Designer and illustrator Jared Fanning recently created a graphic to showcase the top 10 most read books in the world. Curious to learn which books are the most popular? Check out the top 10 here.
Do any of the books on this list surprise you? Have you read any of them? What books would YOU most recommend reading?
Keiser Writes - Getting the Words Write 
Jun 09, 2012 @ 14:48:38
Reblogged this on Shelf Fulfillment and commented:
Staggering numbers. Also the majority are very recent titles.
Jun 11, 2012 @ 06:40:25
The Holy Bible by far is my favorite. What I feel is amazing about the book is no matter how many times you read a passage or a chapter, you can actually receive a different interpretation. I have learned from a very young age that no matter what I’m going through seek council through prayer and the bible. Out of all the books in the world the bible is the most sold, and it is for a great reason.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 19:29:08
I have yet to read the bible but what i have heard from people is that it is a must read for everyone, and you learn a lot, i have tried reading it before but i can quite understand it though because of the vocabulary used and the way the sentences are structured.
Jun 11, 2012 @ 07:16:07
Yes, most are very recent. It’s encouraging to learn how much people are reading nowadays. There was more excitement around a new Harry Potter book release than any blockbuster film I can remember. By the way, thanks for the reblog. Your blog has introduced me to others that I now follow.
Jun 11, 2012 @ 07:22:17
Javier, The Bible is the most read book by far! You’re right. Many passages from The Bible can be interpreted in different ways.
Jun 11, 2012 @ 13:21:26
This list was really interesting. I wasn’t surprised that The Bible was the most well-read book. It’s something that most of us have read at one time or another, even if we don’t read it on a regular basis. Most of us probably had a Bible our homes growing up, and the Gideon Bibles used to be placed in the nightstands at most hotels. I read online that the Gideon Organization started doing this in 1908 and has distributed almost 2 billion Bibles in hotels around the world! (Soniak, 2012) I thought that was a pretty amazing statistic!
I’ve actually read about half of the books on this list. I thought I would have read more of them! 😦 But a couple of them, like The Alchemist, are definitely on my list of books to read. I recently downloaded The Alchemist to the Kindle app on my iPad. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to read it sometime over the summer! 🙂
Jun 11, 2012 @ 14:08:08
Thanks for the informative post!
Many people do have a copy of The Bible at home that they peruse from time to time, and practicing Christians have surely heard many Bible passages at church. I also read parts of The Bible in Catholic school. The first time I ever heard of the Gideon Bible, though, was in “Rocky Raccoon,” a song by The Beatles. Maybe you’ve heard it? The first lines are: “Rocky Raccoon / fell into his room / only to find Gideon’s Bible.” Rocky ends up dueling with another man over a girl and getting shot (but not killed). The final lyrics of the song are: “Now Rocky Raccoon / fell back in his room / only to find Gideon’s Bible. / Gideon checked out / and he left it no doubt / to help with good Rocky’s revival.” Years later I came to understand that Gideon wasn’t just a name that Lennon and McCartney had made up.
Back to the subject. After posting the link to this list, I looked up other such lists and noticed that several didn’t include The Bible or any other religious or political texts because, since they’re often given away, it’s difficult to accurately calculate how many people have actually read them. Notice that the second most read book on the list is by Chinese Communist leader Chairman Mao. There was probably a time during the Cultural Revolution in China when people were expected to own that book … or else!
Jun 14, 2012 @ 11:07:08
Yes, I’m really surprise that the Twilight saga and The Diary of Anne Frank have less interest then the lord of the ring, because the diary of Anne frank is one of the known children book that taught us about the history about the Jews. Yes, I have read most of these books; one of my favorite is The Diary of Anne Frank. The reason I like this book or know a lot about it, because when I was in middle school, we learn about history of what happen . I would recommend reading Think and grown rich because its sound likes an awesome book and it caught my eye and the book Harry Potter because it’s well-known
Jun 14, 2012 @ 11:15:02
The Diary of Anne Frank is regularly read in schools, much more so than The Lord of the Rings. It definitely impacted me when I first read it. However, the recent popularity of the films based on the trilogy probably got a lot of people interested in reading The Lord of the Rings again.
Jun 14, 2012 @ 11:24:38
I should note that, if you look at the left-hand side of the chart, it says “past 50 years” in parentheses, so this top 10 list shows which books sold the most in the past 50 years alone. A list of the most read books OF ALL TIME would probably look different. That would be tough to calculate, though, since reliable sales records may be hard to come by for certain times and places throughout history.
Jun 20, 2012 @ 19:24:09
I am surprised that the bible is the most read book in the world because there’s a lot of people that believe in the bible and some that don’t and have different beliefs. Apart of that twilight was another most read personally I didn’t think it’s so good as people say it is,and I only watch the first one.Anna Frank has to be my favorite out of the 10 top books. I saw her story and related to her life. The Holocaust was horrible I cant imagine what she was going threw at that time. She was smart enough to write in her diary her daily routine. Finally I have never liked Harry Potters book or movies so I cant really say much I just don’t like all the fiction in it.
Jun 21, 2012 @ 01:21:24
I’ve read the Twilight saga and Harry Potter plus The Bible. I already thought that these would be there before I clicked on the link! I honestly prefer reading Twilight and Harry Potter 100 times before watching the movies. These books are very descriptive and they are way better than the movies ! I have ready twilight, new moon, and ect more than i could remember. The movies are good, but the books are the ones that usually leave me wanting to read some more, and wanting to know what will happen next.
Jun 21, 2012 @ 11:33:23
Stephy, The Diary of Anne Frank does have a powerful effect on most people who read it. It certainly did on me when I was in high school.
Yani, when people watch a film version of a book they’ve read, they almost always prefer the book! This happens to me all the time. I often feel angry that a particular scene was cut out or that a detail was different. I also recognize, though, that film is a completely different artform and that a movie can be faithful to a story without recreating it exactly as it was written in the book.
Oct 15, 2012 @ 21:55:44
It is very nice to see that the Holy Bible is still very important and interesting for many people. However the others books yes they are very good books but some of then probably are more famous because of the movies, personally I am not good reading but now seen this list is gonna help me to start with any of those mention. Probably Harry Potter will be the first just because the movies were some of my favorites, so I hope the book is as good as the movie. Thank you for sharing this with us I did not even know it was a book of the Lord of the Ring.
Oct 16, 2012 @ 11:41:13
Monica, you’re right. Some of the books in this list do have hugely successful film versions. Still, Lord of the Rings, the Twilight books, and Harry Potter were all incredibly popular books before they had movies. I definitely recommend the Harry Potter series if you liked the films. The films are great, but the books are better!
Oct 16, 2012 @ 19:55:52
The top 10 books really didn’t suprise me. Most people have read the Holy Bible especially if they are a church goer. The Diary of Ann Frank was a mandatory book in high school for english and it was a core class so everyone took it and had to read it to pass the final. Twilight Saga was a very popular series so i totally understand how that became on the list. I have also read Twilight and was a pretty big fan. Harry Potter was also a huge hit but I just never could get into it. On the other hand, Da Vinci code was probably my favorite and had people talking for awhile. The other books I probably wouldn’t read willingly as to none of them strike my interest. Although, i do feel that this is a very good list of top 10 books to refer to a friend for decent reading material.
Oct 17, 2012 @ 07:31:30
Casey, it’s not surprising that you’re not interested in all the books in this top 10. Although this is a list of the most popular books of the last 50 years, there are definitely many books I prefer that aren’t on the list.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 01:08:19
‘m not surpirse about the rankings because i feel that it’s pretty accurate. I’ve read the Harry Potter Sagas, Twilight, and the Da Vinci Code and my favorite out of the three is the Twilight Sage, but i recomend reading the Da Vinci Code its a great book to read.
Oct 18, 2012 @ 14:16:21
Alex, have you read The Hunger Games? If you like book series, you’d probably enjoy it.
Nov 14, 2012 @ 20:56:58
Some of the books on the Top 10 Most Read Books list surprise me. For example, although learning about the Holocaust and Anne Frank in middle/high school is a mandatory subject, I would have never imagined that The Diary of Anne Frank would be on the Top 10 Most Read Books list. Although there are many religious people throughout the world, I wouldn’t have thought that The Holy Bible would be the top most read book. The majority of the books on this list, however, did not catch me by surprise. The Twilight Saga, Harry Potter, and The Lord of the Rings are extremely famous books that became very popular at one point and have remained on top. I have not read all of the books on this list, but I definitely would recommend reading the Harry Potter novels.
Nov 15, 2012 @ 11:51:26
Chris, I definitely encourage you to begin reading he Harry Potter series. Of course, the books won’t be as exciting if you’ve seen the films and already know what happens, but it’s still worth it.
Nov 15, 2012 @ 15:50:24
Wow, I must say I am surprised for the books in the list. I was also surprised that the most read book is the Bible. I have not read it completely, but as a child I did read the children’s version a couple of times. In regards to the rest of the books I was even more surprised that I did not read any of them. I did read a couple of diary entries from the Diary of Anne Frank, but not the whole book. I did attempt to read the Lord of the Rings, but it was way too much fiction for my taste. I am not a big fan of the Lord of the Rings nor Harry Potter type of books or movies; I did fall sleep during their movies.
I must confess that I will look into Gone with the Wind and the Alchemist.
Nov 15, 2012 @ 16:02:00
Gaby, it’s no big deal if you haven’t read these particular books, so long as you’re reading. We all have different tastes.
You were surprised about the Bible. Of course, many people have read the Bible over the last 50 years, but there are also many people who own a copy of it that they’ve never read or that they’ve read only partially. We can calculate how many Bibles have been sold in the last 50 years, but there’s no way to accurately calculate how many have really been read.
Jan 30, 2013 @ 18:57:50
The most read book in the world has to be the bible, but i would recommend the adventures of tom sawyer, captain underpants, or the hunger games, or forrest gump. I also saw the film of forrest gump and it is very interesting, very valuable and can teach you a lot about life, and shows how a slow person can be successful.
Mar 26, 2013 @ 23:58:41
No surprise that the most reading book is the Bible, but I think a lot of people read it just for fun, and does not apply any of what they read. I have begun to read “The Da Vinci Code”, at a point I got really confused. I watch the movie instead, but I’m sure I missed a lot of explanation from that. It is a really good book.
Mar 27, 2013 @ 10:10:21
Marie, maybe now that you’ve seen the film The Da Vinci Code, you can go back to the book and understand it better. Maybe you’ll pick up more details.
Mar 27, 2013 @ 17:59:09
when i have doubts on anything i just ask God for an answer, and i open the BIBLE “any page” and the answer is there for me, this is the experiece that i have with this wonderful book i have’t read it all but everytime i opened for answers amazed me more.
Mar 27, 2013 @ 18:20:35
Kerly, that’s interesting because the traditional way to read a book is, of course, from beginning to end, yet people read the Bible in many different ways.