Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0513: Anti-trivia: Best-selling books of all time

Episode Date: February 24, 2016

This “anti-trivia” episode lists the best-selling books of all time What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 513. Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy, and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Today it's another anti-trivia episode, which is all about taking the little facts that you hear and trying to contextualize them into more important facts. So if you hear a piece of trivia, why not turn that into an opportunity to find some things that are more important than that silly little fact?

And today's silly little fact is actually not so much a silly little fact, arguably, because it was a world record very recently. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold 15 million copies in the first 24 hours following its release. So that's a pretty significant event. But if we zoom out of that and look into the global, you know, perspective of things, you know, that might arguably be trivia because that's a small moment in time. Sure, it sold that many copies in the first 24 hours, but those 24 hours only lasted 24 hours. You know, I think that something more timeless is looking in all of history and going,

what are the best-selling books of all time? If we focus on those top best-selling books, maybe that gives us better perspective of global culture as a whole. And we're not just restricting it to the present day or some recent event in history, but we're talking about all time, things that have lasted a long time or things that sold so many copies that their impact still holds this status of being one of the top-selling books, even to this day. Now, our numbers are pretty approximate, but I'm going to go over the first 15. And these are, first of all,

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. It has sold about 150 million copies, and it was first published in 1954 or 1955. Next, we have The Hobbit by Tolkien, and that sold about 140 million copies so far, and that was first published in 1937, so almost two decades earlier. Then we have a French book, The Little Prince, and that was first published in 1943, and it sold about 140 million copies, so pretty close to The Hobbit, and published after

The Hobbit, so between those first two books. Next, we have Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling, and that was published in 1997. Next, going back to the 1930s and 40s, we have 1939, Agatha Christie's book, and then there were none. Then we have Dream of the Red Chamber, which is a Chinese book written in the 1700s, and it sold 100 million copies, like the few around it. So all of these that I'm listing right now sold about 100 million copies. And then we have an interesting book from the 1800s. 1887, H. Ryder Haggard wrote a book called She, A History of Adventure. And this is one of the original page turners or adventure books. And it's basically, it established the lost world genre. It's a weird book. It's not

very well written. I don't really recommend it, but I'm reading it right now. It's kind of interesting. So again, that's called She, A History of Adventure. And that one also sold about 100 million copies. Next we have C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It sold about 85 million copies, and that was first published in 1950. Then we have The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and that was 2003, so one of the most recent books on this list, along with J.K. Rowling's books. And it sold about 80 million copies. Then, not way too surprisingly, we have Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

I've read that one. It's 1937. It sold about 70 million copies. Many business owners today still read that and still recommend it, and I think it's pretty absurd. A lot of people think it's pretty ridiculous, but it's a very, very influential book and has some good stuff in it. So Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. And then another Harry Potter book. We have Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Why is that one the second one? I don't know. But that's the 2005 one, so 65 million copies. Then we have The Catcher in the Rye. I don't know. I read that. I didn't think too much of it.

1951, and it sold about 65 million copies. Next we have The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, or however you pronounce that. Sorry, guys, I haven't learned Portuguese yet. I'm going to learn it, but this book was written in Portuguese, and it was 1988, sold 65 million copies. And then everything that's left on the list is Harry Potter. In fact, the next five books on the list are the rest of the Harry Potter books. So all of them sold around 60 million down to 50 million copies. Now, I find it very interesting to realize that, you know, after you hear this list,

another very interesting fact that you might hear as a trivia fact, but I would consider a very anti-trivia fact, is that the best-selling author of all time, at least based on the best-selling books on this list, is J.K. Rowling, not Tolkien. So J.K. Rowling sold many more books than Tolkien, if you count The Lord of the Rings as one book, and then the Harry Potter series as separate books. In our next anti-trivia episode, we'll be talking about the largest countries in the world measured by amount of arable land. Not landmass, not population, but potential land that can grow stuff. Meanwhile, what do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question,

and I'll talk to you again soon.