1978: A Year in Fiction; Year of My Birth
Explore the best fiction books from 1978, the year of your birth! Discover iconic novels, hidden gems, and literary trends that defined this memorable year in literature.
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Success
by Martin Amis
In Success Amis pens a mismatched pair of foster brothers--one "a quivering condom of neurosis and ineptitude," the other a "bundle of contempt, vanity and …
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Literal Madness
by Kathy Acker
My Death My Life by Pier Paolo Pasolini imagines the Italian filmmaker and writer returning to the Roman homosexual hustlers he knew, in a "scathing …
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Portrait of an Eye
by Kathy Acker
The Childlike Life of the Black Tarantula by the Black Tarantula; I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac; The Adult Life of Toulouse-Lautrec by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
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Hamilton Stark
by Russell Banks
Hamilton Stark is a New Hampshire pipe fitter and the sole inhabitant of the house from which he evicted his own mother. He is the …
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Arthur Rex
by Thomas Berger
Reinterpreting and expanding upon the Arthurian legend, the author begins to inject his own personality into the narrative, which constitutes a salute to the Age …
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Women
by Charles Bukowski
Previously published: [Santa Barbara, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press], 1978.
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The Virgin in the Garden
by A. S. Byatt
The Virgin in the Garden is a wonderfully erudite entertainment in which enlightenment and sexuality, Elizabethan drama and contemporary comedy, intersect richly and unpredictably.
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The Stories of John Cheever
by John Cheever
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A seminal collection from one of the true masters of the short story. Spanning the duration of Cheever’s …
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Running Dog
by Don DeLillo
DeLillo's Running Dog, originally published in 1978, follows Moll Robbins, a New York city journalist trailing the activities of an influential senator. In the process …
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Strange Wine
by Harlan Ellison
Back in print for the first time in decades, this volume includes a new storyby Ellison.
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The Bookshop
by Penelope Fitzgerald
From the author of "The Blue Flower" comes a comic study of stiff upper lip in the face of small-town nastiness--"a perfect little gem" ("BBC …
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The Magus
by John Fowles
A man trapped in a millionare's deadly game of political and sexual betrayal Filled with shocks and chilling surprises, The Magus is a masterwork of …
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In My Father's House
by Ernest J. Gaines
A compelling novel of a man brought to reckon with his buried past... In St. Adrienne, a small black community in Louisiana, Reverend Phillip Martin—a …
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Billy Phelan's Greatest Game
by William Kennedy
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed explores the seedy underbelly of a Depression-era town in the second novel in the Albany cycle Billy Phelan, a …
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Night Shift
by Stephen King
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bared to You When Evangeline Hollis spent a night of passion with the darkly seductive Alec …
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The Switch
by Elmore Leonard
Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara hit it off in prison, where they were both doing time for grand theft auto. Now that they're out, they're …
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A Transit to Narcissus
by Norman Mailer
The first publication of a novel Mailer wrote at the age of 20, three years before he began work on The Naked and the Dead. …
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The Sea, the Sea
by Iris Murdoch
Winner of the Booker Prize—a tale of the strange obsessions that haunt a playwright as he composes his memoirs Charles Arrowby, leading light of England's …
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Going After Cacciato
by Tim O'Brien
A CLASSIC FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE THINGS THEY CARRIED "To call Going After Cacciato a novel about war is like …
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Fools Die
by Mario Puzo
“A page-flipping tale of power, brutality and glamour (Library Journal) from the bestselling author of The Godfather. Played out in the underground worlds of high-stakes …
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The Coup
by John Updike
Updike presents the story of a fictitious modern African state called Kush, narrated tongue-in-cheek by Kush's exiled president, Colonel Felix Ellellou.
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Kalki
by Gore Vidal
Bestselling author Gore Vidal joins the ranks of Penguin Classics. To satisfy a public that longs for a savior, Vidal's eponymous hero of KALKI, born …