Books: GENERAL NONFICTION

Art books, some very expensive, sold extremely well, and some of them were of major importance (e.g., The Penguin History of Art Series). Supermarkets sold dictionaries and encyclopedias by the hundreds of thousands. Enough people were worried by Why Johnny Can’t Read to boost it way up on the bestseller lists; not enough were interested in challenging reading to do as much for Walter Lippmann’s The Public Philosophy, a disputatious essay on the need of natural law at democracy’s base.

Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, outsold every other book of the year by a good margin, and at the 400,000 mark there was still no sign of a letup. The multiplicity and fragmentation of modern daily life were too much for Author Lindbergh, and her well-written cry of “Enough, enough!” obviously found a vast chorus of agreement.

Apes, Angels and Victorians, by William Irvine, succeeded remarkably well in bringing to life the whole controversy that followed Darwin’s announcement of his theory of evolution. Better still, it produced a fine portrait of crotchety, brilliant Charles Darwin himself. One of the year’s most readable books in any category.

The Dignity of Man, by Russell Davenport, published after the author’s death, boldly faced the question of U.S. chances for survival in a materialistic world in which Communism may be able to beat the West at the game of materialism. Davenport made it clear that even guns and butter together can no longer win unless men find strength in God and individual dignity.

The Crime of Galileo, by Georgio de Santillana, was a fine piece of intellectual detective work that played out the 17th century contest between Scientist Galileo and the Inquisition.

The African Giant, by Stuart Cloete, was a profound and troubled attempt to search out the deeper sources of Africa’s troubles. Having briefly hopped Inside Africa, John Gunther came out with a bestselling, massive catch-all that was short on analysis but gave his usual breezy impression of having exhausted his subject.

Memoirs, by Harry S. Truman. In the first two volumes. Year of Decisions, the ex-President described how he was broken into office, provided a 100-page autobiography of a remarkably commonplace life, and told about some of the decisions he had to make during a critical year in U.S. and world history.