Yesterday, I posted about the 10 Most Read Books in the World over the last 50 years. Today, I am curious as to how that compares to the Most Read Books in the United States in 2011. While poking around Nielsen listings I found that USA Today already did all of the math back in January 2012, so that’s the source here. I also did some combining. So if Suzanne Collins’ series took up three spots, I only gave it it’s top slot and brought the #11 and #12 best-sellers into the list.)

So, here’s the may-or-may not-be-statistically valid merged and arranged 2011 list of Best Sellers in the United States:

1. The Help – Kathryn Stockett

2. The Hunger Games (Series) – Suzanne Collins

3. Heaven is for Real – Todd Burpo

4. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever – Jeff Kinney

6. Steve Jobs: A Biography – Walter Isaacson

7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Series) – Stieg Larsson

8. Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

9. Inheritance – Christopher Paolini

10. The Son of Neptune: Heroes of Olympus – Rick Riordan

The books really seem to stack up evenly when compared to the last 50 years’ global numbers. Almost the same number of fiction vs. non-fiction, subject matter, etc. What is interesting is the overall consistency of the Young Adult books, between the two lists. The books aimed at younger readers do seem to be gaining steam. I wonder what the global list will look like in 50 years. . .

Here is a graphic posted over on Squidoo showing the Top 10 Most Read Books in the World, based on the last 50 years of sales. I honestly never thought that Think and Grow Rich (1937) would be on the list and we haven’t had time to add up all of the  50 Shades of Grey numbers. We live on a really interesting planet. . .  I’ll leave it at that.

I also think it’s neat that Harry Potter (1997), The Da Vinci Code (2003) and Twilight (2005) all made the list even though all having been released in just the past 15 years. That’s pretty good pick up. And it’s interesting that they’re all fiction. In fact, over half of the books are fiction. I wonder what this list looked like in 1996 prior to Potter taking up his wand. . . was it more non-fiction or has fiction always had the larger slice of the pie?

This article by author Julian Barnes has been making the rounds the past couple of days. I love this bit from the end:

“When you read a great book, you don’t escape from life, you plunge deeper into it. There may be a superficial escape – into different countries, mores, speech patterns – but what you are essentially doing is furthering your understanding of life’s subtleties, paradoxes, joys, pains and truths. Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic.”

The whole article is Barnes’ take on the future of reading, the future of the book and bookstores. Nothing super new presented in it. This one just has a well thought out personal take on things, without overly romanticizing, which makes it worth sharing.