The 20 Most Popular Books Throughout History

20 THE MOST POPULAR BOOKS Throughout History In 2016, the most popular book in the world was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne. However, when we look through history, not all blockbuster books have been about boy wizards. 10TH - 4TH CENTURY BC | Ching 8TH CENTURY BC by Fu Hsi, King Wên, the Duke of Chou & Confucius The Iliad Cand The Odyssey by Homer The oldest of the Chinese classics, I Ching is still one of the greatest books in world literature. Modern enthusiasts insist that it DID 9 remains the most sophisticated method of predicting future events ever devised. The lliad and The Odyssey are epic poems about the Trojan War and Greek hero Odysseus, respectively. YOU & KNOW No one knows for sure whether Homer was a he or she. The ancient Greeks believed he was DID O YOU & 5TH - 3RD CENTURY BC a blind nomad, while 19th century scholars argued Homer was in fact a woman. KNOW The Analects by Confucius and contemporaries 380 BC The Republie by Plato A collection of ideas and sayings, The Analects is the central text of Confucianism and essential to understanding China and its history. Featuring Socrates and other Athenians, it is considered to be one of the world's Confucius never wrote his books. DID 9 His students got together to compile his thoughts into a useful compendium. most influential works of political and philosophy theory. Yου δ KNOW Many of the central elements of Christian theology are explicitly rooted in Plato. DID Yου KNOW 300 BC Elements 3RD CENTURY BC by Euclid The Dhammapada The most important mathematics book of all time, Elements invented how mathematicians do maths. A collection of sayings and wisdom of the Buddha in 423 short verses. Abraham Lincoln admitted he felt greatly influenced by three YOU 8 works: William Shakespeare's works, the King James Bible, and Euclid's Elements. DID In 2010, an English translation of The Dhammapada was made into a musical. DID KNOW Yου KNOW 2ND - 4TH CENTURY AD The Holy Bible 609 - 632 AD The Quran by Muhammad and companions Also known as the Scriptures, but more commonly The Holy Bible, it has sold over 5 billion copies worldwide. DID The Bible is most shoplifted book in the world. YOU Widely regarded as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language, it has sold over 3 billion copies worldwide. KNOW 1532 DID? Honey is considered the best food in the Quran. Υου δ The Prince KNOW by Niccoló Machiavelli 1605 - 1615 Don Quixete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra A highly influential book which is often claimed to be one of the first works of modern political philosophy. Published in two volumes, Don Quixote The book was actually satire. Machiavelli never meant it as a is most influential work of literature DID YOU from the Spanish Golden Age. KNOW 'how to' book. Don Quixote is considered the first modern novel, in terms of its story arcs and nuance in dialogue and characterization. DID YOU 1623 KNOW William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft Published in a large-scale double-columned folio format, this collection is responsible for preserving at least half of the world's greatest writer's plays. One of the earliest works of feminist According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 2 Shakespeare wrote about one-tenth of the most quotable quotations ever written or spoken in English. philosophy, it lays out the tenets of what today is called "equality" feminist theory. DID Yου δ' KNOW Mary Wollstonecraft wrote a book about the 'rights of men' before she wrote her more famous book. DID YOU & KNOW 1848 The Communist Manifesto 1859 On the Origin of Species by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by Charles Darwin Marx and Engels lay out their theories about the nature of politics and society. The foundation of evolutionary biology, it introduces a scientific theory that populations evolve over time through After attending a conference 2 where people were twisting his words, Marx famously quipped: "All I know is Il'm not a Marxist." DID natural selection. YOU KNOW Darwin waited 23 years to present his work to the public because he was concerned about the huge controversy that would entail. DID 2 YOU KNOW 1869 War and Peace 1949 by Leo Tolstoy The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir Regarded as one of the central works of world literature, it charts the history of the French invasion of Russia through the eyes of five aristocratic Russian families. A frank discussion of female sexuality, The Second Sex is both controversial It took Tolstoy 5 years to finish the 1300 page epic. DID and greatly admired. YOU KNOW De Beauvoir was deeply religious DID 9 until, at the age of 14, she YOU KNOW suffered a crises of faith and became an atheist. 1949 A Sand County Almanae 1987 Beloved by Aldo Leopold by Toni Morrison Among the most influential books about the natural world ever published. Set after the American Civil War, The book was little noticed DID 2 when published but, during the environmental awakening of the 1970s, it became a bestseller. Beloved is about an African-American woman who escaped slavery. YOU KNOW DID O YOU KNOW When Beloved didn't win the National Book Award in 1987, fellow writers protested. 1990s/2000s Harry Potter 2011 by J.K. Rowling Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James A series of fantasy novels, chronicling the life of a boy wizard. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication. She went on to become the world's first billionaire author. An erotic romance novel originally self-published as an eBook. DID YOU KNOW The book was banned in some DID YOU & American public libraries because of its sexual content. KNOW GLOBALEnglishEditing