Best-sellers

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

It's sad to see how big a business religion still is.

Religion and good Gin is the opiate of the masses.

Ok, I added the Gin part

[tugon (imported)]

Religion and good Gin is the opiate of the masses.

Ok, I added the Gin part

Please always add gin.

[Paolo]

Harry also lost half of his followers after the 1st book!

LOL

They are poorly written, you see.

[MacTheWolf (imported)]

If there was really a Gawd (or Goddess), they'd give me a neat Dark Lord outfit and the red habit of a Mother Superior

[Riverwind (imported)]

Frodo kicked Harry's ass!

So far,

River

[gareth19 (imported)]

A listing of the 15 best selling books of all time:

1 – The Bible (of course, with a long history and over a billion believers)

2 – Quotations from Chairman Mao (The Little Red Book)

Put together by the People’s Liberation Army in 1964 and has sold over 800 million copies worldwide.

3 – The Qur’an has sold over 800 million copies

4 – Xinhua Dictionary (primary editor: Wei Jiangong)

A 1957 dictionary of Chinese simplified characters with English translations of each has sold over 400 million copies.

5 – The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkein has sold 150 million copies.

6 – The Book of Mormon, by Joseph Smith, Jr. was first published in 1830 and has sold over 120 million copies.

7 – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling has sold over 107 million copies since it was first published in 1997.

8 – And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie has sold over 100 million copies since 1939.

9 – The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown has sold over 80 million copies.

10 – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling has sold 65 million copies since 2005.

11 – Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling has sold over 60 million copies.

12 – The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger has sold over 60 million copies.

13 – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling has sold over 55 million copies.

14 – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling has sold 55 million copies.

15 – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling has sold 55 million copies.

16 – Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ, by Lew Wallace has sold 50 million copies since it was published in 1880. (I decided to go to number 16 so we wouldn’t end with Harry Potter!)

Has anything surprised you about this list?

.

Just because you have a copy of the Bible, Mao, Dam Brown or the Book of Mormon doesn't mean you read it. Personally, unless compelled, I would never read the Book of Mormon (and certainly not in temple where it is rude to laugh out loud).

[Riverwind (imported)]

I have the same problem when I read it myself, temple not needed. Funny that list, as I look in my book shelf I have all but 4.

River

[gareth19 (imported)]

I have the same problem when I read it myself, temple not needed. Funny that list, as I look in my book shelf I have all but 4.

River

I no longer have the DaVinci Code; it was so awful I chucked it. I deliberately left Twilight on a bench; I didn't want to contaminate the garbage can.

[transward (imported)]

One thing I notice about the list is that, aside from the first four, every book on the list was written in English, which arouses my suspicion about the persons who compiled the list and their sources. I would expect at least one or two in Chinese or Spanish or French and suspect that the list is compiled from the sales figures of Western publishers.

Transward

[Dave (imported)]

I no longer have the DaVinci Code; it was so awful I chucked it. I deliberately left Twilight on a bench; I didn't want to contaminate the garbage can.

I started to read TWILIGHT for a discussion group and made it 28 pages before I quit. TWILIGHT was written for girls and women. They love it. You were not the target audience. I asked my nieces and they grabbed it up and read it and loved it. Like I said, I couldn't stand it.

As for "Da Vinci Code" -- I got a price on the "Illustrated" version which contained pictures of all the locations, landmarks and statues and paintings in the book. You would be surprised how much better that made the experience of reading the book. Granted, it's not the best English grammar or writing but then, it's entertaining. However, I don't have good things to say about his other books.

I remember a fuss in the computer word about Chinese, Japanese and Korean written languages having more than 65K characters. That was a big number because computer chips at the time only addressed 64K items. Japan solved the problem by creating a second greatly simplified alphabet for international use. All Japanese know two written languages. They don't consider it a burden. To them it's part of doing business. However, Korean and Chinese never moved in that direction. so the Chinese Dictionary might have been like the Oxford English Dictionary -- the source document and the authority for all things written in Chinese and that would explain why it sold so many copies.

We tend to think of dictionaries as being ubiquitous and languages as being codified and presented in textbooks for learning. That is not true for huge chunks of the world.