I was perusing some best-seller lists for the past few years and became curious about the top-selling books of all time.  Here’s what Wikipedia has for the top 14:

1. The Bible
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao (Little Red Book)
3. The Koran
4. Xinhua Dictionary
5. Chairman Mao’s Poems
6. Selected Articles of Mao Zedong
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)
12. On the Three Representations
13. And Then There Were None (Agatha Christie)
14. The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)

Quite the interesting list. I think Chairman Mao’s three entries greatly benefited from compulsory reading/ownership of over 1 billion people. Five are religious books; six if you throw in the Scouting book and its link to Christianity. And Agatha Christie?

Tags: Agatha Christie, best-sellers, Bible