Talk:List of best-selling books/Archive 6

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Political and religious books

We should remove the statement:

All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons.

There are three problems with this statement, the first two are less relevant given the power of the third, but I will lay out all three.

Firstly it is hard to define what it would and wouldn't cover.

Secondly we have political and religious works in the list, for example Animal Farm and The Gospel According to Peanuts. (As the IP noted above, the Narnia books also fall into the religious category.)

Thirdly it does not follow from issues surrounding the Bible, the Quran and the Little Red Book, that other political and religious books will have the same issues (though certainly some will, Mein Kampf and to a lesser extent the Communist Manifesto are good examples, as is the Book of Common Prayer). These issues relate to the multitudinous editions published, the global reach of the books, and the fact that a significant proportion was published in places and at time where no sales tracking existed, and that a significant number were given away. The gifting aspect is really the only thing that distinguishes these books from, say, The Mabinogion' in terms of understanding sales volume.

The following religious and political works from my shelf, for example, are all likely to have as good a record of sales figures as any contemporary novel.

• The Gospel of St. Luke G. B. Caird, Penguin, 1963
• Theory and Methods of Political Science, Marsh and Stoker, 1995
• The Road to Serfdom, Hayek, 1944
• Religion and the Racist Right, Barkun, 1997
• Lenin, Weber and Weber, 1980
• Decentering the Center, Narayan and Harding (eds), 2000
• Feminism/Postmodernism, Nicholson (ed), 1990
• Lukacs and Heidegger, Goldman, 1960 (Fr original Lukacs et Heidegger)

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 13:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC).

• Religious and political books are (or claim to be) non-fiction books: Narnia, Animal Farm, LotR, ... all don't fit that category. They may be influenced by religion or even consciously or not try to promote one religion or political view (as do countless books of course), but they are not books laying out the fundaments of a religion or political system. More importantly, they are not books aggressively pushed by a religion or political party or regime: not books that get handed out for free to convert people or to strengthen their belief, or books that people were obliged to own or risk severe punishment (like some political books). The list is for sales, not for number of books printed, and with these two categories this gives problems. Not the sole problems, as the figures for these books vary extremely from one source to another and lead to heated debates between adherents of oneor the other (even more so than e.g. the LotR debate here). Finally, especially for the Bible: there is no "The Bible", there are many variations, including some extra books, excluding others... so we're not even talking about one book here, but about a variety of books commonly given the same title.
• Oh, and you have good sources indicating that e.g. a biography of Lenin sold more than 10 million copies, then of course add it to the list. It's not a political book, it's a biographical book about a politician. Basically, manifests produced by churches, political parties, governments, or people wanting to start a church or political movement, are the ones covered by "religious or political books". Books about and even less novels inspired by religion or politics are not included. This seemed rather clear for most people over the past 10 years or so. Fram (talk) 14:17, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for not replying on this sooner, my mum has been poorly. I agree with Rich.

Fram I would disagree on the point that religious and political books claim to be non fiction. In both religion and philosophy allegory has always been an important tool. "Objectivists" draw all their interpretations of Rand's thinking primarily from her novels Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.

I agree on the point that it should be on sales not printed. However if a source to support a sales figure I think that should surfice for inclusion.

I'm not sure how you could argue a biography of a political figure isn't inherently political as it will be written with a view by the author on the individual's views.

Essentially all non fiction books unless technical like a dictionary, will be putting forward an argument, or a viewpoint, it maybe Dr Spock on the best way to raise a child or Donald Trump on how to make to a deal, it will likely fall on one side or another in a debate, even if it is between experts in the field.

I would argue that we have to accept some estimates. If a source says best selling, or has sold I don't we can second guess the quality of that source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.11.89.15 (talk) 03:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

LOTR again

An IP has removed LOTR (and possibly the Hobbit) from the list. They have been inserted in the lead along with Monte Christo, Two Cities and Don Quixote as books whose sales numbers are unknowable, and ascribed to the same source. That source says:

Which English-language novel has sold the most copies? The short answer is that nobody knows: we have no remotely reliable sales figures for books published more than a couple of decades ago, and books that are out of copyright might exist in literally hundreds of different editions and translations. Nonetheless, between April 24, 2008 and January 30, 2016, Wikipedia had the answer: it was Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, with an estimated 200 million copies sold, a third as many again as the next bestselling book, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. This figure of 200 million is – to state the obvious – pure fiction. Its ultimate source is unknown: perhaps a hyperbolic 2005 press release for a Broadway musical adaptation of Dickens’s novel. But the presence of this canard on Wikipedia had, and continues to have, a startling influence. Since 2008, the claim has been recycled repeatedly on the BBC as well as in the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Guardian and the Independent, none of which have cited Wikipedia as a source. It has even made its way into popular history books. In The Great British Dream Factory (2015), Dominic Sandbrook insists that British culture can be empirically shown to be the world’s most successful: “The facts and figures make interesting reading . . . The Lord of the Rings is the second best-selling novel ever written, behind only A Tale of Two Cities”. His footnoted source is an Independent article of July 2014, itself presumably lifted from Wikipedia.

There is no suggestion here that the LOTR figures are unknown, let alone unknowable.

I have attempted to be accommodating, by tagging the un-supported statements rather than removing them, but this has been reverted, I can see no way forward at the moment other than requesting semi-protection, or as a last resort, AfD, which would be better than allowing the article, which has inherent problems, to slip into absolute chaos.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 22:26, 9 December 2020 (UTC).

Rich the article you cite, isn't a privileged source, and it is also problematic as the writer is referencing your opinion so it is a form of its own citogenesis based on your views. The source only presumes the independent lifted it is material from wikipedia there is no evidence it did.

Also I think suggesting the article be deleted because you don't like it or your favourite book isn't the top of the list is a bit extreme.

I have some sympathy for your position as wikipedia isn't an independent observer it is used by millions including journalists.

Essential though you seem focused on removing any book that might be above LOTR as novels like the little prince you remove because the author's estate you claim has inflated them, yet couldn't the tolkien estate or warner bros do the same? you claim public domain works are unknowable yet the list below where LOTR appears is full of them for example War and Peace figures cite a source only in Russian yet you have never raised issue with that. You only problem with Little Red Book or Communist Manifesto is they are above LOTR as books like Mein Kampf you were happy to leave in. You criticise sources but only if they put a book above LOTR for example the telegraph article.

I think everyone has tried to be accomodating Rich but you don't own the article. I think you have to accept two things some sources will be based on estimations, and that we can't write off every source based on the fact it was published after this article was created and the circumstantial cases you build to delete sourced material are original research at best.

Also you never raised an explicit discussion to specifically dispute the source on a Tale of Two Cities and Communist Manifesto. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.13.85.156 (talk) 10:50, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Can you try and use proper capitalisation? Can you also stop making allegations as to my motive?

Lets address the two you guess at - I like this article, but it's not clear that it is sustainable, I like Tolkien's work but I also like Rowling's, and the Bible, and many other books.

I am very disappointed that we have had to make the article semi-protected, as I am against protection in principle, but recognise that we need it in practice.

We have established consensus on many of these items in the past. Please read the archives on each item before you challenge it.

As far as Tale of Two Cities is concerned, I put considerable effort into checking the references, including contacting the authors or publishers of references who did not cite their source. All those who replied confirmed that they had taken the figures from Wikipedia.

You need to do research, not just argue for the sake of it, if you want to change people's minds. Also try addressing a single issue at a time, rather than jumping between random subjects

All the best: Rich Farmbrough 01:38, 12 December 2020 (UTC).

"As far as Tale of Two Cities is concerned, I put considerable effort into checking the references, including contacting the authors or publishers of references who did not cite their source. All those who replied confirmed that they had taken the figures from Wikipedia."

But that would be original research.

I think more generally you are trying to solve a problem that is impossible to solve at this point just because you and a particularly journalist think Tale of Two Cities sales figures are unknowable doesn't invalidate all other sources.

The only hard data source we have found for LOTR shows sales of less than a 1 million in the UK and doesn't show the Hobbit at all which make the figures unlikely given how much those books popularity depended on their movie franchises. So your special treatment and focus on any book placed higher than those seem inconsistent.

For example someone recently added a source for catcher in the Rye I check the date of the article (July 2011) and the version of this article that appeared at the time which already had Catcher with 65 million listed. Is that likely to be citogenesis?

And again speaking to your focus solely being on whatever was above LOTR, Jane Austen is on the list and she predates Dickens were are her numbers reliable? similarly War and Peace is on the list with a somewhat dubious russian source, yet any dickens that appears irrelevant of the number or quality of sources you delete because it might mean another author was ranked over Tolkien.

You can't just deleted sourced material be it tale of two cities or the communist manifesto (which can't of been citogenesis) because it means LOTR won't be top of the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.66.34.195 (talk) 14:43, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2021

Could the "Dr." before Benjamin Spock please be removed per MOS:DOCTOR? Thanks, 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:57, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 17:52, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

Becoming is a non-fiction book

"Becoming" by Michelle Obama is a non-fiction book, and should be marked with purple as such. John Cambrick (talk) 16:53, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 February 2021

Add Jojo's bizarre adventure to the list of best selling book series. it has sold over 100 million copies. 108.30.18.79 (talk) 01:51, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. Manga have a different list at List of best-selling manga. ◢  Ganbaruby!  (Say hi!) 02:24, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2021

Viki hassan (talk) 09:42, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

lemme edit

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 09:51, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Edit request: book series

The Sharpe book series, by Bernard Cornwell, has sold over 20 million copies (further information can be found on the Wikipedia page for the series). See https://bestdealsandbestoffers-foryou.blogspot.com/search/label/Best%20Seller%20Ebook-Kindle%20Edition?&max-results=5&m=1 for a citation for the sales figures. 118.208.187.206 (talk) 03:38, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Edit request

With over 150 million copies sold, shouldn’t The Lord of the Rings at least warrant mention as one of the best-selling book series? 2601:547:1301:A2D0:2863:CA0:D019:3A0A (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 August 2021

You can add this to Wikipedia-article in the proper way if you would like to :)

To date (2013) Ayn Rand’s books have sold a total of 29,500,000 copies https://ari.aynrand.org/press-releases/ayn-rand-hits-a-million-again/ 2001:464F:49FF:0:99DC:2834:DD9E:8898 (talk) 09:48, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. We need reliable secondary sources for these claims. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

Vandalism / edit request

User PotatoPantry changed The Hobbit to a book by Mark Levin on September 5. Can that revision be reverted? This user does not appear to be contributing anything of value with their edits to this and other articles. Parappa2525 (talk) 17:39, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 September 2021

The 50 shades of grey book has 150 million copies sold worldwide.Its written as 16 million(USA) in the tile. Hope you will change. :) Source-wikipedia

PS:How will i know when this edit is completed? ClockWisegamer (talk) 13:24, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Wikipedia is not a reliable source. You need to provide an actual source for those figures. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:29, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 September 2021

Change The Girl on the Train's total sales to 23 million.

Source: https://inews.co.uk/culture/books/paula-hawkins-author-girl-on-the-train-slow-fire-burning-interview-1179654 (direct quote fourth paragraph from the end). Adam12992 (talk) 13:07, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

 Done — IVORK _Talk 00:41, 15 September 2021 (UTC)

Lord of the rings and other books

Have there not been verified sources? if estimates?

There's the one i found

https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2007/04/16/tolkien_proves_hes_still_the_king.html http://www.statisticbrain.com/lord-of-the-rings-total-franchise-revenue/

Why are these aren't verified? WillsEdtior777 (talk) 01:46, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

If a reliable source is considered sufficient to put the sales figures in the article for the book series, it should be enough to put it on this list. Ridiculous really. Sometimes sold as single books, sometimes together, and when I bought them all three books came in a box that included The Hobbit as well. Dream Focus 21:51, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 December 2021

Changes numbers of sellings from Rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kyosaki => 32 millions / source : https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/20/5-lessons-on-how-to-get-rich-from-the-best-selling-personal-finance-book-that-sold-more-than-32-million-copies.html#:~:text=The%20book%2C%20written%20by%20Robert,them%20shaped%20his%20financial%20views. Guigeek973 (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done —Sirdog (talk) 21:28, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 December 2021

Delia Owens "Where the Crawdads Sing" has sold over 10 million copies 2600:1005:B004:5382:DCC8:5A79:92BC:1CD3 (talk) 00:48, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. —Sirdog (talk) 21:28, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Leaving out the best selling books from the best selling books list is wrong

The logic of this statement: "All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons." is plain wrong. "...that lack comprehensive sales figures..." The sales count of these books are also obviously higher than that of most entries present on the lists. The correct way is to give the estimation range for all these uncertain volume books, either within the existing blocks or in a separate category. The fact that the numbers are uncertain can also be explicitly stated. Readers come to this page to see the best selling books in history, and the best selling books in history are actually not listed here. This list is then missing its point. --Csdani84 (talk) 09:26, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

---

UPDATE: Outrageous to erase books. The religious book "Alcoholics Anonymous" that has sold 40 million copies is missing.

This is a violation of the most basic of truth principles.

Someone is IMPOSING with oppression one religious denomination -- atheism -- onto millions of others, a violation of First Amendment Rights.

CONCLUSION: The list of best selling books should be the list of best selling books.

Wikipedia outrageously is allowing oppression of one denomination -- atheism -- onto the millions of people not of that denomination.

How many of these books are sold as opposed to given away? Communists during the 20th century gave away more copies of the Communist Manifesto and the Little Red Book just so they could say they were the best selling books/most popular books of all time. I've never know anyone buy Alcoholics Anonymous, or the Bible. As such they aren't best selling as so few are actually sold. They might be the most published or most in existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.24.203 (talk) 21:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Behaviour of some editors

I have noted looking at this article that a particularly editor seems to act in a way that would presume they own it or have some sort of special right over it. I think this might breach community rules and perhaps those editors should take a break from this article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.0.34.161 (talk) 08:36, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Change of title?

Should the title be changed to best selling novels or best selling fiction, then remove non fiction. that avoids issues around religious or political books. Just a thought — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.251.11.193 (talk) 18:03, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung

The first paragraph states that Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung is excluded due to there not being a concrete number of sales but somebody added it to the table. I’d like to suggest either deleting that section of the paragraph or deleting it from the table. GamerKlim9716 (talk) 20:39, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I've removed it from the article and kept it in the intro. Fram (talk) 11:47, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Swiss German

Heidi is not originally in Swiss German. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A464:CB9:1:3C28:ED07:7D4F:DC0D (talk) 13:20, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Ja, Sie haben Recht. Ich habe die Geschichte vor ein paar Wochen gelesen, und sie war in (sehr) deutscher Sprache. Wer hat das Wort „Swiss“ in den Artikel eingefügt? Ich entferne es sofort! Kelisi (talk) 04:38, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Updated numbers?

I was looking for updated numbers, and found an estimate for The Hobbit of 140 million. However, it doesn't cite where the estimate came from. Anyone have any thoughts on updated figures?

https://www.newsweek.com/best-selling-books-all-time-1628133 Catonsunday (talk) 00:16, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I do not recommend using this source. This list is exactly the same as the best-selling books list on Wikipedia at the time of publication: September 2021. This leads me to believe that Newsweek lifted the list and the sales figures directly from Wikipedia itself. As per WP:CIRCULAR, sources that rely on Wikipedia for its information should not be used in Wikipedia itself because Wikipedia is user-generated. As for the 140 million sales figure for the Hobbit, that is close to what the sales figure for the book was at the time: 140.6 million. However, it was cited to the Statistic Brain Research Institute; a website of unknown reliability with no article on Wikipedia. The statistic was tagged as dubious on December 2021, and I ultimately replaced it with a statistic from sources of significantly higher reliability with this edit on March 2022. Lazman321 (talk) 00:58, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Where is Geronimo Stilton?

I'm more than sure that until a few weeks ago the title was still in the list (as it should be), the more than 250 books of the series have sold over 180 million copies and have been translated into 50 languages, for the source I can say that this information is updated and written in literally every single book of the series and if you search "Geronimo Stilton copies sold" you'll find dozens of articles... 84.247.241.40 (talk) 14:12, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Added it, good find! If you have any other finds, don't forget that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that WP:ANYONECANEDIT, so be WP:BOLD and feel free to make those changes!--Cerebral726 (talk) 14:22, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Most reading holy book of the world

Speak and talk 42.111.21.45 (talk) 19:21, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Don Quixote half a bn. copies?

When and how has this book sold that many copies? Have some patriotic spaniards made that number up? 10 % of that would be rich tbh. It`s not even suitable as a school reading as it is too long. In the first 200 years after the first edition, books were a luxury and most people were (functional) lilliterates. Also, the book is only relevant in Europe an Latin America. The only reference given is to some ominous website. Please delete the entry. 84.58.26.5 (talk) 03:42, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Done it myself. 84.58.26.5 (talk) 03:44, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Not sure where in the world you are, but as someone who has taught most of his career in several different high schools and colleges, the book is used as an example of one of the first modern novels in translation in upper level English classes as well as in the expected Spanish classroom. It ties in well with European history courses, courses on medieval literature, the development of early modern Romance languages, connections to French tales of Roland, etc.

On a somewhat separate note, there are many editions of Don Quixote, just as there are of the Christian Bible. It is likely that these are grouped together (including modernized translations, etc.).

Since the high numbers seem to cause concern, I do find the explanation for not including religious texts in the tables followed by the claim that the Harry Potter books are the best-selling of all time to be lacking in NPOV character—better to create a separate chart for those than throw the count under the bus... especially since modern publishing records are easily reviewable and are quite high). If Don Quixote, printed over several hundred years can be included, why not other texts? eleuthero (talk) 04:26, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Don Quixote with 500 million copies : no reliable, independent sources.

This statement in this article is repeated many times on the internet, but where are the sources?

The claim is supported by a single Wikipédia source, an article by FOXBusiness which states that “The Cervantes Institute, a Spanish public institution created in 1991 to support teaching Spanish and Spain's vernacular languages, have said it is the most translated book after the Bible."

But google searches likes “site:cervantes.es most translated book after the Bible” finds no results.

Extensive research on google and in particular google scholar did not allow me to find reliable sources on the hypothesis of Don Quixote as the best-selling individual book.

I think it would be wise to follow the introduction to the Wikipedia article which states "This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas,[1] Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes ,[2] and The Lord of the Rings[3] [...] that lack comprehensive sales figures”.

And therefore to remove the statement of Don Quixote with 500 million approximate sales. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 15:48, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Apparently the NYTimes stated the 500 million copies figure around 2010[1]. Fram (talk) 08:24, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Well found, but where the original nytimes article? And the Nytimes sources?

Don Quixote is a 500 year old book. We can know the sales of its most recent editions, but its total sales is a incredible claim. The editorial world only allows this monitoring over the last two centuries, and even then. You might as well give a number for the Bible. Let's accept our ignorance. Bernhard Brigge (talk) 14:12, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Missing books

Robinson Crusoe and Pilgrim's Progress are both missing from the list. And both are said to be the second best selling books after the Bible in all of human history. I don't have the precise numbers but maybe someone with more knowledge can look in to this and add them to the lost where they belong? 213.83.133.98 (talk) 07:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

This shows up on popular websites like https://www.knowledgesnacks.com/articles/the-10-best-selling-novels-of-all-time/#:~:text=The%20Pilgrim%E2%80%99s%20Progress.%20250%20million%20copies%20sold.%20Four,Altemus%20edition%20of%201890.%20%28Photo%3A%20Wikimedia%20%2FPublic%20domain%29, but I haven't run across a usable source yet. I expect it might be true, though production numbers for these are likely lower in the last few years. eleuthero (talk) 04:29, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

"Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" has sold over 50 million copies "according to data from Google Books", but I can't find that citation or any other that is reliable. Apesbrain (talk) 10:54, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

This page title is inaccurate

This page should be titled: List of best-selling books since 1990. Or should otherwise something that makes it clearer as to the real data contained on the page. As per the presage the requirement of verifiable sales figures means that really only sales since 1990 in western countries are well documented. By default unless one can find a good source, the overwhelming majority of popular novels from before this period are essentially excluded from consideration. Note this causes frequent and constant confusion by people citing this page! 89.2.143.30 (talk) 16:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

And yet only one of the 6 first books is from post-1990... While most of the sources are recent, many of the books are much older, and the best sources don't restrict themselves to recent sales figures only. The list is far from perfect, but represents a global and timeless perspective as good as reasonably possible for a summary source. While you are free to formally propose a rename, I doubt it will succeed. Fram (talk) 08:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

You are mostly correct. Figures were centrally collected in the US from the 50s at the latest. However the numbers of copies of some other books, or at least a lower or upper bound is sometimes known to within a few thousand. Generally publishers figures are reasonably reliable. The other huge factor though is the modern mass book market. Even early twentieth century books tend to report thousands or, exceptionally, tens of thousands of copies printed. These are dwarfed by modern print runs of best-selling authors, The Silmarillion, back in the 80s had a print run of one million hardback copies, for example. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:13, 4 January 2024 (UTC).

Bible

The opening correctly references that the Bible is the best-selling book of all-time, but then it is not listed in the categories of best-selling books. It should be listed. Keystone18 (talk) 23:00, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Please read the last sentence of the paragraph you refer to: All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons. CodeTalker (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

"ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded" What qualifies as those three things? isn't the anonymous programme at least philosophical in its approach to quitting alcohol, narcotics etc? any autobiography of a political or religious figure is likely to push ideas of some kind, even books on scientific topics like psychological, economics or child rearing has multiple schools of thought so will promote a ideology of a sort. I think that statement essentially removes most non fiction that isn't a dictionary or some other catalogue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.71.80.38 (talk) 22:42, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

This sentence is an attempt to provide a figleaf for our uncertainty over these figures, and to avoid having to deal with boosterism, particularly with respect to the Bible vs the Q'ran. Excluding the Bible is also (IIRC) an echo of the Guinness Book of Records entry for this category for decades. It certainly needs revisiting, but carefully. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 17:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC).