Most read books of 2007

Ahhh its that time of year - 2007 has ended and everyone is feeling nostalgic and making lists of stuff. For example, Time Magazine recently came out with 50 Top 10 Lists of 2007 (shameless self-plug: and named Goodreads as the #5 best website of 2007)!

So we decided to make our own list. But what to list? The New York Times has their best seller lists, but we don't have sales data. However we do know when someone read a book, thanks to a 'read date' field attached to every book review. Goodreads has over 10 million books added, and 15% of those have the read date filled in.

So we added a new section under 'explore' called most read that shows what people have read recently. Here is what Americans were reading in 2007:

most read fiction books

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
2. The Kite Runner
3. A Thousand Splendid Suns
4. To Kill a Mockingbird
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
6. The Catcher in the Rye
7. Middlesex
8. The Da Vinci Code
9. Water for Elephants
10. The Great Gatsby

most read non-fiction books

1. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
2. The Glass Castle: A Memoir
3. Me Talk Pretty One Day
4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
5. Running with Scissors: A Memoir
6. Freakonomics Rev Ed: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
7. Into the Wild
8. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
9. The Omnivore's Dilemma
10. The Year of Magical Thinking

*note: we determine if a book is non-fiction by how our members shelf it

most read classics

1. To Kill a Mockingbird
2. The Catcher in the Rye
3. The Great Gatsby
4. 1984
5. Slaughterhouse-Five
6. Brave New World
7. Love in the Time of Cholera
8. Lord of the Flies
9. The Fountainhead
10. The Hobbit

most read childrens books

1. The Harry Potter Series
2. The Giver
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy
4. Where the Sidewalk Ends
5. A Wrinkle in Time
6. Little Women
7. Eragon
8. Watership Down
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
10. Eldest

most read history books

1. Night
2. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic & Madness and the Fair that Changed America
3. Guns, Germs, and Steel
4. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
5. People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present
6. Assassination Vacation
7. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
8. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley
9. All Quiet on the Western Front
10. 1776

most read romance books

1. Twilight
2. New Moon
3. Jane Eyre
4. Wuthering Heights
5. Emma
6. Sense and Sensibility
7. The Notebook
8. Bridget Jones's Diary
9. Outlander
10. A Walk to Remember

most read sci-fi books

1. The Time Traveler's Wife
2. 1984
3. Brave New World
4. The Handmaid's Tale: A Novel
5. Ender's Game
6. His Dark Materials Trilogy
7. A Wrinkle in Time
8. Fahrenheit 451
9. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
10. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

most read philosophy books

1. The Alchemist
2. The Fountainhead
3. Atlas Shrugged
4. The Stranger
5. Siddhartha
6. Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
7. The God Delusion
8. Anthem
9. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
10. Mere Christianity

most read mystery books

1. The Da Vinci Code
2. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
3. Angels & Demons
4. The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel
5. The Shadow of the Wind
6. The Eyre Affair
7. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
8. Deception Point
9. One for the Money
10. Lean Mean Thirteen

most read poetry books

1. Where the Sidewalk Ends
2. The Giving Tree
3. The Odyssey
4. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation
5. The Canterbury Tales
6. A Light in the Attic
7. The Prophet
8. The Iliad
9. Paradise Lost
10. Letters to a Young Poet