Best-seller of all time

absent I saw the author being interviewed recently (US telly) and she seemed quite embarrassed at all the fuss. Given that it was started out as 'fan fiction' which why would anyone take that seriously, she must be shocked to be in the limelight (but enjoying the money). I wonder how much of it being the best selling book has to do with it going 'viral' and just being in the right place at the right time. She simply got lucky, and wrote a book that became a fad. That's what I think, it's just the latest 'must have'. I couldn't care less about intellectual snobbery, I'm an avid and inveterate reader but have never understood why people hoard books and line their homes with shelves and shelves of books (to show the world how clever they are from what they read unless of course for academic reasons or to do with job) when in fact books are a bind to keep, heavy to move, and dust collectors. I have a handful of books that I keep, they fill 3 tiny shelves. And I'm very thankful for my Kindle!

Since I got my Kindle, and since we started to move, I have found it surprisingly easy to move books on. I took a lot to the local library, some to Oxfam and sent some to Africa to the schools we know. Even my academic books found a good home. Just one or two best friends remain, but I don't know why!

Like you, Grannyknot I am an avid reader, but now that I can find anything I want online I don't need the physical books. Even my dictionaries are redundant (I have dictionaries of everything!) because they are on my iPod and iPad.

absent I had a look at "Fifty Shades of Grey" and thought it was a trite and unpleasant book. And I am no prude!

I thought it was very boring. I have had to cull my books several times as I have moved between countries, and I never keep 'airport' books, but I do re-read most of my classic novels every couple of years and I can't bear to part with them. They are mostly in quite handsome bindings, or in Orange Penguins. I find books furnish a room but I have become selective now.

For the record, I haven't read '50 shades' because it just didn't appeal ... and now of course we have a rash of similar books being pumped out - grr. ariadne good job your library took books of you, our library offloads books in the train station waiting room 'free for the taking' and now I see people are just adding their own to the pile, including magazines. Gets a bit messy in the waiting room sometimes but on the whole it works, so if I feel like literally reading a page turner I'll still snuffle around in there. I've a friend who doesn't even keep books on her Kindle - she deletes them once she's read them. greatnan my Kindle has a handsome cover!

Fifty Shades of Grey was a fad hyped up by the media and supermarkets who cashed in on it and made it a must have. Even my mum read it......incredibly embarassing when she wanted to discuss it and asked me what some things meant. Imagine having to describe sexual activities to your 78 year old mum lol.

Now she has read all three and thinks the story would have been just as good without the sex. She has also decided that some of the things were so strange that the author made them up as there is no way people would do such things in real life lol.

I always thought the Bible was the biggest-selling book of all time!
Has 50 Shades beaten it?

Apparently, it's the best selling book in Britain so, presumably, has sold more copies than the Bible in Britain. I would think fewer Bibles are sold these days than were sold in the past.

Ah, Grannyknot, but would a kindle furnish my rather sparse flat? I don't have many ornaments, just some pictures and photos. I like the look of books, but I suppose I will have to get a kindle before my next trip to New Zealand in February. I can't take all of Jane Austen's novels on the plane.

I read the first chapter on my kindle and decided I could find a much more readable book , I thought it was badly written and shallow/rubbish.. as someone else said a fad hyped up by the media..

I've found myself weeding out my books slowly , keeping those I know I'll read again and slowly the shelves are emptying, I usually archive books I've read on my Kindle , I've been checking the 'free' books every few days and found loads of interesting ones..

Good luck to E L James, I personally wouldn't read the book as I hear it's complete drivel. I read the Crimson Petal and the White, before the t.v. series came out, and although it was liberally laced with a lot of sex, it nevertheless had a good plot which drove it along, I wish the author would write a sequel because he left it right up in the air. For me, I need a good well plotted story and I gather the Fifty Shades doesn't provide that.

Like others I downloaded a sample of this book to my Kindle - didn't even make it to the end of the sample! i thought it was absolute tosh. However I think it shows how influential the media is. This book was hyped by the publishers and advertised on social networking sites. Still, good luck to the writer - her book was in the right place at the right time. They say we all have a book in us so perhaps we all ought to start writing - next year we will be millionaires!

greatnan your flat sounds minimalistic. I agree that books trump a Kindle in your case .

... excepting of course when you're packing a (suit)case! Meant to add too that culling more than just books when moving countries as I did - is very liberating. Scary at first, but liberating.

I didn't have any grand scheme of minimalistic interior design - I just bought the place fully furnished. I am not very interested in possessions - the flat is warm and comfortable and convenient and very cheap and easy to run.
I would be happy to spend the rest of my life in hotels.

I had a quick look at the reviews of 50 Shades in the Kindle shop - and the curious thing given that it's so popular is that it only rates 3 stars overall. So it's just average from thousands of reviews.

The De Vinci Code also sold amazingly well for a not very well written book about a subject that had already been put out in the public domain.

baNANA That was a truly badly written book that needed a decent editor to try to knock the oh-so-obvious and frequently sign posted "twists" in the plot into shape. Even the geography was wrong and anyone could have got that right by looking at a map of Paris. And yes the Mary Magdalene theory has been around for over a hundred years, I think.

absentgrana, I do agree it was indeed a badly written book. I did however find the premise of Mary Magdalene being Jesus' wife very interesting and hadn't heard it before, but then I was raised a Catholic where one was taught that Mary Magdalene was a fallen woman only finding redemption through Jesus, but certainly not as a wife or partner. Having read that book it did inspire me to buy other, better written books, on the same theme.

I read fifty shades of grey whilst on holiday, I thought it was poor but I did finish it. The next book I picked up was Mother's milk by Edward St Aubyn, I could not continue reading it, it was possibly the worst book I have looked at. I know the author had a tragic life and it was semi-autobiographical but it was just so bad.
I keep reference books and classics but paperbacks go to friends and relatives and then the charity shop.

I gave up on Mother's Milk last year. It was unbearable reading. My daughter read Fifty Shades of Grey and advised me not to bother. She loves trash fiction, but even she had found her limit!

I liked 'Mother's Milk' so much I bought the other four books.

DD has got 50 shades but found it so boring she couldn't finish it.

We are a wall-to-wall book house but I never thought of it as intellectual snobbery! I just can't part with something given as a gift - mostly - and we have so many that I can go back and read them all again. Plus of course think of the industry for producing/selling books which will die if we all went over to screens.

Thank goodness no-one's thought to replace jigsaw puzzles .....

Oh but they have Nanban I do jigsaws online frequently at jigidi

I agree Nanban what can be snobbish about owning books and I certainly don't keep all mine to impress my friends.
I did go through them all when I retired and threw out the ones I was sure I would never read again.
I was still left with a large number and there are some, like my collection of Barbara Pym novels, that I love re-reading.
I'm particularly pleased when the DCs notice something they would like to read and borrow them.