Deborah Woehr

10. In His Steps: “What Would Jesus Do?”, by Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon

This book about Christianity has been on the shelves for over 100 years and has sold 28.5 million copies. I never heard of it until now, but am very impressed with its longevity.

9. Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann

This book has sold over 30 million copies since its debut in 1966. I never read the book, but watched the movie, which starred Sharon Tate.

8. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, by Dr. Spock

This instruction manual has been popular since 1946 and spawned other books like it. The sale count is around 40 million copies. I bought a copy of it after I had my oldest, but decided to use my own common sense in child rearing.

7. World Almanac, by unknown author

This was first published in 1886 and has a sales record of 40 million+ copies.

6. A Message to Garcia, by Elbert Hubbard

This started out as magazine material and wound up being a motivational tool for employees. A Message to Garcia has sold between 40 and 50 million copies. I’ve seen this distributed as a free ebook on several Internet Marketer’s sites. Another interesting fact: Elbert is L. Ron Hubbard’s father.

5. The McGuffey Readers, by William Holmes McGuffey

The McGuffey readers were orginally published in 1879 and were supposed to teach kids about how to read. Instead, six volumes contained McGuffey’s own views on middle class values and social order. Sale count: 60 million copies.

4. The Guinness Book of Records, by unknown author

Everybody knows what this book is about. In the 70’s, people were doing all kinds of crazy things to get in the world record book. Today, that’s pretty much died out. Or, the media hasn’t deemed the latest fetes as newsworthy. Sales count: 81 million copies

3. American Spelling Book, by Noah Webster

This book has been around since 1803 and has since spawned the Webster’s Dictionary. Sales count: 100 million copies.

2. Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung

Formerly known as “The Red Book” and is the foundation of China’s communist society. Sales count: 800 million copies

1. The Bible

Some tout this book as the world’s best page-turner. Who knows how many copies it has sold, but the guestimate is in the billions.

I treated myself to a visit at the bookstore on Friday, using the guise of buying a present for my oldest’s friend, who had a birthday. Naturally, I came home with two books, in addition to his gift card.

Best of Blogs is a neat little compendium of the most popular bloggers in a wide variety of topics, including writer’s blogs. I’d heard of most of these blogs, but there were a couple I hadn’t heard about, such as Alex Ross and House of Mirth.

Naturally, I wanted to hear what the Amazon.com reviewers had to say. There are only two reviews, and it is the second one that got me my gears spinning like mad.

Quoted from an Amazon Reviewer:

In any given area, the suggested blogs in the book are of course only a tiny sampling. Albeit these are usually the most frequented blogs. Take popular music. For news on it, only 4 blogs are given. But the authors readily concede that much more could be done. An entire book’s worth on each topic. Still and hopefully, this book will suffice to get you oriented in the blogosphere.

Back in December (before the blog anthology was even thought of) I set out to find as many quality writer’s blogs as I could, only to get discouraged. My research skills have improved since then. So far, I’ve catalogued 85 blogs in 12 categories (compared to the book’s measley 4) related to writing and books. That was on Friday, and I’ve just scratched the surface.

These are quality blogs, not the typical (like mine) that I found on Blog Explosion. At this time, I’m compiling a directory of these blogs for my own pleasure (my sidebar is only so big). Would you be interested in a book like this?

Once I work out the formatting issues––widows and orphans––the ebook will be ready to submit to Lulu. A big thanks goes to Melly for helping me with the edits.

This day has a big significance in our family. My father-in-law opened his business on April Fool’s Day of 1976. And, I met my husband on this day in 1988. If one of our kids had been an April Fool birthday, we’d really have something going.

Okay, back to my editing I go. Have a great weekend, everyone!