The 31 Best Selling Books of All Time

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Have you ever wondered what were the most popular books in history? This article shows the 31 best-selling books of all time, their authors, and how many books were sold.

But it’s not a complete list. It excludes religious texts, as it's difficult to tell how many were actually sold versus given away. It also excludes political books like Quotations from Chairman Mao, which has no credible sales numbers and was widely distributed (not sold) in China in the 1960s.

Lastly, many insanely popular novels were sold as book series throughout history, often numbering in the hundreds of millions. This list only looks at individual books with credible sources of sales history.

Some TLDR Stats About the List of Best Selling Books

• Only 2 of the 31 best selling books were nonfiction
• J.K. Rowling’s books dominated the list, with all of her Harry Potter series novels placing within the top 15
• The highest-rated book on Amazon was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, with almost 75,000 reviews giving it a 4.7 star rating
• Books aimed at a younger audience or children take up the majority of the list, with fantasy being the main genre
• Many books on the list, especially the older ones, have a…