Here's a fun little site that will show you the Fiction and Non-Fiction books on the New York Times Best Sellers list for the week of the year you were born or, if you were born before 1950, it will show the best sellers for that year.
Here's the list for the week I was born. Of these I have only read "A Man Called Peter" (number 3 on the non-fiction list) and as I recall it's because my mom had the book and it was lying around the house when I was 9 or 10.
NYT Best Sellers for Week Ending 03/07/1955
Category Rank Title Author
Fiction 1 SOMETHING OF VALUE Robert Ruark
Fiction 2 BONJOUR TRISTESSE Francoise Sagan
Fiction 3 NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS Mac Hyman
Fiction 4 SINCERELY WILLIS WAYDE, John Phillips Marquand
Fiction 5 AUNTIE MAME Patrick Dennis
Fiction 6 THE GOOD SHEPHERD C.S. Forester
Fiction 7 THE DINNER PARTY Gretchen Finletter
Fiction 8 RUN SILENT RUN DEEP, Edward L. Beach
Fiction 9 THE BREAKING WAVE Nevil Shute
Fiction 10 THE SCOTSWOMAN Inglis Clark Fletcher
Fiction 11 THE VIEW FROM POMPEY'S HEAD Hamilton Basso
Fiction 12 THE WINE OF YOUTH Robert Wilder
Fiction 13 DUTCH Theodore Bonnet
Fiction 14 NOT AS A STRANGER Morton Thompson
Fiction 15 THE VIRGINIA EXILES Elizabeth Gray Vining
Fiction 16 ADVENTURES IN THE SKIN TRADE Dylan Thomas
Non-Fiction 1 GIFT FROM THE SEA Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Non-Fiction 2 THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING Norman Vincent Peale
Non-Fiction 3 A MAN CALLED PETER Catherine Marshall
Non-Fiction 4 HOW TO LIVE 365 DAYS A YEAR John A. Schindler
Non-Fiction 5 WHY JOHNNY CAN'T READ Rudolf Franz Flesch
Non-Fiction 6 ONIONS IN THE STEW Betty MacDonald
Non-Fiction 7 GERTRUDE LAWRENCE AS MRS. A. Richard Stoddard Aldrich
Non-Fiction 8 BOSWELL ON THE GRAND TOUR Frank Brady and Frederick A. Pottle
Non-Fiction 9 THE FAMILY OF MAN Edward Steichen
Non-Fiction 10 MEMORIES Ethel Barrymore
Non-Fiction 11 ESSAYS IN THE PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY Walter Lippmann
Non-Fiction 12 FROM MY EXPERIENCE Louis Bromfield
Non-Fiction 13 MY PHILADELPHIA FATHER Cordelia Drexel Biddle and Kyle Crichton
Non-Fiction 14 TIGER OF THE SNOWS Tenzing of Everest and James Ramsey Ullman
Non-Fiction 15 LAURETTE Marguerite Courtney
Non-Fiction 16 BOTTOMS UP! Cornelia Otis Skinner
I'd be interested in learning what the best sellers were the week (or year) you were born and whether or not you have read any of them in the comments below.