The Top Ten Books

June 06, 2012

Most of the time, I guess I’m pretty self-centered when it comes to books. I pick what looks good to me, usually by the cover, and I don’t really think too much about what others are reading. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do put a lot of thought into the books I choose for our Evening Book Club and for those patrons who need book suggestions, but I really don’t think of book readers as a worldwide community.

Recently, I saw a post on another blog, RA for All, that listed the top ten most read books in the world. Surprisingly, six of the ten are fiction and several are current popular reads. Here’s the list:

• Holy Bible
• Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung
• Harry Potter
• The Lord of the Rings
• The Alchemist
• The Da Vinci Code
• The Twilight Saga
• Gone With the Wind
• Think and Grow Rich
• The Diary of Anne Frank

After seeing the list, I had one of those "I’m a little speck of dust in this great big world" moments where I pictured a group of girls in India reading Twilight and students in Africa picking up Harry Potter for the first time. I guess it made me think about the ways in which books bring a commonality to all of us. No matter where we are in the world, books bring us together.

Jessica S.
Colbern Road Branch