Is it possible to imagine humanity without a book, although it lived without it for most of its existence? Perhaps no, it is impossible to imagine the history of everything without secret knowledge stored in writing. And the allegations that the book in the modern world has lost its significance and may soon go into non-existence are justified in part. One cannot argue that today information has acquired a digital format, and books are moving gradually into the virtual world, as in a looking glass. And yet they live, write and publish, are bought and sold, and even become the subject of all kinds of ratings. For example, as the most unusual books in the world.
Everyone has their own best book.
It sounds strange: "What is the best book in the world?" The question is at least rhetorical, because to give such an assessment is possible only on the basis of the subjective opinions of millions of people. And for each, this indicator is purely its own. In addition, each time has its own heroes and its own books. And therefore it is better to approach the issue with slightly different standards - to measure the quality of creation not by the content and love of readers for it, but by the frequency of reprints and general circulations.
And if so, do not the eternal writings — the Bible, the Qur'an — deserve the title of “The Best Book in the World”? It is known that, for example, the circulation of the Bible over the millennia of its existence amounted to 6 trillion. It is clear that this is only an approximate figure, because it all started with handwritten lists.
900 billion - such is the circulation of the quote book of the Great Helmsman - Mao Tse Tung. Of course, in the world there are a huge number of people who put this book at the head of the rating "The most-most-most book in the world."
And from contemporary works all the records of popularity are beaten by the notorious “Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien. Here the circulation exceeds 100 billion copies.
There are many different ratings in which an attempt is made to determine what is the best book in the world - TOP-10, TOP-100 ... And among the most extensive descriptions it is always nice to see that people who read still consider leaders to be eternal creations - “The Master and Margarita "M. Bulgakova," One Hundred Years of Solitude "G. G. Marquez," Count of Monte Cristo "A. Dumas.
About the most subjective
Who would ever ask what the most interesting books in the world are? And here comes the same, and polls on this topic are always read with interest, because there is no more subjective concept than taste. There cannot be two people who would answer this question in the same way. So, according to one of the many polls, the title of the most interesting book was awarded to the latest bestseller of the British writer E.L. James, the trilogy Fifty Shades of Gray, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades of Liberty. Still, in the year of publication of the first part, in 2012, 15 million copies were sold in just three months! Meanwhile, the book was not impressed with true connoisseurs of literature; moreover, it was recognized as cheap pornography. This is a word about tastes.
So, the most interesting books in the world. Will the reader allow the author of the article to offer his (purely subjective) rating?
In childhood, the most interesting were fairy tales and stories about animals. Then the favorite book was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Next is the Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas and the Notre Dame Cathedral by Victor Hugo. And the “Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha” - how was it not to love him? And who knew then that this book is second only to the Bible in terms of circulation?
In high school, to the delight of a literature teacher, a comprehensive love for Dostoevsky’s books began - “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Crime and Punishment”.
Years of students brought new names and new discoveries. William Faulkner, “Noise and Rage” - this was a shock to the world. Then the novels of the century opened (they remained such) - “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita”. The "Quiet Flows the Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov was read and re-read in a new way. And quite unexpectedly, the philosophical works of Friedrich Nietzsche captured forever, and much fell into place. The novel "So said Zarathustra" - and today is a handbook.
Contemporary literature continues to surprise no less. Of the favorite books - every letter written by Fazil Iskander (whoever has not read it, he can consider himself deprived), all the works of Haruki (not Ryu) Murakami. And on the train or on the plane - a light ironic reading of Daria Dontsova. Such books are also needed, for example, Notes of the Mad Optimist.
This list is endless. For every person reading it is endless. But for the unreadable, he did not begin.
Sales are everything
Circulations by default assume popularity, and therefore, the sellability of the creation. Nevertheless, it is useful to ask: what is the best-selling book in the world? Sacred out of competition - they don’t even need ratings. Today it is known that the Bible surpasses all publications on the planet: the daily circulation is 32876. Another thing is that the scripture is not for sale - in theory it should be distributed free of charge to all believers.
And what about secular publications? Ironically, in the Guinness Book of Records, the first place in terms of sales should take ... the Guinness Book of Records! It is translated into 52 languages ​​of the world, and its sales have long exceeded the mark of 450 million copies.
This is followed, albeit with a wide gap, by a book from English classics - the historical novel by Charles Dickens “The Tale of Two Cities”. Since its publication in the mid-19th century, at least 200 million copies have been sold, according to rough estimates. Dickens is not a historiographer, and his only historical work on the French Revolution made a splash in many countries of the world. Just not in the USSR. The fact is that too realistic an image of the revolutionary process did not correspond to communist ideology, and the book simply blocked the path to the general reader.
Further, the best-selling rating of global bestsellers looks like this:
- John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings.
- Cao Xueqin, "A Dream in a Red Tower."
- Agatha Christie, Ten Little Indians.
The bestseller list also includes such masterpieces as The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery and The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.
The most famous books - what are they?
Book fame is not always measured by sales. Rather, the indicator is different: if a work has survived for centuries, translated into many languages ​​and remains as relevant as after the first edition - this is fame.
And again, indisputable leaders of the holy books - the Bible, the Koran, the Torah. These are the most read, most cited, most revered print media. In a word, each of them is the most-most-most book in the world. However, it makes no sense to say that it is out of competition.
Enthusiasts made an attempt to find out what is the most famous book in the world. But since there can be no definite answer by definition, it was decided to make a rating of the hundred most famous. Many will be surprised by the fact that he is headed by Leo Tolstoy's “War and Peace” - the most textbook work in Russian literature. In second place is George Orwell's 1984 novel. The third is Ulysses by James Joyce. This is followed by “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov and “Noise and Rage” by William Faulkner. Winston Churchill's book, World War II, closes a hundred.
Size matters to record books
The British National Library exhibits the world's largest book, listed in the Guinness Book of Records, during exhibitions. This booklet is 180 cm tall. Actually, this is not even a book, but a collection of printed wall maps in the amount of 37 pieces and the dimensions of 1.9x1.75 m. The publication was prepared in 1660 for King Charles II.
What is this biggest book in the world about? On these sheets not only maps are depicted. On them is the most complete body of knowledge about the world that existed for that period of time. Of course, to the best of the compilers of these priceless cards. So in any case, a unique publication would have to get into the Guinness book, if not in gigantic proportions, then in saturation of information, for example, as the most intelligent book in the world.
This record is disputed by another book published in 1976 in Denver (USA). It is called “Superbook”. Its dimensions are 3.07 m high, 2.74 m wide. The number of pages is not that impressive - 300. But the book weighs 252.6 kg.
And here is the year 2004. The record "The World's Largest Book" is confounded. It is all the more pleasant that this happened in Russia. The Biggest Book for Babies, published by Ying Publishing House, is all the more unique because it consists of only ... four pages! On these pages are 12 poems. But the book weighs 492 kilograms, rises 6 meters, and has a width of 3 meters.
Of course, the book for the kids was not made on an ordinary printing press. First, they made a wooden slipway, then they glued the pages using special technology. This miracle was taken to the exhibition of children's books in Moscow on a construction panel train!
Baby book
The title “The smallest book in the world” is claimed by several unique publications. Until now, the Russian palm was left-handed, Sergey Konenko from Omsk. In 1996, he printed a thirty-page book 0.9 * 0.9 mm in size, which contained Chekhov's story "The Chameleon." But then there was a real threat to his record. In Japan, there is a Toppan publishing house specializing in the publication of original books for 40 years now, since 1964. It published a 22-page miniature book with dimensions of 0.7 * 0.7 mm. It is called "Flowers of the Four Seasons" ("Shiki no Kusabana"), and it presents illustrations of the most beautiful flowers of Japan in monochrom. It is not possible to see them or read the text even with glasses. The Japanese found a way out: those who wish can buy it for $ 300 on a more affordable scale and with a magnifying glass in addition. And for those who would like to imagine what the smallest book in the world is in reality, the inventors distributed her photographs next to the eye of a needle. The scale is impressive.
By seniority
This is just the case when old age decorates. Especially when it comes to the book. In the ranking of the oldest publications, as in any other, there is no unanimity. Contrary to expectations, the oldest book in the world is not the Bible. Printed scripture appeared only in the 15th century.
The very first print publication is five thousand years old. These are clay tablets with inscriptions. True, it is difficult to call them a book, like the ancient Egyptian papyri. Each nation has its own oldest book and its own writing material. So, among the ancient Chinese, long before the invention of paper, bamboo was used to preserve written information.
Another example. The Museum of History in Bulgaria houses the Golden Book of the Etruscans. It was found by archaeologists during excavations of ancient tombs and presented to the museum. Examination showed that it is genuine, and her age is at least two and a half years. The book is actually golden: its leaves are made of thin gold plates fastened like a notebook. It has drawings and engraved text in Etruscan. By the way, they still could not decrypt it. Whether to consider this rarity a book is also a question: after all, this is not a printed publication in the traditional sense.
In this case, seniority should be given to another book - a collection of sermons of the ancient Korean Buddhist monks "Chikchi". It was printed using a movable font in the walls of the Hyndoks monastery in the 14th century.
All this was before the era of printing. With the invention of the printing press, a new era began. What was the first real book? In the middle of the 15th century, the German inventor Guttenberg printed the first Bible. Not more than three dozen copies of the publication have survived in the world. Today it is not only one of the oldest, but also the most expensive book. In 1987, at the Christie's auction, they bought it for $ 5 million.
Of course, this is just selective knowledge, but not the final answer to the question. Times are changing, finds are multiplying, and research methods are becoming more sophisticated. So, we can assume that the oldest book in the world has not yet been found.
Is book beauty essential?
The question of which is the largest book in the world can cause curiosity. But another question - about the most beautiful edition - is perceived with some bewilderment. Although, why not, if there is a rating of “The worst book in the world”? And yet, is it possible to rank books by brightness of binding, pictures, inlays? It turns out you can. And even there is such a rating - "The most beautiful book in the world." He is led by a tome dedicated to the great Michelangelo. On pages of thin gold plates - his biography, his work, as well as the works of his teachers and other ministers of muses, whom the artist especially favored. The book’s dimensions are also impressive - 24 kg, not counting the massive wooden case in which this rare edition is stored. It is really rare - it was released in a collection of 99 copies, and its cost is 135 thousand dollars. For a true collector, this is perhaps not only beautiful, but also the best book in the world.
For the beauty of design, books by book illustrator and Canadian designer Marian Bantjes compete with this edition. The artist herself considers each decorated edition a manifesto of beauty.
Fat is a compliment
But in terms of thickness, among books there are no equal codes of norms and rules by which unemployment benefits are assigned. The idea of ​​its creation belongs to the Danish insurance fund “Min A-Casse”. 23,675 pages in a single binding - these are the sizes of this folio. The question is, why did you need to publish such a bulky publication, if not to establish a record in the nomination “The Thickest Book in the World”? It turns out that the authors of the idea simply wanted to demonstrate to the whole world how the insurance system in Europe was bureaucratized. For comparison, they cite the following figures: 50 years ago, the entire volume of legislative acts for obtaining unemployment benefits was placed on 421 pages. There is a difference.
The longest book in the world - the one you read for a long time?
This, of course, is an attempt to joke. In fact, if the book is "long", you can’t finish reading it, postpone it and start again. The conversation is not about such "masterpieces". Truly voluminous works claiming the title of "The Longest Book in the World" exist in nature. Moreover, measured both in length in the physical sense and in volume of the printed text. In the first case, the record holder is a giant scroll, containing only eleven fairy tales, but having a length of 1856 meters. This is a collective work of residents of the Italian city of Castello.
But the longest book, consisting of 27 volumes and numbering more than two million words, was written by the French writer Jules Romaine. And the novel "People of Good Will" was written in record time - from 1932 to 1946. The page index barely fits in 50 pages!
Ironically, this longest and in its own way the largest book in the world was not appreciated. The novel about the crisis for France and the whole world of the era of the beginning of the twentieth century, according to critics, contained many distortions of historical truth. And there were no discounts on the author’s right to fiction, and even more so to the unprecedented volumes of Romen’s work.
Each has its own horror story
Fearfully? Do not read. A simple question is a simple answer. But there are true horror fans. You can even guess that there are a majority of them - a small psychological shake can be useful as an extreme sport.
Another thing is that to the question of what is the worst book in the world, everyone has their own answer. Stephen King's books “It”, “Flying in the Night”, “Children of the Corn” have a lot of chances to take first place in this rating - you can’t continue because this author simply specializes in the horror story genre. And film adaptations most often correspond to the printed analogue in terms of the level of adrenaline being released.
Many of our compatriots, especially adults, will call the most terrible book the immortal creation of N.V. Gogol's "Wii". A few decades ago, his film adaptation was the only horror film in the country. Many were forced to shrink with fear by Arthur Conan Doyle's stories - “The Hound of the Baskerville,” “Variegated Ribbon.” The books of Edgar Allan Poe no less astonished their imagination with their gloom, recall at least the “Fall of the House of Asher.” From the same galaxy of authors - Oscar Wilde with his amazing "Portrait of Dorian Gray."
It should be noted that the authors of the 18-19 centuries were carried away not by horror in the modern sense, but rather by mysticism. The unknown always scares. Today's horror stories are much more transparent - blood, knives, piranhas, mutants. Sharks as a last resort. They scare no less, but I don’t always want to read and watch.
The amazing world of books presented and continues to present incredible surprises to book lovers. Perhaps soon readers will become participants in a new survey, for example, about what is the smartest book in the world, or will think about the most beloved, most useful, or, conversely, unnecessary edition.