Have you ever wondered which are the best - selling books in the world ?
I did and researched and brought them to you .
When I analyzed the books on these lists , I noticed two very interesting things . One :
People really love stories especially mythological , fantastic ones .
Two
We will probably never get to read one of these best - selling books !
But don't worry I will tell its story to you .
The word " bestseller " has got into our vocabulary as well .
The moment we take a step into the bookstores ,
we encounter bestseller shelves in the best corner .
These books adorn the home pages of internet bookstores .
But it was a newspaper that started fashion .
Any guesses ?
I thought it was the New York Times ,
but I came across another newspaper called " The Kansas Times & Star " .
A local newspaper in Kansas started this tradition 42 years before the world's most famous book list ,
" The New York Times Best Sellers List " , listed the first books on October 12 , 1931 .
Since then , the methods of identifying the books on this list are still being debated .
It may not be the best seller of all time , but the most published books are religious books .
After the printing press was invented in the 1450s , the first printed book was the Gutenberg Bible .
In the first 50 years after this invention ,
European printers printed around 15 million books , mostly being the Bible .
It is estimated that around 5 billion have been printed since the invention of the printing press .
The Qur'an is in second place with 800 million prints .
Because religious scriptures are distributed free of charge rather than sold ,
they are often not listed on bestsellers .
At this point , the thing that caught my attention was the following :
even the total print volume of these two most - published books is currently below the world population of 8 billion .
In other words , there is no book that has been distributed to all the people .
We can also look at the issue from a historical perspective .
It is estimated that all people born to date are around 117 billion .
If we make a calculation , considering the birth and death rates in different periods ,
we find that all people who lived and died after Christ are around 60 billion .
Since then , even the most distributed book has managed to reach only one person out of 12 .
Let's come to the bestsellers ...
Do not forget that people willingly paid and read these books .
This is a pretty strong indicator .
All of the top 20 books have sold over 50 million copies .
The historical novel Ben - Hur is ranked 20th
Although The Bridges of Madison County is a relatively new novel ,
it has sold 60 million copies
Although they are in the top 20
I could not find whether these two books were translated into Turkish or not .
If you have any information , I would be glad if you share it as a comment
At the 18th , We see the novel " The Catcher in the Rye "
Despite being banned for a long time in many conservative areas of the US .
... for being " immoral " and " obscene , " it has been bought 65 million times to date
In 17th place is “The Alchemist,” a thin novel of about 188 pages.
Starting at number 16 , only one author's books begin to dominate the list :
J.K. Rowling .
Each of the books in the Harry Potter series has sold at least 65 million copies
Harry Potter became the best - selling book series in history ,
with a total of 500 million copies
So why do you think J. K. Rowling ,
who became the first billionaire in the publishing world
shortened her initials ?
Because of the recommendation of her original publisher
The publisher thought that male readers might be wary of reading a female author ,
and named it " J. K. Rowling "
Indeed , the bestseller list appears to be male - dominated .
There is only one female writer other than her in the top 20
Let's come to the top 10 best - selling books of all time ..
In 10th place we see Dan Brown's " The Da Vinci Code "
which is very immersive for mystery lovers , something that you can finish in one go .
At 9th , we see " Pinocchio " , a children's literature classic .
Its popularity skyrocketed when it became the subject of one of Disney's first cartoons in 1940 .
All of these top 20 best - selling books that ...
... I will mention today have been adapted into at least a movie or a series .
At 8th , We have " She : A History of Adventure " has been translated into Turkish as " Ayişe " .
Because in this novel , which tells the journey of an adventurous duo to the depths of Africa ,
the characters encounter a mysterious white queen named Ayişe ,
whom the locals call " She " and whom they regard as someone who must be obeyed .
At 7th , is another important series of children's literature ,
a book from C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series ,
I have seven of them right here ,
the second of the series took its place in the list as the seventh as a stand - alone .
" The Lion , the Witch , and the Wardrobe . "
This book , which also carries traces of Turkish mythology ,
has sold 85 million copies all over the world , more than the population of Turkey .
At the 6th place is a novel by Agatha Christie ,
the second and last female author of our list - the master of the mystery genre :
the second and last female author of our list - the master of the mystery genre :
And Then There Were None or Ten Little Niggers .
The 5th best - selling book of all time ,
" Dream of the Red Chamber , " is considered a masterpiece of Chinese literature .
I certainly know that this book has not been translated into Turkish ,
and I don't know when it will ever be translated .
there are too many characters and
I couldn't continue because the plot and the language was rather heavy .
It is the only book on this list that I haven't been able to read in its entirety .
The Little Prince " , which I keep recommending all the time
because it is one of my favorite books , comes at 4th place in our list because .
As you see we can call it a novelette which is thinner than hundred pages
I not only read it but also have prepared a video on its own before .
And I put this book among the 10000 ones that I have gifted to 1000 people in the previous years .
Thus you too , please read it and have it read by others and even listen to it .
Because of the list of the 20 best selling books of all time , including this book ,
is accessible to everyone on " Storytel " and has very good Turkish voiceovers .
" The Alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan had brought . "
You can listen to Paulo Coelho's Alchemist in Yiğit Özşener's voice .
There are four different versions of Pinocchio, one of the classics of children's literature.
These are all stories. No matter what genre it is, novel, novella, fantasy, mystery, historical fiction, there are not any non-fiction ones among them. Let alone the first twenty, you realize that some type of a pattern begins to form even when you go down to the first hundred.
For example, let me show you another example from the all-time bestseller list. Percy Jackson this is also a mythology- fantasy sort of book. In order to reach Cosmos, the best-selling scientific book of all time, we have to go down to the 40th place of the list. So what does this mean?
We humans really start to like the stories, even more, when they become a little mythological and a little fantastic. Getting back to our list you can see, at the top of the list on Wikipedia is ... .Charles Dickens' novel "A Tale of Two Cities". A Tale of Two Cities However,
there is something weird here as the references cited... as the source of this data keep making ... references to each other. So this is not very solid Also, this book was not originally published as a book. In 1859, it was published in chapters in newspaper for 31 weeks.
Therefore, when calculating 200 million sales, an inaccurate logic may have been used by including the 31-week edition of these newspapers. This issue has been on the agenda since 2009 on Wikipedia's talk page. Since then, it has been on and off the list every now and again. But many different discussions about these lists are constantly being made
and not only on Wikipedia's list too but New York Times' list etc. As well. For example, we see the novel "Hobbit" by J.R.R Tolkien in the second place of the list. However, the "Lord of the Rings" by the same author was sold much more than that. But because it was sometimes published as a single thick novel,
and sometimes as 3 separate books, It is evaluated differently in different lists.. On the other hand, the third book in the list is the first book in the Harry Potter series. It is in the 3rd place as a stand-alone book but if you consider it as a series it has sold over half a billion copies world wide. My purpose in going into all these details is to remind you not to rely too much on such lists,
we have a tendency to make judgments like the book A is better than the book B or the other way around. So much so that sometimes some act like experts without even reading the books, just by listening to comments and looking at the lists of others. There is something very striking about this. It takes place in the 1950s.
On a late-night radio show on the WOR radio channel in New York.. The host of the show is so tired of these people who claim to "know everything". He shrugs off so-called intellectuals. Of those who claim to be an expert of a book if that book makes it into any top lists, but doesn't even consider it if the book is not on such a list.
The same goes for prizes too. Of course, it is important for a movie to receive an award such as an Oscar or being featured in the Cannes festival, but this feature alone does not show that it is valuable or worthless. We must form our own value judgments based on our own experiences. Overwhelmed by such people,
the radio host makes a plan with his listeners at 2:00 at midnight. What do you say, if we all go to a bookstore tomorrow morning and ask for a book that doesn't exist? What an idea right? Everyone will rush to the bookstores at the same time
and ask for the same book, there will be a demand, for a nonexistent book. At that hour of the night, they come up with the idea for such a book. Title of the book: I, Libertine. First part of a trilogy. It has a story set in the 18th century. Author: Frederick R. Ewing.
He is an Oxford graduate who also participated in World War I. And all of what I'm saying is fake. There is neither such an author nor such a book written by him. Even so, they make up and take a decision with all the fine details. The next morning everyone goes to bookstores
and ask for this book in a very serious manner. I want the book "I, Libertine" by Frederick Ewing. The librarian will likely to answer the first- comers by saying, "We don't have it". But after some people ask for it, they would inevitably take a look at the inventory list and check it. When more and more people ask for it,
they will immediately make calls and start inquiring for publishers and distributers. It really happens like that. Publishing houses are faced with hundreds of demands at once for a book that doesn't exist. Publishers Weekly, a highly prestigious industry magazine for publishers, librarians, and booksellers, immediately start to search for the publisher of this book.
Finally, the New York Times newspaper, which is considered the greatest authority on books, had to mention the name of this book in its "new releases" column. Of course, without knowing anything about its subject. But even so this dynamism in the sector was enough for those who "know a lot". The book was all over them some claim to like it some not.
In fact, when the book and its author are mentioned to one of them, he gives the following answer: "Ewing! It was time for the public to discover this man." Come on, you did discover the man first and now it is turn for the common folks, is that so?
There are book clubs you know, for people to gather around and read books and make comments and so on, those who say they started reading this novel in such clubs, and those who say they didn't like it increased in numbers. So in social groups, the book takes its glory. Almost everyone has a positive or negative opinion.
But above all, a columnist starts talking about having coffee with Frederick Ewing whom he refers to as Freddy and meeting his wife Marjorie on his way to India, they even improvised a wife for him. This madness is getting bigger and bigger. Reviews of the book begin to appear in magazines and newspapers.
7 weeks after the radio show where the idea came up at a midnight program, this book hit the "bestseller" lists not only in the USA, but also in all major cities such as Paris, Rome, and London. Were you all sleep-walking for god's sake, you might be asking, but of course, even back then there was some real journalist hiding somewhere.
One of the investigative journalists said that I would really find and read this book, and meanwhile, logical explanations emerged as to why the book could not be found, with rumors like it was banned Boston and so on. Despite all this, the journalist finally traced backed the work to the end and
and realized that all this was a hoax that emerged from the radio show. This is what I meant when I said in the beginning that... ..we will never be able to read one of the "bestselling" books. But in fact, you can read this book if you really want to. I found it to be a bit pricy so not get it.
But the book does exist now. Because you know what happened after the event? Broadcasters reached out to that radio host and asked him to write this book. And he did, and very soon after it was published, the book actually hit the bestseller list.