Top 25 Books

Via a mailing list, the Top 1000 Books in the US, ranked in order of library holdings. The Top 25 (after the cut):

  1. Bible [various] Library holdings: 796,882
  2. Census [various] United States Library holdings: 460,628
  3. Mother Goose Library holdings: 67,663
  4. Divine Comedy Dante Alighieri Library holdings: 62,414
  5. Odyssey Homer Library holdings: 45,551
  6. Iliad Homer Library holdings: 44,093
  7. Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain Library holdings: 42,724
  8. Lord of the Rings [trilogy] J. R. R. Tolkien Library holdings: 40,907
  9. Hamlet William Shakespeare Library holdings: 39,521
  10. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Lewis Carroll Library holdings: 39,277
  11. Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes Library holdings: 38,485
  12. Beowulf Library holdings: 37,914
  13. Koran Library holdings: 37,080
  14. Night Before Christmas Clement Clarke Moore Library holdings: 33,343
  15. Garfield Jim Davis Library holdings: 33,234
  16. Tom Sawyer Mark Twain Library holdings: 32,233
  17. Aesop’s Fables Aesop Library holdings: 32,232
  18. Arabian Nights Library holdings: 31,728
  19. Macbeth William Shakespeare Library holdings: 30,388
  20. Gulliver’s Travels Jonathan Swift Library holdings: 29,066
  21. Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Library holdings: 28,669
  22. Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare Library holdings: 28,646
  23. Bhagavadgita Library holdings: 28,588
  24. Christmas Carol Charles Dickens Library holdings: 27,928
  25. Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer Library holdings: 27,863

All I can really say to this is: Garfield?

Also, it’s interesting that the Bible has more than an order of magnitude lead over the top non-reference book. Atheists, you’ve got your work cut out for you…

But, really, Garfield?

19 comments

  1. I am an atheist and I have a bible (not THE Bible, just a bible) on my book shelf. It’s a handy reference to counter the cherry-picking fundies.

  2. I thought I did not have a bible, but my wife tells me we do have one that she used in college – an Oxford annotated bible. I’ll have to take a look at that strange book one of these days….

  3. I, too, have a bible (two, actually), as well as a qur’an (a bilingual version with commentaries). Shelved with the non-fiction books, now I come to think of it, though I’m not really sure why.

  4. I, too, am a Bible-carrying atheist, for the same reason as outlined above. How many Bible-carrying atheists does it take to cast reasonable doubt on a hypothesis?

  5. I also have a bible, but a searchable online version is probably best for the purpose of finding the multiple instances in which virutally all christians do not follow the teachings of their god.

    Did you say Garfield?

  6. I have to join in on the atheist with bible action as well. I’ve never been religious and I’ve had a bible for years. I find it to be a good reference source for jokes and when you’re as vocal about your atheism as I am it sometimes helps to be able to be able to draw from the bible to support various arguments.

  8. I have several Bibles, including at least one Gideon testament somewhere in my office and bookmarks to online bibles. As the most influential book in western civilization, the Bible is important not only for your average patron to read on a relaxing afternoon, but vital for any number of research papers. I would expect the smallest library to have at least one copy of every popular english translation, a couple very good concordances, annotated references/commentaries, etc.

    Re: Garfield. Do they count one specific book or any/all Garfield holdings? Given that there are exactly 33,234 different Garfield books, the high number is probably due to one library holding the complete collection 🙂

  9. I also have a bible. Oddly I only have a new testiment (I’m Jewish). The reason I have one is that the Gideons were handing them out when I was in college and I instinctively accepted without knowing what it was. Now, I have too much respect for the concept of religious texts to dispose of it. So now I have to move it with me everywhere I go…

    Fortunately, it’s pocket sized.

  10. I’m a heathen and I have several (maybe five or six?) bibles in the house, plus I’ve actually read each different translation. All have failed to change my religious orientation. It remains a mystery to me why anyone who has actually read the texts (a much smaller group than those who claim to be christians, as far as I can tell) would become or remain a christian.

    FWIW: I’ve read the Communist Manifesto, too, and I’m not — nor have I ever been — a communist.

    I guess I’m just not that easily influenced by what I read.

  12. I’m Pagan and I have four different bibles on my religion shelf (yes I’m a librarian grad student – so I have shelves for different genres). I had them from when I used to be Catholic, just so I could understand a few of the different translations. Didn’t seem to keep me from finding a different path.

    I read ‘Mein Kampf’ and it didn’t make me decide Hitler was an okay guy. Books are powerful, but the mind is stronger. Yeah, I’ve got a few Garfields on the shelf too.

  13. I just noticed “library holdings.” It would be interesting to see books ranked in order of use. Somehow I suspect that the bible would not be at the top of that list.

  14. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s not ashamed to mention any affiliation with the fat tabby.

    In my pre-novel years (i.e., second grade down) I thought Garfield, Odie, and esp. Nermal were awesome.

    That list reminds me of a couple of essentials I need to get around to, though. Notably, Divine Comedy and Don Quixote. Anyone know if the Gutenberg translations are passable?

  15. Alas, I have a few bibles lying around. We were required to read them in high school (Bible as Liturature, yeah right. That style of writing wouldn’t even pass as a dime-book on some shanty corner in Brooklyn. There isn’t enough sex you could pay me to make me want to read that book for entertainment).

    I will add what every good discussion of the bible as a book should have: my brother discovered that the bible works really well as a cheap and lasting supply of rolling papers. (“Dude, man, Leviticus tastes horrible.” “I think Psalms is burning my throat.”)

  16. On this list there are 25 books, and so far all the comments have been about either the Bible or Garfield. You people are boring and need to find something else to talk about. Has anyone read any of the other books on the list?

  17. On this list there are 25 books, and so far all the comments have been about either the Bible or Garfield. You people are boring and need to find something else to talk about. Has anyone read any of the other books on the list?

    I was half tempted to put the books I’ve read in bold, or something, but that’s just a little too LiveJournal. I’ve read 17 of the 25, give or take a couple depending on how many Garfield books or books of the Bible it takes to qualify.

    There’s really not that much to say about the list, other than that. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect, other than Garfield.

    (Also, for the record, the Bible crack was a joke. In general, any sentence that trails off in ellipses probably isn’t meant to be taken entirely seriously.)

  18. Note that these are the top books of libraries who are members of OCLC. Most of the research libraries use a different bibliographic utility and this would be heavily weighted to public and smaller college libraries.

    Says the former OCLC employee.

    MKK

  19. I once had a flatmate who used to answer people who came to the door demanding to talk about the Bible:

    “Certainly. Which text would you prefer? I have a Hebrew Talmud, a Septuagint, a Greek Testament, a Vulgate,…”

    Worked every time.

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