Posts Tagged ‘best-selling books’
WWMMD?…
Readers may have have found themselves in difficult spots and wondered, as your correspondent has, What Would Matthew McConaughey Do?
Thankfully, help is now at hand. A new site, thoughtfully titled What Would Matthew McConaughey Do?, dispenses wisdom-on-demand, as exampled in these responses to seekers past…
Q: Is it better to be loved or feared?
A: Loved. I’m loved by women in rural Tajikistan trying to achieve agrarian reform; I’m loved by women in Swaziland, fighting for the right to inherit property; I’m loved by women in Papua New Guinea who simply want a man that’s taller than 5’1– and doesn’t indulge in male insemination rituals.
Q: Best hair product?
A: I’m working on one now. It contains African cacao extract, caviar age-control complex, photozyme complex with “color hold,” white truffle oil, Champagne grape seed oil, Bulgarian Evening Primrose and Arabian Frankincense. The shampoo is inspired by enzyme therapy, and can be used to treat conditions ranging from digestive problems to cancer. It will retail for $745/bottle.
Q: Would you dive into a pile of snakes?
A: Hell YES, particularly if the lives of women and children were at stake. Of course, when you say ‘dive,’ I assume you mean ‘tear into’ and ‘through,’ not necessarily plummet into, correct? The last time I deliberately plummeted, it was into thin air, over the skies of Mozambique, and I had a flash back of childhood, in Texas, surrounded by Native American women, in a trance-like state, sweating, beading sweat, invoking the name of the Wind God Yaponcha…but I digress.
Q: I am gay and lonely and can’t seem to find the right guy… any ideas?
A: Nope.
Consult the oracle at What Would Matthew McConaughey Do?
As we revel in the reassurance, we might recall that it was on this date in 1992 that physicist Stephen Hawking set a British publishing record when his explanatory volume A Brief History of Time remained on the best-seller list for the 182nd week in a row (over 3 million copies in 22 languages). Still in print, the sales count is currently over 10 million.
Top of the Pops…
After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year.
– Robert Benchley
From the always-amusing Mental Floss, a current read on The All-Time Best-Selling Books. The top spots are held by volumes either instructional or devotional:
1. The Bible (6.7 billion copies)
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao, Mao Tse-Tung (900 million)
3. The Qur’an (800 million)
4. Xinhua Zidian (400 million — a Chinese dictionary, first published in 1953)
5. The Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer
6. Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan
7. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, John Foxe
8. The Book of Mormon, Joseph J. Smith, Jr.
But two works of fiction round out the Top Ten:
9. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (107 million — UK title was …and the Philosopher’s Stone)
10. And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie (100 million)
Read the full list (and find links to top lists of videos, games, and albums) at The All-Time Best-Selling Books… dive more deeply into the rankings at Wikipedia— which observes: “This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness.” To put it politely: note, e.g., that Tale of Two Cities and Tolkein’s work probably belong in MF’s Top Ten… Still, it’s fun…
“Classic.” A book which people praise and don’t read.
– Mark Twain
As we turn the page, we might recall that it was on this date in 1593 that poet and playwright (Shakespeare’s nearest rival) Christopher Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl. Marlowe reputedly supplemented his income as a spy; in any case, he ran afoul of Queen Elizabeth’s government when, earlier in the month, his roommate, playwright Thomas Kyd was grilled by authorities. Kyd insisted that the “heretical” papers found in his room belonged to Marlowe, who was subsequently arrested, but was able to use his connections to arrange bail. While out Marlowe became involved in a fight– ostensibly over a tavern bill, but believed by many to have been a set-up– and was stabbed to death.
The 1585 portrait discovered at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1953, believed to be of the 21-year-old Christopher Marlowe. The inscribed motto is “QVOD ME NVTRIT ME DESTRVIT,” “that which nourishes me destroys me.” Indeed. (source)
We might note too that (as the Library of Congress recalls) it was on this date in 1868 that Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
The first national celebration of the holiday took place on that day at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated “Memorial Day.”
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