The Top 10 Most Read Books in the World

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Article title says "10 Most Read"

Article content says "10 Most Printed"

10 Most Printed ≠ 10 Most Read

Good point!

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by tecweston

EDIT: Just read the fine print. It says "printed and sold in the last 50 years." So that doesn't include printed books that are unsold.

I guess that makes a certain kind of sense, but it's certainly a slightly misleading list. Besides... fifty years is rather tiny window on the world of literature (reading/printing) to base something like this on.

I've always heard that Don Quixote was one of the most printed/most read books of all time (aside from the Bible)? Any truth to that?

I put aside the two religious text (taking the liberty of calling Maoism a religion), and for which I am sure books printed and sold does not equate to read. Think of all the Bibles distributed to hotel/motel rooms, distributed by missionaries and other evangelicals to people with no interest, etc. The same with the mass distribution of 'The Little Red Book.'

I did at one point sit down and read The Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, just because I feel anyone who wants to understand western civilization must do so. I must warn there are parts of the Old Testament that should only be attempted early in the day and after several cups of caffeinated coffee.

I have never read the Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, something I would have to do for an English translation, but sure wish I had an original version for its historical significance. In the 1980's I worked with a very skilled CAD draftsman (he had originally been and engineer in China) who had fled to the US during the Cultural Revolution. The subject pf “The Little Red Book' came up, while in China he had a copy and was expected to read it daily, and I asked if he still had a copy. He said that no he never thought about bringing that with him out of China.


The rest of the list is believable both in the ranking of books sold and in actually being read. That ranking sure does not mean top in literary merit.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

That ranking sure does not mean top in literary merit.

You can say that again!

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Which book is "Harry Potter" supposed to be? Is it all seven books combined into one? I'm assuming it is, because "The Twilight Saga" is four books, not one.

That seems like cheating a bit, but whatever. Of those books, I've read three (well, eleven if you count all seven Harry Potter novels and count Lord of the Rings as three books, plus "The Da Vinci Code.") I tried reading the Bible at one point because I felt like I should, but that is one boring book.

You cannot count LOTR as three books, because it was thought and written as one, and it's been split arbitrarily by its original publisher...
Only the third one has an actual ending, and only the first one as an actual beginning...

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

http://holykaw.alltop.com/the-top-10...he-world?tu2=1

I've only read two of those: the Bible, and Gone With the Wind (a MobileRead Book Club selection), although I plan to read the entire Quotations from Chairman Mao and Diary of Anne Frank one day.

[tecweston]

Originally Posted by Format C:

You cannot count LOTR as three books, because it was thought and written as one, and it's been split arbitrarily by its original publisher...
Only the third one has an actual ending, and only the first one as an actual beginning...

I'll count it as twelve books if I want. You can't stop me.

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

I have never read the Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, something I would have to do for an English translation, but sure wish I had an original version for its historical significance. In the 1980's I worked with a very skilled CAD draftsman (he had originally been and engineer in China) who had fled to the US during the Cultural Revolution. The subject pf “The Little Red Book' came up, while in China he had a copy and was expected to read it daily, and I asked if he still had a copy. He said that no he never thought about bringing that with him out of China.

Somewhere in one of the innumerable boxes of stored books, I have an official red plastic covered English translation of Mao's Quotations. It's definitely not great bedtime reading.

[Latinandgreek]

I really expected the Koran to be on that, I'm really surprised that it isn't. I've read 8 of the 10 books on the list.

[sun surfer]

I also expected the Koran to be on there and wonder why it's not/where it's ranking would be.

I'm surprised at how many of those I've read, 6 - Harry Potter, The Alchemist, The Da Vinci Code, The Twilight Saga, Gone With The Wind and The Diary of Anne Frank.

[Catlady]

I've read Lord of the Rings, Gone with the Wind, and Diary of Anne Frank. The two inclusions that really surprise me are The Alchemist, which I had no idea was such a phenomenon, and Think and Grow Rich, which I've never even heard of!

It really seems extremely misleading to include multibook series in the list.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

I really expected the Koran to be on that, I'm really surprised that it isn't. I've read 8 of the 10 books on the list.

I would have thought so, too. If it had been, that would make 3 on that list that I've read. Makes you wonder what criteria they're using.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by Latinandgreek

I really expected the Koran to be on that, I'm really surprised that it isn't. I've read 8 of the 10 books on the list.

Just a thought, but while there are translations of the Koran in English and doubtless many other vernaculars around the world, I believe most muslims believe it should only be read in the original Arabic (i.e., 1300 year old Arabic). Since most muslims do not come from Arabic speaking countries, I wonder how many actually are truly literate in the Arabic that the Koran is written in.

--
Bill

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

Here you will find what this list exactly is about.

Thanks, Zetmolm.

But it only says "I have compiled this list of the 10 Most Read Books In The World after completing a long project of research to establish exactly which are the most read books in the world".

Why I have my doubts about this list:

- Like others I think that counting different books of a series as one (Harry Potter, Twiglight Saga) is cheating.

- The author claims that printings over the last 50 years are counted. That would let me assume that more older than younger books are listed. But (ignoring the first two books) the contrary is the case. There is a 50:50 ratio between older and recent books and one even finds the newer books on the lower ranks.

- From all the books written in a latin language like French, Spanish, Italian or Portuguese, "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho should really be the most printed?

- I am wondering that there ain't one single Russian book on the list. The Soviet Union/Russia covers a huge market, books have been extremely inexpensive during the Soviet times, so I could imagine that at least one book is printed and sold very very often over all these years.

- How correct are these figures? Does he really know, for instance, how many books are printed in Europe or China?

I'm not saying the list is wrong, it may be perfectly valid. I'm just wondering about some things that are not like I would have expected them.

[dwig]

Originally Posted by Billi

...

- Like others I think that counting different books of a series as one (Harry Potter, Twiglight Saga) is cheating...

It depends on how you count them.

If you want to consider LotR as a single book you can only count the number printed and read of that one volume with the lowest number printed/read. You can't total the printed/read numbers for the 3 volumes and have numbers that can be compared to single volume works. If 10million of each volume have been printed/read then the total for printed/read is 10million, not 30million.