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It was the 1950s. Gas was 29¢ a gallon, cigarettes 25¢ a pack, a hospital stay was $35 a day. The Franklin National Bank in New York issued the first credit card, and the Worlds first shopping mall in the U.S. - Seattles Northgate Mall was built. The First Grammy Awards happened, RCAs Color Television sets hit the market, and the films, On the Waterfront, All About Eve and An American in Paris were released.

Marilyn Monroe and her husbands Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller were pretty big. So were Peanuts, Mad Magazine, Jonas Salk, James Dean, Fidel Castro, Rosa Parks, Billy Graham, the Korean War, and Israel invading the Sinai Peninsula.

In the decade of blazers, bermuda shorts, saddle shoes, and sack dresses, writers like James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lillian Hellman, William Burroughs, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Maria Irene Fornes, Gary Snyder, J.D. Salinger, Carson McCullers, Flannery OConnor, and Dylan Thomas were all doing their thing.

People change and grow. Countries have lives and spirits that change and grow. Would you say America is still in its adolescence?

You can tell a lot about a person by the books they read. You can also tell a lot about a culture. In the 1950s, heres what America was reading.

1 9 5 0  s - B E S T S E L L E R S

F I C T I O N

1. From Here to Eternity, James Jones
2. Return to Paradise, James A. Michener
3. The Silver Chalice, Thomas B. Costain
4. East of Eden, John Steinbeck
5. Giant, Edna Ferber
6. The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
7. The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas
8. Désirée, Annemarie Selinko
9. Battle Cry, Leon M. Uris
10. Love Is Eternal, Irving Stone
11. The Egyptian, Mika Waltari
12. No Time for Sergeants, Mac Hyman
13. Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis
14. Andersonville, MacKinlay Kantor
15. Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan
16. Peyton Place, Grace Metalious
17. Eloise, Kay Thompson
18. The Tribe That Lost Its Head, Nicholas Monsarrat
19. The Mandarins, Simone de Beauvoir
20. Rally Round the Flag, Boys!, Max Shulman
21. Blue Camellia, Frances Parkinson Keyes
22. The Scapegoat, Daphne du Maurier
23. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
24. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
25. Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
26. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
27. Exodus, Leon Uris
28. Poor No More, Robert Ruark
29. The Ugly American, William J. Lederer and Eugene L. Burdick
30. Lady Chatterleys Lover, D. H. Lawrence

N O N F I C T I O N

1. Betty Crockers Picture Cook Book (also BCs Good & Easy Cook Book)
2. How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, Frank Bettger
3. Look Younger, Live Longer, Gayelord Hauser
4. Washington Confidential, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer
5. Better Homes and Gardens Handymans Book (also BHGs Diet, Barbecue, Decorating, & Flower Books)
6. The Sea Around Us, Rachel L. Carson
7. The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version
8. U.S.A. Confidential, Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer
9. Tallulah, Tallulah Bankhead
10. The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale
11. Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, Alfred C. Kinsey, et al.
12. Angel Unaware, Dale Evans Rogers
13. This I Believe, Edward P. Morgan, editor; Edward R. Murrow, foreword
14. How to Play Your Best Golf, Tommy Armour
15. The Saturday Evening Post Treasury, Roger Butterfield, editor
16. Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh
17. The Family of Man, Edward Steichen
18. How to Live 365 Days a Year, John A. Schindler
19. The Secret of Happiness, Billy Graham
20. Why Johnny Cant Read, Rudolf Flesch
21. Inside Africa, John Gunther
22. Year of Decisions, Harry S Truman
23. Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language, concise ed., David B. Guralnik
24. Etiquette, Frances Benton
25. Love or Perish, Smiley Blanton, M.D.
26. The Nuns Story, Kathryn Hulme
27. Kids Say the Darndest Things!, Art Linkletter
28. The FBI Story, Don Whitehead
29. Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing, Robert Paul Smith
30. Please Dont Eat the Daisies, Jean Kerr
31. The Day Christ Died, Jim Bishop
32. Twixt Twelve and Twenty, Pat Boone
33. Masters of Deceit, Edgar Hoover
34. The New Testament in Modern English, J. P. Phillips, trans.
35. Dear Abby, Abigail Van Buren
36. Inside Russia Today, John Gunter
37. Folk Medicine, D. C. Jarvis
38. Charley Weavers Letters from Mamma, Cliff Arquette
39. The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
40. Only in lakota indians Harry Golden

-the complete 1950s Bestsellers list by decade 

 -from The Literature and Culture of the American 1950s 

 Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007