best selling books in history

Shere Hite revolutionized the lives of women when she published her most famous book in 1976. The Hite Report A Nationwide Study of Female uality was by far the bestselling book in history relating to the often taboo subject of female uality and pleasure. A feminist and educator, Hite interviewed 100,000 women from 14 to 78 years old about their views on , what orgasm truly feels like, and the greatest pleasures and frustrations in their ual lives. Published during the free love revolution, The Hite Report was an open, honest, and direct book for women about their uality.

The Italian bestseller on our list Pinocchio has only sold 35 million copies, Il Nome della Rosa English The Name of the Rose was written by novelist Umberto Eco in 1980. Showing our love for murder mysteries is another, the novel follows William of Baskerville, a Franciscan friar who must find the killer of multiple murders at a Northern Italian monastery. The novel is intriguing for its involvement of semiotics the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation throughout the story.

Better known by many for its film version, this 1992 novel is one of the 20th centurys bestsellers despite being on the market for less than a decade. Written by Robert James Waller, The Bridges of Madison County depicts the affair between a lonely, married woman in Iowa and a photographer who visits Madison County to take photographs of the areas covered bridges. At over 50 million copies already sold, this book is one of the most rapidly selling books of all time and was even adapted into a musical in 2013.

A fictional comingofage tale, J.D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye was one of the most controversial books of the 20th century. An archetype for teenage angst, rebellion, and the search for identity, this novel continues to sell over a quarterofamillion copies annually, many to high school English classes some of which have made the book required reading.

Having sold over 65 million copies, O Alquimista English The Alchemist is the best selling Brazilian book and Portugueselanguage book in history. Published in 1988 by Paolo Coelho, the book follows Andalusian shepherd boy Santiago on his journey to Egypt to find the abstract concept of what he has always wanted to achieve the books primary theme.

Featuring one of only two American authors in the top ten the other is #9, Think and Grow Rich was a selfimprovement book written by Napoleon Hill in 1937. Asked to look at the relationship between individual characteristics and wealth attainment by steel giant Andrew Carnegie, Hill embodied his 13 principles of personal achievement into the book, a hotcake as countries were beginning to emerge from the Great Depression.

The most recently published book in the top ten of the most widely read books in the world, The Da Vinci Code was a global phenomenon in the mid2000s. A mysterydetective novel written by Dan Brown, the book follows main characters Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder at the Louvre and are embroiled in a deeper, sacrilegious called by some groups mystery regarding the Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene.

Starting a line of primarily British author domination for the remaining places on our list, C.S. Lewis and his fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe come in at #8 with 85 million copies sold. Present in many a high school English class, the novel follows the story of four English children completing their destiny in the land of talking animals and mythical beings. Though the book is only one the first in a sevennovel series, it is by far the bestselling.

The only Chinese book on our list is Cao Xueqins Dream of the Red Chamber . Such a major hit in China, the book even has its own named field of study Redology. Considered to be one of Chinas Four Great Classical Novels, Dream of the Red Chamber is one of the most complex novels ever written with almost 40 major characters and nearly 500 minor characters. Written during the Qing dynasty, the book often employs poetry as it follows the life of two aristocratic families and their declining wealth and status.

So influential that it has been cited by psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung in their writings, She A History of Adventure is H. Rider Haggards most famous work. One of the finest examples of imaginative and imperialist literature, this novel tells the story of two mens trek to a lost kingdom deep in the African continent. The men come across a savage native tribe and their white queen Shewhomustbeobeyed. A bedrock of the Lost World subgenre, She purports many Victorian ideas of race and evolution.