Best selling books wind up that way for a reason. They're the stories that speak widely to the human experience, resonating with a broad swath of people from practically every walk of life. Today's best selling books are tracked by the New York Times Bestselling Books List, and it compiles sales numbers from all the major book distributors.
New York Times Best Sellers
As the gold standard for ranking the publishing industry's sales, the Times book page is followed by everyone from editors to everyday readers. The list is updated weekly, so even a book that hits peak sales quickly and then slows down has a chance to appear for a week or two. Many readers follow it for that reason. Those short performances tend to be breakout authors. Long running best sellers that perform for a year or more are also likely to wind up as eventual classics of their genre.
The list includes nonfiction and fiction, with separate lists for mass-market paperbacks, kids’ books, and other genres. It is the best way to keep track of the latest best selling books.
Browse the Best Selling Books of All Time
Some of the best selling books ever have sales for centuries before America's top book list started tracking. Others, like The Catcher in the Rye, were sensations that became adopted as classics and widely taught, cementing their annual sales for decades. Whether you are looking to take a trip through some of the best retellings of classic myths, revisit early English literature, or just to find a great story that speaks to audiences in every generation, you need to check out all-time best sellers like:
- The Legend of Sleepy Hollow & Other Tales by Washington Irving
- More Stories From My Father's Court by Isaac Bashevis Singer
- The Crucible by Arthur Miller
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
- The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
- Native Son by Richard Wright
These stories are the ones that speak to deeper themes about family, love, and culture while remaining accessible to people regardless of their personal background. You can't go wrong exploring the most popular books that have ever been, but if you want something more specific, you can also explore best selling book genres. There are three or four genres that make up the majority of today's top sellers.
Best Selling Romance
Many people don't realize it, but romance is actually the top-selling genre from year to year, and it has been for decades. Who doesn't love a love story? From Danielle Steele to classics by the Bronte sisters, they have been the genre with the best selling books for a long, long time.
Science Fiction
A close runner-up in sales to romance is science fiction, which took off at the beginning of the atomic age to become a cultural mainstay with dozens of its own subgenres by the beginning of this century. All-time best sellers in this category show off what the world thought today would look like from 50 or 100 years away, while today's top sellers continue to speculate about tomorrow.
More Best Selling Genres
Fantasy is another top genre for best sellers. While it is often combined with science fiction, the two have become more distinct and their audiences more separated over the past decade or so. There are also great reads to find in best selling mysteries and general fiction, both of which often explore the themes of today's world. Start browsing for your next book, new and used copies of best sellers are in stock.
