Here’s a fun little site that will show you the Fiction and Non-Fiction books on the New York Times Best Sellers list for the week of the year you were born or, if you were born before 1950, it will show the best sellers for that year.

Here’s the list for the week I was born. Of these I have only read “A Man Called Peter” (number 3 on the non-fiction list) and as I recall it’s because my mom had the book and it was lying around the house when I was 9 or 10.

NYT Best Sellers for Week Ending 03/07/1955

Category    Rank    Title    Author

Fiction 1 SOMETHING OF VALUE Robert Ruark  
Fiction 2 BONJOUR TRISTESSE Francoise Sagan  
Fiction 3 NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS Mac Hyman  
Fiction 4 SINCERELY WILLIS WAYDE, John Phillips Marquand  
Fiction 5 AUNTIE MAME Patrick Dennis  
Fiction 6 THE GOOD SHEPHERD C.S. Forester  
Fiction 7 THE DINNER PARTY Gretchen Finletter  
Fiction 8 RUN SILENT RUN DEEP, Edward L. Beach  
Fiction 9 THE BREAKING WAVE Nevil Shute  
Fiction 10 THE SCOTSWOMAN Inglis Clark Fletcher  
Fiction 11 THE VIEW FROM POMPEY’S HEAD Hamilton Basso  
Fiction 12 THE WINE OF YOUTH Robert Wilder  
Fiction 13 DUTCH Theodore Bonnet  
Fiction 14 NOT AS A STRANGER Morton Thompson  
Fiction 15 THE VIRGINIA EXILES Elizabeth Gray Vining  
Fiction 16 ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE Dylan Thomas  
Non-Fiction 1 GIFT FROM THE SEA Anne Morrow Lindbergh  
Non-Fiction 2 THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING Norman Vincent Peale  
Non-Fiction 3 A MAN CALLED PETER Catherine Marshall  
Non-Fiction 4 HOW TO LIVE 365 DAYS A YEAR John A. Schindler  
Non-Fiction 5 WHY JOHNNY CAN’T READ Rudolf Franz Flesch  
Non-Fiction 6 ONIONS IN THE STEW Betty MacDonald  
Non-Fiction 7 GERTRUDE LAWRENCE AS MRS. A. Richard Stoddard Aldrich  
Non-Fiction 8 BOSWELL ON THE GRAND TOUR Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle  
Non-Fiction 9 THE FAMILY OF MAN Edward Steichen  
Non-Fiction 10 MEMORIES Ethel Barrymore  
Non-Fiction 11 ESSAYS IN THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY Walter Lippmann  
Non-Fiction 12 FROM MY EXPERIENCE Louis Bromfield  
Non-Fiction 13 MY PHILADELPHIA FATHER Cordelia Drexel Biddle and Kyle Crichton  
Non-Fiction 14 TIGER OF THE SNOWS Tenzing of Everest and James Ramsey Ullman  
Non-Fiction 15 LAURETTE Marguerite Courtney  
Non-Fiction 16 BOTTOMS UP! Cornelia Otis Skinner  

I’d be interested in learning what the best sellers were the week (or year) you were born and whether or not you have read any of them in the comments below.