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Harry Potter as bible of modern degenerates
  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    We gathered a de-identified sample of over 130,000 status updates matching “10 books” or “ten books” appearing in the last two weeks of August 2014 (although the meme has been active over at least a year). The demographics of those posting were as follows: 63.7% were in the US, followed by 9.3%in India, and 6.3% in the UK. Women outnumbered men 3.1:1. The average age was 37. We therefore expect the books chosen to be reflective of this subset of the population.

    Here are the top 20 books, along with a percentage of all lists (having at least one of the top 500 books) that contained them.

    1. 21.08 Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
    2. 14.48 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
    3. 13.86 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
    4. 7.48 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
    5. 7.28 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
    6. 7.21 The Holy Bible
    7. 5.97 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
    8. 5.82 The Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
    9. 5.70 The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
    10. 5.63 The Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
    11. 5.61 The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
    12. 5.37 1984 - George Orwell
    13. 5.26 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
    14. 5.23 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
    15. 5.11 The Stand - Stephen King
    16. 4.95 Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
    17. 4.38 A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
    18. 4.27 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
    19. 4.05 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
    20. 4.01 The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

    https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-science/books-that-have-stayed-with-us/10152511240328859

  • 4 Replies sorted by
  • PsycoPsyco

    Hey, not all is lost! There is a small minority that gives some hope... I really didn't expect "The Hitchhiker's Guide" or "1984" to be in such a list.

    (That 11% must be the non-US, non-India, non-UK part of the population;-P

  • Vitaliy_KiselevVitaliy_Kiselev

    I really didn't expect "The Hitchhiker's Guide" or "1984" to be in such a list.

    Nothing wrong with this two, but they are teen books.

  • thornthorn

    1984 is not a "teen book"...although if teens appreciate it, so much the better.

  • ScotScot

    "our clustering algorithm lumped all Harry Potter books into the same cluster)"

    Well if we combine Lord of the Rings with the Hobbit as they should have as they did with all the Harry Potter books. Than JRR Tolkein reigns supreme. Devil is always in the details.

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