Simon & Schuster marks centennial with list of 100 notable books, from 'Catch-22' to 'Eloise'

One of the world’s largest and most influential publishers, Simon & Schuster is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year

NEW YORK -- One of the world’s largest and most influential publishers, Simon & Schuster, celebrates its 100th anniversary this year.

To mark the centennial, the publisher has unveiled a list of 100 notable releases — a blend of bestsellers, prize winners, headline makers and cultural sensations. The list tells many stories, through the books selected, not selected, and the evolution of what has been highlighted.

“A group of Simon & Schuster staffers took on the daunting challenge of selecting 100 titles from our history that are believed to best represent the breadth and depth of the company’s publishing program, across imprints,” the publisher announced Wednesday.

The list begins at the very beginning, in 1924, with a release that would help define the publisher’s long history of tapping into popular tastes. “The Cross Word Puzzle Book,” by F. Gregory Hartswick, Prosper Buranelli, and Margaret Petherbridge, was compiled by founders Richard Simon and Max Schuster from puzzles in the New York World, a prominent newspaper at the time. “The Cross Word Puzzle Book,” which came with an attached pencil, is considered the first publication of its kind.

Signature S&S works have since included Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s 1974 bestseller “All the President's Men,” which helped establish the publisher’s eminence in political nonfiction, and Joseph Heller’s anti-war classic “Catch-22.” The list also features prize-winning history ( David Blight’s ”Frederick Douglass,” Taylor Branch’s “Parting the Waters”), literary fiction ( Don DeLillo’s “Underworld”), commercial fiction ( Mary Higgins Clark’s “Where Are the Children?”), Dr. Benjamin Spock’s revolutionary “The Common Sense Baby and Childcare Book” and the children's favorite “Eloise,” by Kay Thompson and illustrator Hilary Knight.