While researching for my dissertation on the kingdom proffered and postponed, I came across a video of kingdom now proponent, Rick Warren, at a World Economic Forum panel. Talking about his book, The Purpose Driven Life, Warren said:
It became the bestselling book in English in world history, it’s, next to the Bible, it’s the bestselling book and it’s the most translated, [audience giggles] it’s the most translated book next to the Bible in over one hundred languages.
So, I did a little looking… and I do mean a little because all it took was a quick Google and Wikipedia search to find this information… and lo and behold, I found 42 books in English that sold more than The Purpose Driven Life and another 35 (other than the Bible) which have been translated into more languages.
English books that sold more copies than Purpose Driven Life:
1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
2. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J. K. Rowling
4. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
5. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
7. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
8. She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard
9. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
10. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling
11. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
12. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling
14. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling
15. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
16. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
17. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
18. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
19. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
20. You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
21. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
22. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock
23. Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
24. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
25. The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins
26. Watership Down by Richard Adams
27. The Hite Report by Shere Hite
28. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White; illustrated by Garth Williams
29. The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
30. Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace
31. The Curse of Capistrano (also known as The Mark of Zorro) by Johnston McCulley
32. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
33. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
34. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
35. A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard
36. Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
37. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
38. Angels & Demons by Dan Brown
39. Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
40. Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dyer
41. The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey, C. C. Carlson
42. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
Books translated into more languages than Purpose Driven Life:
1. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
2. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
3. Dao De Jing by Laozi
4. Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan
5. My Book of Bible Stories by Watch Tower Society
6. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
7. Andersen’s Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
8. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
9. The Adventures of Asterix by René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo
10. Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith
11. The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé
12. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
13. Bhagavad Gita by Vyasa
14. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
15. The Upright Revolution: Or Why Humans Walk Upright by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o
16. The Way to Happiness by L. Ron Hubbard
17. The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas by Thor Heyerdahl
18. Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
19. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
20. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
21. Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
22. Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll
23. Isha Upanishad by Various
24. Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot (compiler)
25. Quo vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz
26. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
27. My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
28. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
29. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder
30. The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek
31. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
32. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
33. Heidi by Johanna Spyri
34. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
35. Qur’an by Muhammad
By the way, Warren said that his book was available in 100 languages. Actually, the number is 50 according to this article, which was written after Warren made the above comment.
It’s not about you, Rick.