Reviews

Great American Bestsellers: The Books that Shaped America, Parts 1 & 2 by Peter Conn, Peter Conn

rbcp82's review

4.0

Thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook course. Interesting to see how historical forces and social norms dictate what becomes bestsellers. I liked the author's argument about how commercially successful books are not just beach reads but books with considerable intelligence.

- The Bay Psalm Book
- Common Sense by Thomas Paine
- The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
- Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
- James Baldwin severely criticizes this book for caricaturing black people
- Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger Jr
- rags to riches tale
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- Interesting revelation that the last 1/3 of the book is not worth reading.
- The Virginian by Owen Wister
- The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
- Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
- The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
- The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
- Native Son by Richard Wright
- The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
- John Adams by David McCullough

and John Grisham and Danielle Steel....