Fiction 1961

Catch-22

Joseph Heller, to mixed reviews, writes one of the top 100 books of the 20th Century. A humorous, biting reflection on the absurdity of military reasoning and general bureaucratic silliness. In no time he had added to our English Lexicon the phrase to forever describe how the powers that be always find a way to screw you over, Catch 22.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Robert A. Heinlein writes what is often called the greatest Science Fiction book of all time. It is one of the first to smudge the distance between Sci-Fi and Social Comment (later perfected by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.). A human citizen of Mars, Valentine Smith, comes to Earth to help us see ourselves from a truly unbiased point of view. 

No One Writes to the Colonel

This is literary giant Gabriel García Márquez' first novel. It concerns life under martial law in 1950's Columbia. It was not until 1965 that he created his unique style of Books of Art. A mix of accepted superstition and surrealism reminisent of Kafka and Dali. Like J.D. Salinger, Marquez is not a prolific writer, but what he does, he does better than anyone in the world.

Harold Robbins - The Carpetbaggers
J. D. Salinger - Franny and Zooey
Muriel Spark - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
John Steinbeck - The Winter of Our Discontent

Leon Uris - Mila 18
Edward Lewis Wallant - The Pawnbroker

Irving Stone - The Agony and the Ecstasy

Irving Wallace - The Chapman Report  J. G. Ballard - The Wind From Nowhere
Pat Boone - 'Twixt Twelve and Twenty
Morley Callaghan - A Passion in Rome
A. J. Cronin - The Judas Tree
Roald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach
Ian Fleming - Thunderball
Ernest K. Gann - Fate Is the Hunter
Winston Graham - Marnie
Harry Harrison - The Stainless Steel Rat
John Hersey - The Wall
Patricia Highsmith - This Sweet Sickness
Richard Hughes -The Fox in the Attic
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth
Margaret Laurence - The Stone Angel
John le Carré - Call for the Dead
Iris Murdoch - A Severed Head
V. S. Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas
Juan Carlos Onetti - El astillero (The Shipyard)
Walker Percy - The Moviegoer
Anthony Powell - Venusberg
Theodore Sturgeon - Some of Your Blood
Morris West - Daughter of Silence
Rose Valland - Le front de l'art
Richard Yates -Revolutionary Road
Yevgeny Yevtushenko - Zima Junction

More on each new book of 1961 at Wikipedia

Non Fiction 1961

Black Like Me

Writer John Griffin stains his skin black and experiences America from a new point of view.

Has Man a Future?

Leftist icon Bertrand Russell, as always, gains controversy by putting the chance of nuclear holocaust on the shoulders of Scientists rather than the Military and his promotion of a world governmental entity with more teeth than any single nation.

The Genesis Flood

Creationists John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris begin the new attack on evolution by creating "Creation Science"

Pulitzer prize for fiction awarded to To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

1961 Tony Awards (theater)

Play - Becket, Jean Anouilh

Actor - Zero Mostel, Rhinoceros

Actress - Joan Plowright - A Taste of Honey

Supporting Actor - Martin Gabel, Big Fish, Little Fish

Supporting Actress - Colleen Dewhurst, All the Way Home

Director - Sir John Gielgud, Big Fish, Little Fish

Comedy 1961

Grammy - Best Albums

In 1960, Bob Newhart scored two back-to-back #1 hits on the pop charts with his best-selling albums The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart ...

...and The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back! They also both won Emmy's.

Stan Frieberg Presents The United States of America Volume 1

A classic comedy album spoofing the history of the New World in song and dialog. Volume 2 did not appear until 1996.