1958 - Literature

Literature

Nonfiction: The Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith decries the overemphasis on consumer goods in the U.S. economy and the use of advertising to create artificial demand for such goods. More of the nation's wealth should be allocated to public purposes, says the Harvard economist; The Arms Race: A Programme for World Disarmament by British statesman Philip J. Noel-Baker, now 68, who has served as a Labour member in the House of Commons, held several cabinet ministries, and been a member of his country's delegation to the General Assembly; No More War! by Nobel chemist Linus C. Pauling, who in January brought to the United Nations a petition signed by 11,021 scientists worldwide urging an end to nuclear weapons testing; War and Peace in the Space Age by Lieut. Gen. James M. Gavin, 51, U.S. Army (ret.), who led the 82nd Airborne Division at the end of World War II; The Causes of World War Three by C. Wright Mills; Parkinson's Law by English political scientist Cyril Northcote Parkinson, 49, satirizes the growth of bureaucracy: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"; "Expenditure rises to meet income"; "Expansion means complexity, and complexity, decay. Or: the more complex, the sooner dead"; The Coming of the New Deal by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.; Young Man Luther by Erik H. Erikson; Klondike: The Life and Death of the Last Great Gold Rush by Dawson City-born Toronto journalist-historian Pierre Berton, 38; The Americans (Volume 1): The Colonial Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin; The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote; Only in America by North Carolina newspaper editor Harry Golden, 56.

Philosopher G. E. Moore dies at Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, October 24 at age 84, having brought a systematic approach to issues of ethics; former "muck raker" journalist and author Samuel Hopkins Adams dies at Beaufort, S.C., November 15 at age 87, having written more than 50 books of biography, exposé, and fiction.

Fiction: Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote; The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac; From the Terrace by John O'Hara; Some Came Running by James Jones; Crazy in Berlin by Cincinnati-born novelist Thomas (Louis) Berger, 34; Exodus by Leon Uris; Things Fall Apart by Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, 28; The City and the Dogs (La ciudad y los perros) by Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, 22; The Leopard (II gattopardo) by the late Sicilian novelist Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; Balthazar and Mount Olive by Lawrence Durrell; The Ugly American by Eugene Burdick and New York-born novelist William J. (Julius) Lederer, 46, who come under attack from the State Department for their revelations of arrogance, insensitivity, and stupidity on the part of U.S. diplomats in the developing countries (like last year's Graham Greene novel The Quiet American, it is thought to have been based on Air Force Major Gen. Edward G. Lansdale, now 51); A Mixture of Frailties by Robertson Davies completes his "Salterton Trilogy"; Memed, My Hawk (Ince Memed) by Turkish novelist Yasar Kemal, 36; Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Memushiri kouchi) and The Catch (Shiiku) (novella) by Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe, 23; The River with No Bridge (first volume) by Japanese novelist and human rights campaigner Sue Sumii, 56, whose writer husband, Shigeru Inuta, died last year. Her work explores the discrimination and humiliation suffered by Japan's burakumin and will have sales of 8.3 million copies; The Middle Age of Mrs. Eliot by Angus Wilson; Spinster by New Zealand novelist Sylvia Ashton-Warner, 53; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by English novelist Alan Silitoe, 30, who draws on his experience as a Nottingham factory worker; Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene; I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch; A World of Strangers by Nadine Gordimer; The Greengage Summer by Rumer Godden; The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold by Evelyn Waugh; The Oldest Confession by New York-born novelist and political satirist Richard Condon, 43; The Mackerel Plaza by Peter De Vries; As Music and Splendor by Irish novelist Edna O'Brien, 26; The Blackmailer by English novelist Isabel Colegate, 26; The Best of Everything by New York-born novelist Rona Jaffe, 26; Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart; North from Rome by Helen MacInnes; Dr. No by Ian Fleming.

Novelist-essayist H. M. Tomlinson dies at his native London February 5 at age 84; Nobel novelist Roger Martin du Gard at Bellême, France, August 22 at age 77; author Dorothy Canfield Fisher at Arlington, Vt., November 9 at age 79; Lion Feuchtwanger at Los Angeles December 21 at age 74.

Poetry: A Coney Island of the Mind and Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower by Lawrence Ferlinghetti; Gasoline by Gregory Corso includes his poem "Bomb"; Words for the Wind by Theodore Roethke; A Sense of the World: Poems by Elizabeth Jennings; Alibi by Elsa Morante.

Nobel poet Juan Ramón Jiménez dies at San Juan, Puerto Rico, May 29 at age 76; Alfred Noyes on the Isle of Wight June 28 at age 77; Robert W. Service at Lancieux on the French Riviera September 11 at age 84.

Juvenile: Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back! by Dr. Seuss; The Rabbits' Wedding by Garth Williams, whose story of a wedding between a black rabbit and a white rabbit draws condemnation from the White Citizens Council; Do You Know What I'd Do? by Charlotte Zolotow.