If your entire life was shaped by reading “Harry Potter,” don’t worry: so were the lives of most people.
A new study has found that J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” books are the most influential books in the world, beating out “Lord of the Rings,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and even The Bible.
The study comes from something that was going around Facebook, asking users to list the books that were most influential to them, telling them “Don’t take more than a few minutes and don’t think too hard. They do not have to be the ‘right’ books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way.”
According to The Telegraph, two researchers analyzed 130,000 of these answers and found that “Potter” was the most influential of any piece of literature, having been cited in 21 % of users’ lists. That’s over 7 % more than the second most influential book, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” got.
And to all those who say they’re just children’s books: the average age of the study participant was 37, meaning that person would have been 20 when the first “Potter” book came out. It just shows how universal the appeal of Rowling’s wizarding world is, and how it can span age groups, denominations, and generations of readers.
We’ve listed the top ten below, and you can find the rest of the list here:
1. “Harry Potter” Series
2. “To Kill a Mockingbird”
3. “The Lord of the Rings”
4. “The Hobbit”
5. “Pride and Prejudice”
6. “The Holy Bible”
7. “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”
8. “The Hunger Games” trilogy
9. “The Catcher in the Rye”
10. “The Chronicles of Narnia”
And let us know what books were most influential to you!
No Comments