Fiction 1974

Jaws by Peter Benchley - A tale of two stories, the well known 1916 story of the man eating shark in and around the Jersey Shore and the 1964 history of the fisherman who caught a 4,550 pound great white shark off the coast of Long Island. With some creative marketing and patience by Doubleday they ended up selling 20 million copies of this mediocre book. More on Jaws at All Readers

Fear of Flying by Erica Jong - Considered the Third Wave of Feminism this controversial book is the story of a married woman having sex with new acquaintances. It became a hit with many women of the time going on to sell over 20 million copies. The book coined the phrase THE ZIPLESS F***. More on Fear of Flying

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré - This is the first novel in the Karla Trilogy, followed by The Honorable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. Protagonist George Smiley must find the Soviet Spy inside the British Secret Intelligence Service. Realism, mood and plot are riveting. Review of Tinker, Soldier, Spy at All Readers.

Centennial by James A. Michener - Like all Michener novels this chronicles the pre history to present of a place. This is Michener's salute to the American West which takes place in an around Greeley Colorado. It includes the controversial history of the Sand Creek Massacre. More than enough about Centennial at Everything2.

Sidney Sheldon - The Other Side of Midnight

Vladimir Nabokov - Look at the Harlequins!

Richard Adams - Shardik
Kingsley Amis - Ending Up
Frederick Forsyth - The Dogs of War
Hal Bennett - Wait Until the Evening
Heinrich Böll - The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
Anthony Burgess - The Clockwork Testament, or Enderby's End
Stephen King - Carrie
Robert A. Caro - The Power Broker
Robert Cormier - The Chocolate War
Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Lawrence Durrell - Monsieur
John Fowles - The Ebony Tower
Donald Goines - Crime Partners
John Hawkes - Death Sleep
Joseph Heller - Something Happened
Anna Kavan - Let Me Alone
Margaret Laurence - The Diviners
Robert Ludlum - The Cry of the Halidon
Brian Lumley - Beneath the Moors
Edith Pargeter - Sunrise in the West (first in the "Brothers of Gwynedd" quartet)
Robert B. Parker - God Save the Child
Ellen Raskin - Figgs & Phantoms
Ishmael Reed - The Last Days of Louisiana Red
Harold Robbins - The Pirate
Leonardo Sciascia - Todo modo
Tom Sharpe - Porterhouse Blue

1974 Tony Awards (theater)

Comedy 1974

That Nigger's Crazy - Richard Pryor - It wins the 1974 Grammy for best comedy recording. Its first run suffered from Stax Records going bust a few months after its release. Reprise Records picked up and reissued it in 1975. Listen to Richard Pryor

Literary News 1974

Carrie by Stephen King - The first novel published under King's own name is a strangely written story of a shy high school girl who uses telekinesis to take revenge upon the school bullies who picked on her so cruelly. Banned in many high school libraries the subsequent controversy made the author famous and go on to become the most prolific in American literature. Review of Carrie at illiterarty.

Nobel Prize winning writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is expelled from the Soviet Union not to return until 1994.

Nobel Prize for Literature:

Eyvind Johnson & Harry Martinson 1974 Nobel Prize for Literature: Eyvind Johnson & Harry Martinson

The Pulitzer Prize:

Fiction: (No Award)
Drama: (No Award)
History: The Americans: The Democratic Experience by Daniel J. Boorstin
Biography or Autobiography: O'Neill, Son and Artist by Louis Sheaffer
Poetry: The Dolphin by Robert Lowell
General Nonfiction: The Denial of Death by the late Ernest Becker All 1974 Pulitzer Prizes

Non Fiction 1974

All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward – The two Washington Post reporters who broke the biggest American political story of the Century put it all in a book at the urging of Robert Redford who offered to buy the film rights. The book chronicled the investigation process more than the politics. The 1976 movie of the same name was a box office hit starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. All the Presidents Men at Washington Post

Working by Studs Terkel - Chicago celebrity, radio show host, historian and writer complies a series of transcribed interviews with regular talking about their regular jobs. Full Title: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. Interview with Studs Terkel

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi - With the help of crime writer Curt Gentry, the prosecutor in the famous Manson Family murder trial Vincent Bugliosi tells the gruesome story of the Manson Family Murders. This bestseller was named from cult leader Charles Manson's obsession with the Beatle song he believed was the theme to a coming race war. Crime stories Helter Skelter review

The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh - LAPD Police Sergeant turned best selling writer first foray into non fiction. The book chronicles the 1963 kidnapping of two plainclothes LAPD officers and the murder of one of them, Ian James Campbell, in an onion field near Barkerfield, California. The criminals resorted to murder because they wrongly believed that kidnapping was a capital crime. Onion Fields Story

Shelby Foote – The Civil War: A Narrative – Vol 3: Red River to Appomattox

Jonathan Raban - Soft City

Lewis Thomas – The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher