The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 1966 The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 1966 This is a list of adult fiction books that topped "The New York Times" Fiction Best Seller list in 1966. Only three novels topped the list that year, which was dominated by Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls" which spent 28 weeks at the top of the list and 65 weeks in the top 10. "Valley" was toppled by Robert Crichton's "The Secret of Santa Vittoria", a World War II story based on fact, which sold more than 100,000 copies in the first month of its release. It spent 18 weeks
Jacqueline Susann loathed the film version of "Valley", believed this adaptation was even worse. Susann's third novel, "Once Is Not Enough", was published by Morrow on March 20, 1973. "Once" is the story of January Wayne, daughter of a famous film and stage producer, who is hospitalized in Switzerland for three years. When she returns home to New York City, she finds that the world is far different from the one she had left. January contends with the social upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s in a graphic, driving story. Susann was candid about the theme of the book, stating