America's all-time favorite book is no surprise, according to a new Harris poll: Across all demographic groups, the No. 1 title is the Holy Bible. It's when you get to the No. 2 book on people's lists that things start to get interesting. Click here to let us know your top two favorite books.
Whites and Latinos both named Margaret Mitchell's classic Southern saga Gone with the Wind as their second favorite book, while Blacks chose Vatican thriller Angels and Demons, from author Dan Brown, who also wrote The Da Vinci Code.
Men and women were also split on their second favorite book, with women going for Gone With the Wind and men choosing J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.
Based on all adults surveyed, the all-time top ten books are:
- The Bible
- Gone with the Wind
- The Lord of the Rings series
- The Harry Potter series
- The Stand
- The Da Vinci Code
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Angels and Demons
- Atlas Shrugged
- Catcher in the Rye
To see the Harris poll breakdowns, click here.
Another interesting finding is that Gone with the Wind seems to be the one thing America's major political parties agree on. Democrats, Republicans and Independents all selected it as their No. 2 overall.
"Educational levels have the largest differences. Those with high school or less education cite Gone with the Wind as their second favorite book of all time while Americans with some college education say it is [Stephen King's novel] The Stand," the study reports. "College graduates go to Lord of the Rings and those with a post graduate education are tied as both Lord of the Rings and To Kill a Mockingbird come in number two for them."
Gone with the Wind was also the book of choice among those ages 44 and older, while Harry Potter and The Stand were the picks of Echo Boomers and Generation X.
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