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The Bestselling Books of the Last One Hundred Years: 1960

We started at 1918, bringing you the bestselling books of the last one hundred years. We’re moving along now and today we start a brand new decade as we move into the swinging sixties!

We’re covering each year at a time and we’re more than forty years in now with 1960 covered today!

1960 saw the US enter the Vietnam war in the US, while J. F. Kennedy won the presidential election, Soviet missiles shot down the US U2 spy plane, and in lighter US news, Chubby Chequer started a new dance craze with The Twist. In technological advancements, aluminum cans were used for the first time, and Xerox  introduced the first photocopier. A year after Castro’s rise to power in Cuba, he nationalised American oil, sugar and other US interests in Cuba.

Among all that, there were plenty of books published and read too, and today we’re featuring the bestselling novels of 1960, and some that didn’t make the list but have stood the test of time.

Advise and Consent – Alan Drury

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Hawaii – James Michener

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The Leopard – Guisseppe di Lampedusa

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The Chapman Report – Irving Wallace

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Ourselves to Know – John O’Hara

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The Constant Image – Marcia Davenport

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The Lovely Ambition – Mary Allen Chase

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The Listener – Taylor Caldwell

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Trustee from the Toolroom – Nevil Shute

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Sermons and Soda-Water – John O’Hara

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1960 also saw the release of Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Updike’s Rabbit, Run.

We’ll continue this series right through to 2018, keep an eye out for 1961, coming soon!

If you’d like to see all the lists so far, try this search

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