Fiction 1978

The World According to Garp by John Irving - Critically acclaimed blockbuster is the coming of age story of bastard son Garp and his crazy feminist mother. John Irving's 4th and finest novel with memorable first and last paragraphs. World According Garp Reviews at Powells

The Stand by Stephen King - Another best seller from the man who never heard of writers block. This time Stephen takes on the end of the world traveling cross country to gather the good people around Denver Colorado and go West to confront the rise of evil in the personage of Randall Flagg. Generated a mini series and a rewrite of the book in 1990. The Stand review

Chesapeake by James A. Michener - This historical novel covers the Chesapeake Bay area of the United States. Family histories from the Indians of 1538 to the Watergate scandal and on to 1978. Chesapeake read it!

The Judas Goat by Robert B. Parker

The Flounder by Günter Grass

Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher Koch

John L. Parker - Once a Runner
Kingsley Amis - Jake's Thing
Martin Amis - Success
Richard Bach - Illusions
Beryl Bainbridge - Young Adolf
Anthony Burgess - 1985
Taylor Caldwell - Bright Flows The River
Chantal Chawaf - Rougeâtre
John Cheever - The Stories of John Cheever
Brian Cleeve - Judith
Mary Elizabeth Counselman - Half in Shadow
Don DeLillo - Running Dogs
Phyllis Eisenstein - Born to Exile
Howard Fast - Second Generation
Ken Follett - Eye of the Needle
Ernest J. Gaines - In My Father's House
Marshall Jevons - Murder at the Margin
Judith Krantz - Scruples
Madeleine L'Engle - A Swiftly Tilting Planet
Robert Ludlum - The Holcroft Covenant
John D. MacDonald - The Empty Copper Sea
Ian MacClennan - Billy Bobby
David Malouf - An Imaginary Life
Alice Munro - Beggar Maid
Tim O'Brien - Going After Cacciato
Elizabeth Peters - Street of the Five Moons
Belva Plain - Evergreen
Mario Puzo - Fools Die
Ruth Rendell - A Sleeping Life
Hubert Selby Jr. - Requiem for a Dream
Whitley Strieber - The Wolfen
Thomas Sullivan - Diapason
Rosemary Sutcliff - Song for a Dark Queen
John Updike - Coup
Philip Van Rensselaer - That Vanderbilt Woman
Herman Wouk - War and Remembrance
Richard Yates -A Good School
Frank Yerby - Hail the Conquering Hero

1978 Tony Awards (theater)

Frank Langella as Dracula

Best Broadway Play: Da by Hugh Leonard
Most Innovative Production Revival: Dracula
Outstanding Performance Actor Broadway Play: Barnard Hughes, Da
Outstanding Performance Actress Broadway Play: Jessica Tandy, The Gin Game
Outstanding Performance Actor | Featured Role Broadway Play: Lester Rawlings, Da
Outstanding Performance Actress Featured Role Broadway Play: Ann Wedgeworth, Chapter Two
Outstanding Director Broadway Play: Melvin Bernhardt, Da

Comedy 1978

King Tut Steve Martin

Best Comedy Recording: A Wild and Crazy Guy, Steve Martin - The second big year for Steve Martin. This is the video from Saturday Night Live of his song King Tut on the Wild and Crazy Guy Album.

Literary News 1978

Garfield - Cartoonist Jim Davis brings Jon the human, his stupid slobbering dog Odie, and the spoiled, lazy, fat and always hungry cat Garfield to the comic pages. It becomes the most popular newspaper comic of all time and generates $1 billion a year in merchandising. Garfield comic strips from 1978

Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer

1978 Nobel Prize for Literature: Isaac Bashevis Singer

The Pulitzer Prize:

Fiction: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
Drama: The Gin Game by Donald L. Coburn
History: The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business by Alfred D. Chandler
Biography or Autobiography: Samuel Johnson by Walter Jackson Bate
Poetry: Collected Poems by Howard Nemerov

General Nonfiction: The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan

All 1978 Pulitzer Prizes

Non Fiction 1978

Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford - One of the first popular tell-all books told by actress Joan Crawford's adopted daughter Christina. The unflattering story of many affairs, alcoholism and child abuse was controversial, some denying it while others substantiated it, but no matter the truth it became a runaway best seller. All about Mommie Dearest the book

The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence by Carl Sagan - Combining the fields of anthropology, evolutionary biology, psychology, computer science, dreams and brain physiology Sagan demonstrates how and why we got smarter. The reference to Dragons in the title regards how early man's fear of predatory reptiles led to our cultural beliefs and myths concerning dragons in England and snakes in the Garden of Eden. Dragons of Eden book review

The Memoirs of Richard Nixon by Richard Nixon

The Garden of the Gods by Gerald Durrell

Mollie Katzen - Moosewood Cookbook

Roger Caron - Go-Boy! Life Behind Bars
Lord David Cecil - A Portrait of Jane Austen
Charlotte Chandler - Hello, I Must Be Going!
John Gall - Systemantics
H. R. Haldeman - The Ends of Power
David Rorvik - In His Image: The Cloning of a Man