All-Time Bestselling Books and Authors
Example Questions that can be answered by this FAQ:
- What are the bestselling books of all time?
One should bear in mind that this question is basically unanswerable. No one really knows which books have sold the most copies in history, because we simply don’t have records that cover all of history! As such, any answer that we find is essentially just a "best guess" that is based upon estimates made by historians and other experts.
With that in mind, here are links to help answer these questions.
Discovery’s HowStuffWorks website has a page listing the 21 best-selling books of all time.
These websites provide popular weekly or periodic best-seller lists.
- Best Sellers – The New York Times
- Book Reviews, Bestselling Books & Publishing Business News | Publishers Weekly
- SFGate.com:Entertainment:Books:SF Chronicles Best Sellers (San Francisco Chronicle)
- USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list
- Books: Bestsellers List & Critics’ Picks – Best selling fiction and nonfiction in the Washington area. (washingtonpost.com) (The Washington Post)
This Slate article from 1998, The Book Industry’s Best-Seller Lists – What are they, and why do they matter so much?, explains what a "best-seller" is and and how “best-seller” lists differ from one another.