And if you’re looking at this list, thinking it could be more diverse, you’re right, it still should be. Selected from the top twenty-five most-read books for each five-year period, here are twenty books for one hundred years of diverse and popular reading. For those of you who like colour and detail, this lack of diversity can also be viewed by way of pie charts.īut rather than wallowing, we should read. There’s nothing particularly surprising about these numbers, but there’s not much to be proud about. – 52% were written by Americans, 25% by Brits, and another 21% by people from other countries of Europe or the Americas. – 86% were originally written in English. – 93% were written by heterosexual people. The combined total for all White/European, Jewish, and Latinx writers comes to 97%. Of the number one most popular books for each year: These lists also shine a light on the already glaring diversity problem of the book world. This provides insight into burning questions such as “What books from 1927 are currently the most popular?”, or more probably “what literature has been frequently taught in school for the past few decades?”, and even (because these book lists are notably heavily American) “what demographics make up Goodreads’ core user base?” One of the better features Goodreads has brought out in recent times is the ability to see the most added books by year for the past hundred years*. If there’s one thing I love on par with books, it’s data.
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