# Bests-selling books it seems nobody reads **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666 "2016-05-02T03:57:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TheChileanBlob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thechileanblob/32/435_2.png) [@TheChileanBlob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheChileanBlob)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/21 "2016-05-06T02:49:18Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I read A Brief History of Time , it was very boring and confusing. I learned nothing from it. I was fine up until chapter five, then my brain exploded. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/22 "2016-05-06T05:15:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I curate a used-book library at my church which takes up a full room, with decent turnover. I’ve never seen Mountains Beyond Mountains, Strengths 2.0, A New Earth, Multiple Bles8ings, Going Rogue, Wild Animus, Dianetics, or The Satanic Verses (though I think we did get something else by Rushdie). Now, some of those are doubtless selected against by the demographics of a fairly liberal Catholic church, but I question the premise of others. It would be kind of funny if the next donation includes ALL of those titles. It’s been almost 30 years since “The Satanic Verses” came out, and the one person I can recall who said she read it (or tried to, anyway) gave up not very far into it and gave it to the library at the small town where she lived. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/23 "2016-05-06T09:08:59Z")
I read the Satanic Verses and liked it a lot. But it’s a literary novel, not trashy throwaway stuff, so it’s not for everyone. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/24 "2016-05-06T12:53:47Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > …So I’d say it was a marketing fail, rather than a failure by the author or the book itself… If it sold net 600+ units in your store alone, may all marketing campaigns fail as badly! ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/25 "2016-05-06T13:02:31Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > French Economist **Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century** was a bestseller. It combed through extensive income and tax data maintained over more than a hundred years to show that in an economic system, r\>g (interest \> rate of GDP growth) leads to income inequality. > > That sounds so cool, they should just have it on the checkout line as an impulse buy, right? > > I want to say someone did a Kindle analysis and it was a book where folks stopped very early. The analysis that I remembered similar to this was a story about the “average page citation” of Piketty’s work. The analysts compiled data showing the page # of the average citation of “scholarly” non-fiction works that have become best-sellers\* (therefore, if you have two citations, one for page 2 and the other for page 100, the average page citation would be 51), with the hypothesis being that the earlier the average citation, the fewer people who actually read the complete work. The Piketty book broke the record with the average page citation being page 29. The record was previously held by A Brief History in Time, which had an average page citation in the high thirties. I’m pretty sure I read this on Business Insider, so that that for what you will. \*Brief History of Time, Godel Escher Bach… books like that. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/26 "2016-05-06T13:04:54Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > So I’d say it was a marketing fail, rather than a failure by the author or the book itself. > [@JohnT](#): > > If it sold net 600+ units in your store alone, may all marketing campaigns fail as badly! Sorry, when I wrote this I thought you had sold “a thousand” and returned 300, but I misremembered. Still - the marketing campaign allowed the publisher to book non-existent revenues for the fourth quarter, ensuring executives hit their bonus targets, so it wasn’t all a waste! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/27 "2016-05-06T17:41:04Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Sorry, when I wrote this I thought you had sold “a thousand” and returned 300, but I misremembered. > > Still - the marketing campaign allowed the publisher to book non-existent revenues for the fourth quarter, ensuring executives hit their bonus targets, so it wasn’t all a waste! 😃 By Jove! I think you’ve got it! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/28 "2016-05-06T19:40:55Z")
Snooki of “Jersey Shore” fame had a book on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m sure many copies were bought by her fans. I doubt many copies got read. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/29 "2016-05-06T20:29:09Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I read the Satanic Verses and liked it a lot. > > But it’s a literary novel, not trashy throwaway stuff, so it’s not for everyone. True. In fact, the subject of “Best Selling Books Nobody Seems to Read” can be broken up into at least several categories. 1. Literary novels written for a specific audience that inadvertently become best-sellers due to some controversy involving the author (e.g., Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” which resulted in Iran imposing a fatwa on him or Soviet dissident Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag” books); 2. Academic books mostly written for upper-level and post-graduate college courses that unexpectedly find their way onto the best-seller list because they touch upon a then-hot socio-political issue (e.g., Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century”); and 3. Fad books. These can be fiction (the “Fifty Shades” series) or non-fiction (“Chicken Soup for the Soul”) and sweep through the publishing world like a hurricane only for the fad to quickly dissipate a few years later leaving behind millions of regretful purchases and stacks of volumes at used book stores. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/30 "2016-05-06T21:00:14Z")
Yes, for god’s sake, don’t imitate “Fifty Shades of Gray” it only sold 70 million copies, and who wants THAT kind of success? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/31 "2016-05-06T21:06:28Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Snooki of “Jersey Shore” fame had a book on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m sure many copies were bought by her fans. I doubt many copies got read. But in their defense, most of them _did_ look at the pictures. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/32 "2016-05-06T21:07:44Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Snooki of “Jersey Shore” fame had a book on the New York Times bestseller list. I’m sure many copies were bought by her fans. I doubt many copies got read. Jwoww did too. I found a copy really cheap (can’t remember where) and put it in my antique mall booth for a while, and then decided to take it to a consignment shop. Don’t know if it sold there. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/33 "2016-05-06T21:13:41Z")
I just looked up “The Gulag Archipelago” on Amazon, and a condensed version is ranked at #41,212. Other editions have decent rankings; I’m very aware that it’s still on recommended- or required-reading lists for some students. The rank will probably rise a bit when summer school beckons. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/34 "2016-05-06T23:30:20Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > True. In fact, the subject of “Best Selling Books Nobody Seems to Read” can be broken up into at least several categories. > > 1. Literary novels written for a specific audience that inadvertently become best-sellers due to some controversy involving the author (e.g., Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” which resulted in Iran imposing a fatwa on him or Soviet dissident Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag” books); > 2. Academic books mostly written for upper-level and post-graduate college courses that unexpectedly find their way onto the best-seller list because they touch upon a then-hot socio-political issue (e.g., Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century”); and > 3. Fad books. These can be fiction (the “Fifty Shades” series) or non-fiction (“Chicken Soup for the Soul”) and sweep through the publishing world like a hurricane only for the fad to quickly dissipate a few years later leaving behind millions of regretful purchases and stacks of volumes at used book stores. 4: Books with deliberately artificially inflated sales. Some organizations - Scientology has already been mentioned - will try to make a book appear more popular than it is by just buying them in bulk and dumping them unopened in a used book store somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![txjim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f07891/32.png) [@txjim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/txjim)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/35 "2016-05-07T02:28:54Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > Many many moons ago I worked in a bookstore. One Christmas, we sold hundreds of copies of “The Gulag Archipelago” as THE Christmas gift book of the year. By the end of January, 300 of those books had been returned, unread. Best time to read it is during the hottest part of the summer. Cools the body quickly and makes mowing the lawn much less of a chore ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/36 "2016-05-07T02:43:31Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > The Bible is fairly widely available. Few have read it. Not entirely true. Millions of people read much of the Bible. But there are whole books nobody ever looks at. Ask even a fundamentalist to explain what’s in the Books of Obadiah, Zephaniah or Nahum, and you’ll get an embarrassed shrug. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/37 "2016-05-07T02:58:46Z")
What I learned in my brief period of bestsellerness is just how FEW hardcovers you need to sell. No specifics, but IIRC it was in the very low four digits. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2016, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/38 "2016-05-07T05:09:25Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I just looked up “The Gulag Archipelago” on Amazon, and a condensed version is ranked at #41,212. Other editions have decent rankings; I’m very aware that it’s still on recommended- or required-reading lists for some students. The rank will probably rise a bit when summer school beckons. I’d expect that _One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich_ would be more popular, as it makes much the same points in a more easily digestible way. (And I’ve read both _Ivan_ and _the Gulag Achipelago_ so I do know whereof I speak.) ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/39 "2016-05-08T00:07:55Z")
> [@F.U.Shakespeare](#): > > Around 1990, \*Spy \*magazine did an article on this subject. IIRC, “A Brief History of Time” was ranked second-highest in not being read, behind Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses”. I bought “The Satanic Verses” when the controversy and fatwah were a Big News Item, in solidarity with Free Press and yadda yadda. Then I tried to read the damn thing. I have a degree in literature. I’ve read Russian novels where everyone has fifteen names and there are forty-three subplots. I read Victorian British novels for fun. I enjoyed Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “A Hundred Years of Solitude”. I couldn’t read Rushdie. Admittedly, I was very young and might do better now, but I’ve decided to leave Rushdie to others. ---
**Author:** ![btcg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@btcg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/btcg)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2016, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666/40 "2016-05-08T00:36:47Z")
> [@stillownedbysetters](#): > > Re Gulag… > > \*\*It was highly marketed as an excellent Christmas choice, \*\*and many people purchasing last minute Christmas gifts or gifts for people they don’t know well tend to choose a nice book on the best seller’s list, without knowing or caring what it might actually be about. > > So I’d say it was a marketing fail, rather than a failure by the author or the book itself. > > FWIW, I read all three of the Gulag books and was absolutely riveted. But I wouldn’t have recommended them to most casual readers. > > Damfino, I’m thinking it was either 1973 or 1974, if I recall correctly. Definitely in that window. For whom… Trotsky? :smack: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bests-selling-books-it-seems-nobody-reads/753666.md?page=3)