Joy Adamson to a number of publishers before it was bought by Harvill Press, part of HarperCollins. Published in 1960, it became a bestseller, spending 13 weeks at the top of "The New York Times" Best Seller list and nearly a year on the chart overall. The success of the book was due to both the story of Elsa and the dozens of photographs of her. Readers had pictures of many of the events of Elsa's life leading up to her release. Subsequent books were also heavily illustrated. "Born Free" received largely favorable reviews from critics. Adamson worked closely with publishers to
The Joy of Music The Joy of Music The Joy of Music is Leonard Bernstein's first book, originally published in 1959 by Simon & Schuster. A highly acclaimed, bestselling work, it is still in print today. In the book, Bernstein completely abandons the traditional academic style of books on classical music. Some of the chapters are cast in the style of conversations about music between Bernstein and several imaginary people. (One of these conversations contains Bernstein's thoughts on Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess", a work he never conducted or recorded.) Other chapters of the book are made up of complete transcribed scripts of Bernstein's television