How to find a good book: the 15 Year Rule

Here are the best-selling novels of 1949 in the US according to Publisher’s Weekly:

1. “The Egyptian” by Mika Waltari
2. “The Big Fisherman” by Lloyd C. Douglas
3. “Mary” by Sholem Asch
4. “A Rage to Live” by John O’Hara
5. “Point of No Return” by John P. Marquand
6. “Dinner at Antoine’s” by Frances Parkinson Keyes
7. “High Towers” by Thomas B. Costain
8. “Cutlass Empire” by Van Wyck Mason
9. “Pride’s Castle” by Frank Yerby
10. “Father of the Bride” by Edward Streeter

In 2018, nearly 70 years later, only two of these books even merit a Wikipedia entry, the first and the last.

Here are the ten best books of 1949 according to 2018 (at least among those who have posted the 50 million or so user reviews at Goodreads):

1. “1984” by George Orwell
2. “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller
3. “The Second Sex” by Simone de Beauvoir
4. “The Lottery and Other Stories” by Shirley Jackson
5. “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell
6. “Crooked House” by Agatha Christie
7. “Earth Abides” by George R. Stewart
8. “The Sheltering Sky” by Paul Bowles
9. “A Sand County Almanac” by Aldo Leopold
10. “The Weight of Glory” by C.S. Lewis

Not one of the bestsellers are now considered to be among the 100 best books for 1949 (or 1948, when some of them were published). Not even Waltari’s, the top selling book of 1949.

Tastes change, of course. The people in the US of 2018 are not, on the whole, the same people of 1949. Only about 10% are. But there is more than just that going on. I notice the same sort of thing going on with me and I am the same person.

I was not alive in 1949, but I was alive in 1980, about halfway back. Better still, I kept a list of the books I read that year. Looking at the list now, about half the books are as forgettable as the bestsellers of 1949. And the most forgettable books I read back then were the very ones I bought new at the bookstore.

What was true in 1949 and 1980 is presumably still true in 2018: bookstores are a terrible place to get books. Libraries, as it turns out, are only somewhat better.

But I noticed something: If I list the books I read in 1980 by date of first publication, they generally get better the older they are. That was the year I first read “1984”, which was way better than, say, “Utopia 3” (1978) by George Alec Effinger, which I also read that year. The Gospel of Matthew, in turn, was better still.

The 15-year rule: Nearly all the books that were at least 15 years old at the time were good. The break-even point was at the eight-year mark: most books that came out after 1972 were trash.

Shelf space: The US did not experience a cultural meltdown in 1972. At least not according to most observers. But bookstores and libraries do have limited shelf space. They make way for new books by getting rid of books that are least in demand. Therefore it is their older books that have stood the test of time.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

• The US in 1949
• 1949 media diet
• books
  • Reading old books
  • Lost book covers
  • The life cycle of a library book
  • Orwell: 1984
• Thoreau’s library

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