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Top 10 Most Read Books in the World

gavintonks

Maester
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the top 10 best-selling books of 2011 overall (print and Kindle combined). “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson, “Bossypants” by Tina Fey and “A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard take the top three spots on the list. “The Mill River Recluse” by Darcie Chan and “The Abbey” by Chris Culver come in at #4 and #9. Both titles made the list based solely on Kindle sales and were independently published using Kindle Direct Publishing. This list takes into account first editions that were published in 2011, and considers only paid units. To see all of Amazon.com’s best-selling books of 2011, or to buy or gift any of them, go to Amazon.com: Best-Selling Books of 2011: Customer Favorites.
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Amazon.com Inc| AMZN

“After the year of recommending books to our customers, it’s always fun to see what books really resonated with them,” said Chris Schluep, Senior Editor of Books, Amazon.com. “We chose ‘Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats. And we’re really excited that Kindle Direct Publishing authors have taken two of the top spots this year for book sales overall.”

The top 10 best-selling books overall are:

“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
“Bossypants” by Tina Fey
“A Stolen Life” by Jaycee Dugard
“The Mill River Recluse” by Darcie Chan
“In the Garden of the Beasts” by Erik Larson
“A Dance with Dragons” by George R.R. Martin
“The Paris Wife” by Paula McLain
“The Litigators” by John Grisham
“The Abbey” by Chris Culver
“Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle)” by Christopher Paolini

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth’s Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as Books; Movies, Music & Games; Digital Downloads; Electronics & Computers; Home & Garden; Toys, Kids & Baby; Grocery; Apparel, Shoes & Jewelry; Health & Beauty; Sports & Outdoors; and Tools, Auto & Industrial. Amazon Web Services provides Amazon’s developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon’s own back-end technology platform, which developers can use to enable virtually any type of business. The new latest generation Kindle is the lightest, most compact Kindle ever and features the same 6-inch, most advanced electronic ink display that reads like real paper even in bright sunlight. Kindle Touch is a new addition to the Kindle family with an easy-to-use touch screen that makes it easier than ever to turn pages, search, shop, and take notes – still with all the benefits of the most advanced electronic ink display. Kindle Touch 3G is the top of the line e-reader and offers the same new design and features of Kindle Touch, with the unparalleled added convenience of free 3G. Kindle Fire is the Kindle for movies, TV shows, music, books, magazines, apps, games and web browsing with all the content, free storage in the Amazon Cloud, Whispersync, Amazon Silk (Amazon’s new revolutionary cloud-accelerated web browser), vibrant color touch screen, and powerful dual-core processor.
 

gavintonks

Maester
This is the splurge from the guy who I think made this list, he is dreaming if he is looking at copies of 50 million when there are 6 books with up to 200 million copies sold

Most Read Books Review
My name is James Chapman, I am your host at A Passion For Writing and 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.

Over many years I have been a writer and avid reader of books, so it gave me great pleasure to undertake this task of the most read books review.

You will find in this list a varied array of subject matter, covering a considerable number of years of some truly talented author's work.

Some of the authors are no longer with us, but the majority are still producing their masterpieces for our ongoing delight.

In this modern fast paced world that we all now live in it is good to see that the enjoyment of reading is still firmly a part of our everyday activities.

Browse through the most read books review and if there are any books that you have not read, but would like to, just click.

Then you can sit back in a comfortable chair with a full glass and do your own personal review of some wonderful literature.

Enjoy your reading.
 
Those books are great and very recommended for those who loves reading. Just like me I am fond of reading and this is just my hobby, so I will try the books you posted and would love to read this. Keep on posting the best books and definitely we will surely like it and follow your posts.
 
For the second time in my life, I'm now wondering what the hell The Alchemist is. I found a copy of it once, but it was in another language, so I only thumbed through it. I had no idea it was so popular.

An allegorical novel, The Alchemist follows a young Andalusian shepherd named Santiago in his journey to Egypt, after having a recurring dream of finding treasure there.

Could be interesting . . .

Early into his journey, he meets an old king, Melchizedek, who tells him to sell his sheep to travel to Egypt, and his Personal Legend: what he always wanted to accomplish in his life. And that "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." This is the core philosophy and motto of the book.

Along the way, he encounters love, danger, opportunity, disaster and learns a lot about himself and the ways of the world. During his travels, he meets a beautiful Arabian woman named Fatima who explains to him that if he follows his heart, he shall find what it is he seeks.

Santiago then encounters a lone alchemist who tells about personal legends. He says that people only want to find the treasure of their personal legends but not the personal legend itself. He feels unsure about himself as he listens to the alchemist's teachings. The alchemist states "Those who don't understand their personal legends will fail to comprehend its teachings." It also states that treasure is more worthy than gold.

Pass.
 

ArielFingolfin

Troubadour
Oh Twilight. Then again, it gives me hope that I can be published someday because I know my stories are at least better than that! :)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Oh Twilight. Then again, it gives me hope that I can be published someday because I know my stories are at least better than that! :)

This has been discussed elsewhere, but Twilight was a rarity before it ever became popular, given the very large advance paid out to a first-time author when the publisher bought the book. If you're writing YA (or maybe even if you're not) and writing a popular story is your goal, it is probably useful to look at works like Twilight (and Potter, and Hunger Games, and so on) to see why they work so well for so many readers.
 

ArielFingolfin

Troubadour
Well that post was more sarcastic than anything else. I really don't care about being the next big name or having an entire franchise based off my stuff. I mean, sure it'd be nice, but my goal of just being published is big enough for me at the moment :)
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Well that post was more sarcastic than anything else. I really don't care about being the next big name or having an entire franchise based off my stuff. I mean, sure it'd be nice, but my goal of just being published is big enough for me at the moment :)

Yeah same here.

Though I think if I could write something that made hundreds of millions of dollars, even if it was complete dreck, I'd do it. Once you did that, just once, you could write whatever you wanted for the rest of your life. It could be literary, artsy, commercial, non-commercial, or whatever. It wouldn't matter.
 

Aravelle

Sage
Yeah same here.

Though I think if I could write something that made hundreds of millions of dollars, even if it was complete dreck, I'd do it. Once you did that, just once, you could write whatever you wanted for the rest of your life. It could be literary, artsy, commercial, non-commercial, or whatever. It wouldn't matter.

...ohmygawd. I never thought of that. IMAGINE IF YOU COULD JUST WRITE A PIECE OF GARBAGE. Then everyone will read or at look at what you write after that, and you can really indulge... my gawd.. I wish I could bring myself to do it. xD
 

Ravana

Istar
Here's an interesting question: if you knew you could write a book that you personally believed was absolutely dreadful, and make millions on that one book, knowing that your name would forever be attached to a work you hated, would you write it?

Hell, yes. Just not under my own name. ;)
 
It's not enough to write garbage. You have to know how to market garbage. (E.L. James in particular, though disclaiming her own writing skill, turned out to be surprisingly good at rallying her fanfiction fanbase and gaining more readers through them. She hasn't reached Twilight levels of success yet, but she'll likely have more direct influence over fictional trends than Meyer did.)
 
The only one I've read through is LOTR. I have tried to get into the Harry Potter series twice but it's just not my kind of fantasy. I read the first Twilight just to see what the fuss was about...thought it was very poorly written.
 
Half of me (the mercenary side) is screaming 'yes, yes, yes!' but tbh I am not sure if I could. Many friends have said 'Why don't you do fantasy romance, it's a huge market, more open to new authors, and you could do it in your sleep!' But, so far, I just don't have the interest...
 

Estralyia

Dreamer
I loved the first three Harry Potters books as they were just magical but then the other books became darker and darker and I didn't enjoy them at all.
 

Shockley

Maester
I'd say this would be better represented as 'Top Ten Most Owned Books.'

To answer the question posed later, I'd absolutely sell out for a quick, massive profit. Then I could get a little place somewhere and write whatever I wanted for the rest of my days.
 
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