The OP’s memory is correct on hidden prizes secreted within unread copies of A Brief History of Time.
It and many of the others mentioned in the threads are known as Emperors’ New Books, as explained in this New York Times article.
Various books with titles along the lines of The X Report or similar.
The Warren Report summarizing the Warren Commission’s findings on the JFK assassination was a big seller. I doubt very few at the time read it. It was more of a memento. (Although I suspect most that buy it now are doing so for not just reading, but as a study basis for conspiracy theories as well.)
The Hite Report on Female Sexuality got a lot of attention when it came out. But people soon found out it was mostly clinical and not all that lurid. When The Hite Report on Men and Male Sexuality came out later, it didn’t get anywhere near the interest.
Less than fun reads about topics of great interest at the time.
Other JFK related non-fiction also sold well, some even before he died. E.g., the first of Theodore H. White’s Making of a President series for 1960 was a bestseller but mainly used for making your bookshelf look classier. The later books in the series did not sell nearly as well in part because of people who tried to read the first one but gave up.
JFK’s own Profiles in Courage was also probably not read by many of its buyers, but the percentage is no doubt lower than for some other titles given so far.
You win.
I read both of these for a book club. The first I thought was OK (although my Episcopal priest once said wisely, “There’s a reason it’s in the FICTION section of the bookstore”), and was less than impressed by the second, although I did finish it.
My sister owned an independent bookstore at the time of the Ayatollah’s fatwa and I wanted to do my part to stand up for free speech, so I bought and read it. I was baffled much of the time but am glad I took a chance on it. I recently also read Joseph Anton, Rushdie’s very engrossing autobiography (most of it about his time under British police protection), which led me to a collection of his essays, Imaginary Homelands, which was uneven but mostly worthwhile.
I read and liked both books very much. I just recommended White’s book to my political-junkie teenage son, as it happens. It’s a nuts-and-bolts American campaign classic.
I have read all of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past, depending on which translation you’re reading. It took me a year, but I found it very enjoyable. It does help to have some familiarity with late-19th-century French culture.
I’ve read some of the others mentioned in this thread, but special mention should go to The Satanic Verses. I was here in Thailand when it came out, and Thailand promptly banned it. This is not a Muslim country of course, but there is a sizable Muslim population, particularly in the Deep South. I asked my father, who was still alive back then, to mail me a copy, and it’s somewhat thrilling to read a banned book in a country where it’s banned. Today however, it can be found on in local bookstores. I don’t know if the ban was lifted or if just no one cares anymore.
One that’s not been mentioned here is War and Peace. It’s shorter than some Stephen King novels but always portrayed as this heavy, deep-thinking tome, to be read while seated in an overstuffed chair in your personal library, wearing a smoking jacket and puffing on your pipe, but I found it very readable. However, as with Proust, it helps to have a little understanding of the time period. Anna Karenina is another one of Tolstoy’s I enjoyed.
There are an awful lot of bible study classes in churches.
40 years ago “The Pentagon Papers” would be high on this list. One of my friends bought it when it came out and admitted a year later that he hadn’t touched it since bringing it home from the book store. “But if Nixon didn’t want to read it, I was going to buy it on principle” as he put it.
Lots of Germans denied they ever read “Mein Kampf” which was often given as a wedding or other gift in the 1930s. They denied a lot after the war.
The Mission Earth series by L Ron Hubbard was a best seller. It is rare to find people who have read them.
This thread, also started byh me, made me wonder if anyone has actually read any of the “historical” children’s books Rush Limbaugh has published in the past few years.