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Don Quixote is the world’s best selling book

Canadians read, on average, just under six hours a week
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Cervantes’ Don Quixote sold over 500 million copies worldwide. The book has also been a long term obsession of movie makers, including Terry Gilliam, whose “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” stars Adam Driver (left) and Jonathan Pryce. (Courtesy photo)

Migel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote is the world’s best selling book of all time, selling more than 500 million copies.

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Second on the list published in 2017 is the Xinhua Zidian, the new Chinese Dictionary, with 400 million copies sold. Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities (200 million), J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lords of the Rings (200 million), J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (107 million), Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (100 million), Cao Xueqin’s Dreams of the Red Chamber (100 million), C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (85 million), Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince (80 million), and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code (80 million) round out the Top 10.

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Looking at readers, India leads the list of countries who read the most with 10.7 hours per resident per week, followed by Thailand, China, the Philippines, Egypt, Czech Republic, Russia, Sweden, France and Hungary.

The global (reading) figure is 6.5 hours per resident. Among G7 countries, France leads with 6.9 hours per resident per week, followed by Canada (5.8 hours), Germany (5.7), the United States (5.7), Italy (5.6), the United Kingdom (5.3) and Japan (4.1).


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wolfgang.depner@saanichnews.com



Wolf Depner

About the Author: Wolf Depner

I joined the national team with Black Press Media in 2023 from the Peninsula News Review, where I had reported on Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula since 2019.
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