Books of 1975, 1925 and 1875

As usual, I’ve crunched the Goodreads / LibraryThing numbers on the books published 50, 100 and 150 years ago. It’s surprising what has stayed within the popular Zeitgeist and what has not. I’m looking at the top 20 books from 1975, the top 15 from 1925 and the top 10 from 1875.

I’m not doing the 25-year points, 2000, 1950 and 1900, in such great detail, partly because this post is already quite long enough, and also because 2000 is still too recent. Since you asked, however, the top book from 2000 on GR and LT is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J. K. Rowling; the top book from 1950 is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by C. S. Lewis; and the top book from 1900 is The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. There’s a blog post waiting to be written about that synchonicity. (For 1850, it’s The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.)

1975

LTGR
1’Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King610,77017,066
2Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt282,72016,040
3Shōgun, by James Clavell196,2708,355
4Ramona the Brave, by Beverly Cleary57,4668,217
5Crocodile on the Sandbank, by Elizabeth Peters76,3384,698
6Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow44,8186,405
7Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, by Michel Foucault34,3896,949
8The Grey King, by Susan Cooper39,5326,024
9Factotum, by Charles Bukowski72,3513,291
10Forever…, by Judy Blume64,2933,416
11Curtain (Poirot’s Last Case), by Agatha Christie46,5424,645
12Where Are the Children?, by Mary Higgins Clark58,2472,123
13A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni21,9195,594
14The Eagle Has Landed, by Jack Higgins57,7662,005
15The Autumn of the Patriarch, by Gabriel García Márquez24,8994,058
16High-Rise, by J.G. Ballard34,9892,623
17The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey27,4803,045
18The Periodic Table, by Primo Levi17,9454,151
19Iceberg, by Clive Cussler24,8302,651
20The Philosophy of Andy Warhol 47,1711,274

The best-selling book of 1975 in 1975 was Ragtime, by E.L. Doctorow. I am surprised by how few of these I have read. I don’t think I had even heard of Tuck Everlasting, which seems to be a very popular American kids’ fantasy novel. Apart from the two where I have linked reviews above, I have read only Curtain and The Eagle Has Landed of the books on the list.

The 1976 Hugo and 1975 Nebula for Best Novel both went to The Forever War, which however was published in 1974. The other Hugo finalists that I have read from that year are Doorways in the Sand, by Roger Zelazny, published in Analog in 1975, and The Computer Connection by Alfred Bester and The Stochastic Man by Robert Silverberg. The very long Nebula shortlist included all of those, and also Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany, Missing Man, by Katherine MacLean, The Female Man, by Joanna Russ, and a bunch of others which I either haven’t read or which weren’t published in 1975, including Doctorow’s Ragtime.

Other 1975 books that I have definitely read: The History Man, by Malcolm Bradbury; World of Wonders, the third novel in the Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies; The Compleat Enchanter, by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt (though this was an omnibus of previously published stories); Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl; Turtle Diary, by Russell Hoban; The Great Ghost Rescue, by Eva Ibbotson; The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, by Ursula K. Le Guin; Changing Places, by the late David Lodge; Terms of Endearment, by Larry McMurtry; Harry’s Game, by Gerald Seymour; The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson; The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux; and last but not least, Sign of the Unicorn, by Roger Zelazny.

I have a lot of affection for several of those, and I think my favourite is The Wind’s Twelve Quarters.

Note that although ’Salem’s Lot is only just at the top of the LibraryThing numbers, it’s way ahead on Goodreads, a distinction similarly enjoyed by The Philosophy of Andy Warhol and to an extent by The Eagle has Landed and Where are the Children?. On the other hand, children’s book A Color of His Own, along with The Periodic Table and Discipline and Punishment score relatively much higher on LibraryThing.

1925

LTGR
1The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald5,485,33074,942
2The Trial, by Franz Kafka353,22320,632
3Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf323,86421,560
4Heart of a Dog, by Mikhail Bulgakov64,1773,315
5Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler42,5134,324
6The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham48,3293,538
7An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser37,6614,093
8The Secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie30,0593,195
9Carry On, Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse25,9773,622
10The Everlasting Man, by G.K. Chesterton9,9933,075
1124 Hours in the Life of a Woman,by Stefan Zweig35,450863
12The Professor’s House, by Willa Cather9,5832,005
13Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis8,2272,168
14Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos6,7862,227
15The Counterfeiters, by André Gide9,8111,450

I’ve done a bit better here, and indeed Gatsby knocks all other contenders in this post out of the park. I think I have probably also read Carry on, Jeeves, and possibly also The Secret of Chimneys though it doesn’t feature either Poirot or Miss Marple.

Of the above, only Arrowsmith was also popular in 1925, according to the Publishers Weekly list. The best-selling book of 1925 in 1925 was Soundings, by A. Hamilton Gibbs, reviewed here, which has sunk without a trace (10 raters on Goodreads, 9 owners on LibraryThing).

The other 1925 books that I am sure I have read are The Flight of the Heron, by D.K. Broster and The Fugitive aka The Sweet Cheat Gone, by Marcel Proust. I may have also read Doctor Dolittle’s Zoo, by Hugh Lofting.

I’m with the consensus here: The Great Gatsby is my favourite of those I have read. (Turns out that Fitzgerald was a distant cousin of mine.) It is far in the lead on LibraryThing and stratospherically so on Goodreads. The only other book with anything like such a strong Goodreads lean is 24 Hours in the Life of a Woman. On the other hand, Manhattan Transfer, The Everlasting Man and Arrowsmith are relatively strong on LibraryThing.

I haven’t read The School at the Chalet, the first of the Chalet School series of books by Elinor Brent-Dyer; to my surprise, both it and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos, fail to make the cut.

1875

1Eight Cousins, by Louisa May Alcott38,5444,817
2The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope13,6462,959
3The Adolescent, by Fyodor Dostoevsky9,7551,793
4The Crime of Father Amaro, by Eça de Queirós7,159814
5Senhora, by Jose de Alencar6,211462
6The Law and the Lady, by Wilkie Collins3,251778
7Memoirs, by William Tecumseh Sherman2,1451,048
8The Sin of Father Mouret, by Emile Zola2,108514
9Science and Health: with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy7121,277
10The Wise Woman aka The Lost Princess, by George MacDonald1,480494

This required a fair bit of digging, possibly more than the exercise was really worth. I have read at least one book published in every year from 1876 to 2024 inclusive, but I don’t seem to have read anything at all published in 1875. Anna Karenina started publication in that year, but did not finish until three years later, and most people would count it for 1878. Eight Cousins is a less well known story in the Little Women universe, but still better known than any of the other 1875 books.

Senhora, the novel by Brazilian writer José de Alenca, is relatively stronger on Goodreads, which has pockets of enthusiasm in certain languages and literatures. Science and Health: with Key to the Scriptures is very unusual in having more owners on LibraryThing than raters on Goodreads.

1825

Going further back, 1825 is also pretty slim. Among a dim bunch, William Hazlitt’s Spirit of the Age seems to do best. I’ll just also note Charles Maturin’s last published story, Leixlip Castle, which is set a century earlier at a time when the castle was owned by my Whyte ancestors, though Maturin doesn’t seem to have known that.

I think I’ll give ’Salem’s Lot and Eight Cousins a go. I’m glad that the 770-page The Way We Live Now didn’t win my 1875 table. (Also I see that I also counted it last year, as publication began in 1874.)

2 thoughts on “Books of 1975, 1925 and 1875

  1. Given new TV show, would be interesting to see if Shogun’s numbers have changed.

    Suspect I have read that Elizabeth Peters, but not 100% sure.
    I suspect you won’t like “The Eagle Has Landed” and the “Periodic Table” is on my to-read list.

    I like The Secret of Chimneys despite occasional awful it-was-written-in the 1920s-ness.

    I presume the Crimes of Father Amaro is what the film is based upon.

    • I greatly enjoyed The Eagle Has Landed when I was a teenager. I doubt that it would hold up now.

      For some reason, the only Elizabeth Peters I have read is the fifth, The Deeds of the Disturber. I’m sure the others are all the same!

      Shōgun was always popular – I remember a TV series from the 1980s as well.

Comments are closed.