Books of 1978

By Patrick Mondout

What a great year for non-fiction! Our top-ten list reveals a book on running by an author who would soon drop dead while doing the same, the long-awaited memoirs by a disgraced ex-president (sans an apology to the American people), a book on the "calamitous" 14th century, a book about alcoholic actress Joan Crawford by her allegedly abused adopted daughter, and a book by the Muppets! All this in the non-fiction section and I haven't even mentioned the pair of books on faeries and gnomes that round out this all-time top-ten list!

Here's a list of the top ten bestsellers for 1978:

1978 Fiction Bestsellers
1	Chesapeake	James A. Michener
2	War and Remembrance	Herman Wouk
3	Fools Die	Mario Puzo
4	Bloodlines	Sidney Sheldon
5	Scruples	Judith Krantz
6	Evergreen	Belva Plain
7	Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah	Richard Bach
8	The Holcroft Covenant	Robert Ludlum
9	Second Generation	Howard Fast
10	Eye of the Needle	Ken Follett
	Source: Publisher's Weekly

1978 Non-Fiction Bestsellers
1	If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries - What Am I Doing in the Pits?	Erma Bombeck
2	Gnomes	Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet
3	The Complete Book of Running	James Fixx
4	Mommie Dearest	Christina Crawford
5	Pulling Your Own Strings	Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
6	RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon	Richard Nixon
7	A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century	Barbara Tuchman
8	Faeries	Brian Froud and Alan Lee
9	In Search of History: A Personal Adventure	Theodore H. White
10	The Muppet Show Book	the Muppet People
	Source: Publisher's Weekly