TOP 15 ALL-TIME BEST-SELLING BOOKS

[Gabe]

1. The Holy Bible (6.7 billion copies)

2. Quotations from Chairman Mao, Mao Tse-Tung (900 million)

3. The Qur’an (800 million)

4. Xinhua Zidian (400 million  a Chinese dictionary, first published in 1953)

5. The Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer

6. Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan

7. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Foxe

8. The Book of Mormon, Joseph J. Smith, Jr. (123 million)

9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (107 million  UK title was …and the Philosopher’s Stone)

10. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (100 million)


11. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien (100 million)

12. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling (65 million)

13. The DaVinci Code, Dan Brown (65 million)

14. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling (60 million)

15. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (60 million)

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/5886

 

[Ginger]

It's great that obviously apart from the bible, my favourite author Agatha Christie is in the top ten Even after all these years she is up there!

I thought Shakespeare was number 2 or 3 though?

 

[RND]

Somehow the authors list differs greatly from his source......

List of best-selling books

1. Bible

2. The Little Red Book (Quotations from Chairman Mao) Quotations from Mao Zedong;

3. (Xinhua Zidian) (Xinhua Dictionary) Chief editor: Wei Jiangong

4. (Chairman Mao's Poems) Mao Zedong

5. (Selected Articles of Mao Zedong) Mao Zedong

6. (The Qur’ÄÂn) (Koran)

7. A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens

8. Scouting for Boys: A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship

9. The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien

10. Book of Mormon

11. The Truth That Leads to Eternal Life Jehovah's Witnesses (Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York)

12.(On the Three Representations) Jiang Zemin

13. And Then There Were None Agatha Christie

14. The Hobbit J. R. R. Tolkien

15. (Dream of the Red Chamber) Cao Xueqin

 

[Gabe]

I suspect that the discrepancy is from a user fooling around at Wikipedia.org.

Unlike the Wikipedia article, I have never seen sales of the Holy Bible estimated at anything below 5 billion and the notion that a book which was first published in 1966 may have sold anything up to 6.5 billion copies is ridiculous, I don't even think that's physically possible. I also suspect that the Quran has sold more than the 200 million copies stated.

 

[mechanicdb]

I have never seen sales of the Holy Bible estimated at anything below 5 billion and the notion that a book which was first published in 1966 may have sold anything up to 6.5 billion copies is ridiculous,

I don't quite understand that....are you saying the Bible was first published in 1966?

If i'm not mistaken, Jerome was the first to 'publish' a Bible in the late 4th century. ...but I must not be reading your statement correctly.

 

[Gabe]

I have never seen sales of the Holy Bible estimated at anything below 5 billion and the notion that a book which was first published in 1966 may have sold anything up to 6.5 billion copies is ridiculous,

I don't quite understand that....are you saying the Bible was first published in 1966?

If i'm not mistaken, Jerome was the first to 'publish' a Bible in the late 4th century. ...but I must not be reading your statement correctly.

In the first half, I was referring to the Wikipedia article's claim that the sales for the Holy Bible are estimated between 2.5 billion and 6 billion; I have never seen such a low approximated sales figure for the Holy Bible before.

And in the second half, I was referring to that same Wikipedia article's claim that the book 'Quotations from Mao' which was published in 1966, may have sold as much as 6.5 billion; a figure which I think is impossible for a book that has been on sale for only 42 years.

Oddly, it is still ranked number two, a position beneath the Bible which supposedly may have sold half a billion copies less....there is definitely something wrong with that article.

 

[Gabe]

It's great that obviously apart from the bible, my favourite author Agatha Christie is in the top ten Even after all these years she is up there!

I thought Shakespeare was number 2 or 3 though?

I'm not a 100% certain, but I think Shakespeare is one of the biggest-selling writers of all-time.