In the summer of 2014, Facebook conducted a fun literature experiment. Facebook asked people to list the top ten books that have moved them in some way.
The status game was popular and the results were quite revealing. The 100 books that Facebook users loved and were most affected by were Harry Potter (with a 21.08% appearance rate in Facebook statuses) and second-place To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, which had a 14.48% appearance rate.
Facebook decided to aggregate data from other non-English speaking countries too, and so the results now reflect what people in other countries and other languages most appreciate in the realm of literature – no matter the translation.
Italy
The Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
Cent’anni di solitudine – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Il ritratto di Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
Orgoglio e pregiudizio – Jane Austen
Il signore degli anelli – J.R.R. Tolkien
France
The Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
Le petit prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Ça – Stephen King
Le seigneur des anneaux – J.R.R. Tolkien
Les fleurs du mal – Charles Baudelaire
India
The Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling
The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
Mexico
Cien años de soledad – Gabriel García Márquez
El principito – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Harry Potter – J.K. Rowling
El perfume – Patrick Süskind
Aura – Carlos Fuentes
Facebook Statuses and Literary Predilections
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series dominate other countries’ lists besides the American and British readerships. It’s an epic series that has and continues to have a universal, sweeping appeal across the globe irrespective of the readers’ age, occupation, gender, and social status. Even if some people tried to stick a”Young Adult” genre label to it, this didn’t stop it from inspiring millions of readers of all ages.
The Facebook list also reflects the extensive popularity of authors like Jane Austen, George Orwell, J. R. R. Tolkien, F. Scott Fitgerald, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Stephen King.
Books are a very personal matter. They help us unearth new worlds and explore imaginary kingdoms, they are our companions, our teachers, our friends and our supporters. Books move, surprise and make us wiser. They also stay with us forever. We never forget our favorite heroes. Instead, we pay a visit to them every now and then by re-reading their story and re-living it with them as an homage.
Have any of these books listed above moved you in one way or another? Which books would you add to your top 5 list?
