1961 Popular Songs  

Number 1 hit songs in 1961, listed in order of reaching the top spot on the national Billboard "Hot 100"

Wonderland by Night; Will You Love Me Tomorrow; Calcutta;  Pony Time; Surrender; Blue Moon; Runaway; Mother-In-Law; Travelin' Man; Running Scared;  Moody River;  Quarter to Three; Tossin' and Turnin'; Wooden Heart;  Michael (Row the Boat Ashore); Take Good Care of My Baby;  Hit the Road, Jack; Runaround Sue; Big Bad John;  Please Mr. Postman; The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

From "Wonderland by Night" to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" — listen to all the #1 hits of 1961 on our special jukebox.  Plus now added:  all the #1 hits from 1955 through 1961 — and more.  

Click to see and hear them

Best-selling books of 1961

Fiction

1. The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo, by Irving Stone

2.   Franny and Zooey, by J. D. Salinger 

3.   To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 

4.   Mila 18, by Leon Uris 

5.   The Carpetbaggers, by Harold Robbins 

6.   Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller 

7.   Winnie Ille Pu (Latin Edition), by A. A. Milne 

Non-Fiction

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer  

2. The New English Bible: New Testament

3. The Making of the President 1960, by Theodore H. White 

4. Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell 

5. A Nation of Sheep, by William J. Lederer 

6. My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House, by Lillian Rogers Parks 

7.   Inside Europe Today, by John Gunther  

Two novels first published in 1961 became best-sellers a few years later

Catch-22, by Joseph Heller  Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein