Best Selling Books of Past and Present

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Ranked #13,512 in Arts , #392,900 overall

Which Books are on Your List?

There is no definitive list of the best selling books of all time, at least not that I have found. For that reasons, I am including several different lists of best selling books. If you know the location of a "definitive" list (if that is possible) please let me know in the guestbook below.

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Best Selling Books Trivial Pursuit 

See how observant you are and find the answers to the following questions in the list of best selling books of all times. You may have to do some extra research to come up with some of the answers. Have fun.
  • How many books on the best selling list are religious based?
  • How many books are by multiple authors?
  • How many countries are represented by single-author books?
  • What author has the greatest number of books on the list?
  • How many books on the list have been made into movies?

Wikipedia's List of Best Selling Books 

Below is the list of best selling books found at Wikipedia. Due to the nature of the site, it is evident that the author of the list has left certain books off that should probably be included. In fact, a message stating "This article or section is missing citations or needs footnotes" is placed at the beginning to inform readers that the list is given without the sources mentioned.
  1. Bible
  2. Quotations from Chairman Mao
  3. The Qur´an
  4. Don Quixote
  5. Xinhua Dictionary
  6. Book of Common Prayer
  7. Pilgim's Progress
  8. Foxe´s Book of Martyrs
  9. Book of Mormon
  10. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (...Sorcerer's stone in US.)
  11. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
  12. The Lord of the Rings
  13. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
  14. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
  15. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
  16. The Da Vinci Code
  17. The Catcher and the Rye
  18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  19. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
  20. Heidi's Year of Wandering and Learning - Johanna Spyri
  21. King Somonon's Mines
  22. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
  23. The Curse of Capistrano (The Mark of Zorro)
  24. The Little Prince
  25. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

Russell Ash's List of Best Selling Books of All Times 

The List comes from Russell Ash's book The Top 10 of Everything 2002. As you can see, many books on the list are different from the list at Wikipedia. The list includes the number of books sold for each volume up to the time of printing of Ash's book.
  1. The Holy Bible c. 1451-55 - More than 6 Billion
  2. Mao Tse-Tung Quotations from Chairman Mao 1966 - 900,000,000
  3. Noah Webster The American Spelling Book 1783 - Up to 100,000,000
  4. Mark C. Young Guiness Book of World Records 1955 More than - 90,000,000
  5. World Almanac Editors World Almanac 1868 - 73,500,000
  6. William Holmes McGuffey The McGuffey Readers 1836 - 60,000,000
  7. Benjamin Spock The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care 1946 - More than 50,000,000
  8. Elbert Hubbard A Message to Garcia 1899 - More than 40,000,000
  9. 9 Charles Monroe Sheldon In His Steps, What Would Jesus Do? 1896 - More than 30.000,000
  10. Jacqueline Susann Valley of the Dolls 1966 - More than 30,000

Great stuff you can buy about Best Selling Books 

Vote for your favorite. Or, add what's missing!

Your turn: Am I right? 

Know of a best selling book that is not on the list. Let us know. Be sure to mention your source so we can verify it before adding it to a list. Thanks for visiting. Be sure to check out our other lenses.