1962 in literature

Events

• Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov is published. In 2001, the novel would be one of two books by Nabokov to be on the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century as selected by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.

New Books

• Apples of Gold[?] - Jo Petty[?]
• The Changeling[?] - Thomas Middleton
• Dearly Beloved[?] - Anne Marrow Lindbergh[?]
• The Guns of August[?] - Barbara Tuchman
• The Kindly Ones - Anthony Powell
• Lilies of the Field - William Barrett[?]
• The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick
• Mother Night[?] - Kurt Vonnegut
• A Murder of Quality[?] - John le Carré
• My Life in Court[?] - Louis Nizer[?]
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
• Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
• The Prize[?] - Irving Wallace[?]
• A Prologue To Love[?] - Taylor Caldwell
• The Reivers[?] - William Faulkner
• Seven Days in May[?] - Fletcher Knebel[?] & Charles W. Bailey II[?]
• Sex and the Single Girl[?] - Helen Gurley Brown[?]
• A Shade of Difference[?] - Allen Drury[?]
• Ship of Fools - Katherine Anne Porter[?]
• Silent Spring - Rachel Carson
• The Spy Who Loved Me[?] - Ian Fleming
• Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
• The Thin Red Line - James Jones[?]
• Travels with Charley: In Search of America[?] - John Steinbeck
• Wise Blood[?] - Flannery O'Connor
• A Wrinkle in Time[?] -- Madeleine L'engle[?]
• Youngblood Hawke[?] - Herman Wouk[?]

Births

• October 19 - Tracy Chevalier[?], author

Deaths

• July 6 - William Faulkner, American novelist
• August 9 - Hermann Hesse, author

Awards

• Newberry Medal for children's literature: Elizabeth George Speare[?], The Bronze Bow
• Nobel Prize for literature - John Steinbeck
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows[?], How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Edwin O'Connor[?] - The Edge of Sadness
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Alan Dugan[?]: Poems