And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." 3) A lot of people start classics - but probably don't finish them "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. I nterestingly, three of the Bible versions share the exact same most-highlighted passage: Philippians 4: 6-7. But there's also the additional factor that faith-related books are the kind that many people like to highlight and return to particular passages in - more than, perhaps, a novel. This is mostly because millions of people read the Bible. Three of the bible versions share the same most-highlighted verse In addition to the six Bible versions, there are five other Christianity-oriented books in the top 25 most-highlighted books of all time. But it may be a surprise that it's also number 4, 6, 11, 16, and 18 - because different versions of it are listed separately. It might not be a huge shock that the Bible is the single most highlighted Kindle book of all time. The fifth-most highlighted passage of Kindle text of all time, for instance, highlighted by 8,500 readers, is 'I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,' Peeta replies." 2) The Bible is also extremely popular on Kindle But many are clearly there because they tap into adolescent ideas of romance. Some of the 19 Hunger Games passages in the top 25 are important plot points, or are perhaps a little inspiring. No other passage from any book has gotten more than 9260 highlights. The single most-highlighted passage, from Catching Fire ("Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.") was highlighted by 17784 Kindle users. The books rank as the 3rd, 8th, and 13th most highlighted of all timeīut their dominance in the rankings is still pretty amazing.
The books are also entirely free to anyone with an Amazon Prime account.
Part of this is simply due to the fact that Kindles have only become widely-used over the past few years, and The Hunger Games has been the most popular series during that time. Additionally, the three books rank as 3, 8, and 13 in the list of most-highlighted books of all time. Of the top 25 most-highlighted passages ever, a ridiculous 19 come from one of the books in the Hunger Games trilogy, including numbers 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6. 1) The Hunger Games is really, really popular Here are seven things the lists tell us about Americans reading today. They reveal not just what books are read, but what part of books are read - and even tell us a little about what people are thinking about as they do their highlighting. And s ome books don't lend themselves to highlighting quite as much, which is why many of even Amazon's bestsellers don't appear on the lists.īut it's also true that some books get bought and end up on bestseller lists, but aren't actually read - whereas these lists are a terrific record of what we might nowadays call reader engagement. There are some limitations to the data: it's only for people who read on Kindles, and use them for highlighting. The data is extremely heavily skewed towards American readers ( Amazon isn't saying whether they include international data, but it looks like they don't). The resulting most-highlighted lists are a fascinating record of reading as a whole. The passages you highlight are all collected in one place, accessible either on the reader or a computer.īut Amazon also collects data on what its readers highlight most. When you read on a Kindle, you can highlight passages, the same way you might highlight text in a physical book. Highlights reveal not just what books are read, but what part of books are read Conventionally, the most common way of gauging the most popular books in America has been looking at the New York Times' bestsellers list.īut as we shift from reading on paper to screens, there's an interesting new option: Amazon's lists of the most-highlighted passages and most-highlighted books on Kindles around the world.