You don't read enough blogs...

...so here's a tip. I just bumped into The Historical Society blog (thanks to Legal History) and found:

* the post I went looking for, recommending Frank Luther Mott's 1947 Golden Multitudes: The Story of Best Sellers in the United States (including many you never heard of, but chances are your ancestors did), and

* a discussion of who people were probably thinking of when they named kids "Darwin" in the early 19th century. Both posts by Dan Allosso.

There's more. For the historically-minded genealogist (which I hope is all of us), this looks like a keeper.

BTW, Mott's book appears to be searchable but not previewable on Google Books. Check your library or AbeBooks.