Harry Potter

Philosopher’s Stone – 77,325
Chamber of Secrets – 84,799
Prisoner of Azkaban – 106,821
Goblet of Fire – 190,858
Order of the Phoenix – 257,154
Half Blood Prince – 169,441
Deathly Hallows – 198,227

Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit – 95,022
The Lord of the Rings – 455,125
The Two Towers – 143,436
The Return of the King – 134,462

Other Famous Books

22,416 – The Mouse and the Motorcycle – Beverly Cleary
30,644 – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
36,363 – Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
46,118 – Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury
47,094 – The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
49,459 – Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut
59,900 – Lord of the Flies – William Golding
63,766 – Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
64,768 – The Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury
66,950 – Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
67,203 – The Fault in Our Stars – John Green
67,707 – The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
73,404 – The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
78,462 – The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
80,398 – The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
84,845 – Gilead – Robinson, Marilynne
85,199 – The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
87,846 – Pere Goriot – Honore de Balzac
87,978 – Persuasion – Jane Austen
88,942 – Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
91,419 – Joy Luck Club – Amy Tan
97,364 – Anne of Green Gables – Lucy Maud Montgomery
99,121 – To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
100,388 – To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
112,815 – The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman
123,378 – Atonement – Ian McEwan
127,776 – Life on the Mississippi – Mark Twain
134,710 – Schindler’s List – Thomas Keneally
135,420 – A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
138,087 – Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe
138,098 – Snow Falling on Cedars – Guterson, David
138,138 – 20000 Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne
144,523 – One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
145,092 – A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
145,265 – Cold Sassy Tree – Olive Ann Burns
145,469 – Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
155,887 – Emma – Jane Austen
155,960 – Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
156,154 – Watership Down – Richard Adams
157,665 – Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
159,276 – The Kitchen God’s Wife – Amy Tan
161,511 – Cold Mountain – Charles Frazier
166,622 – Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe
169,389 – White Teeth – Zadie Smith
169,481 – The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
174,269 – Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
183,349 – Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
183,833 – Little Women (Books 1&2) – Louisa May Alcott
186,418 – Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
198,901 – A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul
206,052 – Moby Dick – Herman Melville
211,591 – Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
316,059 – Middlemarch – George Eliot
418,053 – Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
591,554 – A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

As a writer, I keep all sorts of notes in all sorts of little black books. Thinking being, these notes might come in handy for a book one day. Months later when I find these notes I have to wonder what we were thinking. Here’s a select few:

=====

‘Should the hippo fart or burp?’
‘Fart.’
‘No, I think it’s too silly.’
‘But the bubbles are coming from its butt!’

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‘Can we swap feelings?’
‘What have you got?’
‘Anger.’
‘Oh no, I don’t want that.’

 =====

‘I was useless at maths, ask me anything.’
‘Whats 2 times 2?’
‘Wellington.’

=====

‘Mum, is Sophie in charge of the bread?’

=====

‘Hey let’s name our ears. I’ve got Lilly and Ryan.’

 =====

‘Dad, I just need some penguin time!’

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Have a great weekend,
Justin

writers festival pic

For a word lover the Auckland Writers Festival is about as close to christmas as you can get. One brilliant mind after another, speaking to hoards of wide-eyed readers, flat-white in one hand, moleskin notebook in the other.

For me it began on Friday as I watched Noelle McCarthy, John Boyne, and Irish poet Paul Muldoon describe Ireland’s uprising in ‘From 1916 to Here.’ The mature lady next to me, shoes already off and pen at the ready, asked if I might be able to ‘give her a nudge if she nodded off.’ She did nod off, but I felt mean robbing her of sleep.

Later that day Elanor Catton spoke with Edward Carey, author of the Iremonger Trilogy, where its inhabitants live in Heaps, a vast sea of lost and discarded items collected from all over London. Edward’s illustrations are dark, gloomy, cold, depressing and brilliant. Cha-ching went the till.

There was a Michael Grant talk, Tom Gates author Liz Pichon, a tribute to Vincent O’Sullivan and a lively Bill Oddie telling a packed house why he threw Jesus out and kept Elvis. Long story.

In the VIP lounge I met Petina Gappah, the charming and hilarious Zimbabwean-Genevan lawyer turned novelist. What a mind! I was introduced to Michel Faber and we talked music. He likes to be challenged when he’s writing, nothing nostalgic, something gripping, like Coil or Current 93. Then I discovered his latest work ‘The Book of Strange New Things.’ Cha-ching went the till.

The Herald Theatre is a beautiful space in which to talk. I spoke on Sunday afternoon, but why was I so nervous? Didn’t I do school talks often? Yes, but this was a theatre. 30 minutes flew by, thanks to a hilarious crowd of kids, happy to turn bananas into penguins, tea towels into chickens, each clutching a copy of ‘Shot, Boom, Score!’ which I was more than happy to sign.

Festival staff: 10/10. Keeping 65,000 people happy can’t be easy.

What a bugger. Having to wait another year and all…