s right, though. While many of the early bestsellers are all but forgotten, Making the List, A Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900-1999 does say a lot about our culture and what was important to society throughout the 20th century.

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up after Kristine Kathryn Rusch mentioned it on her blog. A breezy read -- about 50% is bestseller lists, with the rest being commentary on trends in the list over a decade. As someone who listens to a lot of Librivox and other public domain audiobooks, I especially found the lists prior to 1923 interesting -- many authors of that period I only know because they're out of copyright and have no idea how popular they were. Finding out that E. Phillips Oppenheim and Mary Roberts Rinehart were the Clive Cussler and Mary Higgins Clark of their day is fascinating.

The one drawback of the book is that it limits itself to hardcover bestsellers, so all the paperback originals of the 1940s and '50s are left off, including Mickey Spillane who is one of the all time bestselling authors.

[Tong L. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was very lightweight. That I could read it in a single day says something. There were a few insightful comments about how the bestseller list reflected changes in society, but overall it was a snoozer. About half the book is taken up by the best seller list year by year, fiction and non fiction. This makes the reading go quickly. Just for kicks, I looked over the books on the bestseller list from 1980 to 1999. Of the 600 books (top 15 for each year, fiction and non-fiction), I had read 30, or 5%. The bestseller list is a list of what most people are reading, not what at least I think are good books. The non-fiction list in particular is full of books I had not read and will not read. It's filled with books about how to have a better orgasm, accept myself, and get thinner - none of which I need.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a wonderful reference both for reading ideas and history of the culture of reading in America. The changes from year to year and decade to decade in book buyers' tastes is fascinating and reflects trends in culture. For every familiar name on the list there are authors whose names have been forgotten, for reasons unknown whether due to the fickleness of readers or, perhaps, the realization that this author was not worth reading. There are also those authors who have one great success and then go quietly into the world of the remainder bin or stop writing altogether. For someone who loves both reading and lists it is a little bit of heaven. I keep it near my desk on a shelf with other books about books.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I’d not been assigned to read this for my "Master Class" workshop for professional fiction writers, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up – but it is an interesting read.

It was interesting to see the trends in books through the decades. Notably, of the roughly 1200 fiction best-sellers listed, only about 15 or 20 were science-fiction or fantasy books. Currently, as it has been for the last decade, the list is dominated by a handful of BIG names that populate the list year after year (some of whom are on the list two or three times a year). A tough club to get into, especially for a sci-fi writer!

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened on the way home from Mammoth. Now I have 2000 more books to add to my list of books to read! Believe it or not listening to lists of book names and their spot on the Publishers Weekly bestseller list was not as boring as it sounds. He also added some thoughts about history, trends, and publishing.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A probably completely unnecessary history of the bestseller list, but hey, if you're in the business, this is a briefly fascinating topic. And Korda is brief. The book takes a day to read/browse, but it has plenty of almost-fascinating tidbits. Almost.

[Rae · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look at bestsellers and how they are indicative of the popular culture of their time. Our reading tastes really haven't changed that much over the decades. Anyone who loves books and the booky culture would enjoy this.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in 2002 - pre-Goodreads

Review 12.01.17

Although it's been awhile since I've looked at this book, I remember that you can see the decline of literature in the American public by the best seller lists. Hey, I blame TV.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

So interesting! I especially liked looking at the nonfiction list over the decades. It would be great if a Canadian publisher made a book like this.

[Quinn]

very good. very informative. its even pretty humorous.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting only for the facts it gathers into one place.