Paul Witcover over at the inferior 4+1 (inferior to no one!) pointed to this Reuters story about a survey looking at Americans favorite books. The findings:
"While the Bible is number one among each of the different demographic groups, there is a large difference in the number two favorite book," Harris said in a statement announcing the results.
Men chose J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" and women selected Margaret Mitchell’s "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book, according to the online poll.
But the second choice for 18- to 31-year-olds was J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, while 32- to 43-year-olds named Stephen King’s "The Stand" and Dan Brown’s "Angels and Demons".
Picks for second-favorite book also varied according to region. "Gone With the Wind" was number two in the southern and midwestern United States while easterners chose "The Lord of the Rings" and westerners opted for "The Stand".
In the comments, a clever commenter named Kit suggests the following diabolical scheme for authors:
You know that you can use the bible to make your amazon #s zoom, right? Make all your friends order your book and the cheapest possible edition of the bible simultaneously. Pretty soon people who click on the most-clicked-on amazon title will see:
readers who bought this also liked YOUR TITLE HERE
So obvious, it just might work…
This could only work in an Amazon universe, because as far as the chain bookstores are concerned the Bible is the most stolen book above all others by double-digits.
What does it say about America that its #1 favorite book is probably stolen?
That religion wants to be free? 🙂