Ten Books With the Longest Runs at No. 1 on the New York Times Bestseller List
After its release in 1956, Grace Metalious' Peyton Place dominated the New York Times hardcover fiction chart for 59 weeks straight. Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing, which came out in August 2018, reached No. 1 for 33 weeks between 2019 and 2022 and remained on the list for over 170 weeks, thanks in part to Reese Witherspoon's book club and a film adaptation in 2022. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, released in March 2003, was a bestseller from 2003 to 2004 and its 2006 movie earned more than $750 million. E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, published in 2012, sold over 100 million copies. Other notable successes include Kathryn Stockett's The Help (2009), Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken (2010), Chris Kyle's American Sniper, and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Key facts
- Peyton Place held No. 1 on the New York Times hardcover fiction list for 59 consecutive weeks after its 1956 publication
- Where the Crawdads Sing accumulated 33 weeks at No. 1 on the combined print and e-book fiction list between 2019 and 2022
- The New York Times bestseller list has tracked American book sales since 1931
- The Da Vinci Code was published by Doubleday in March 2003 and Ron Howard's 2006 film grossed more than $750 million worldwide
- Fifty Shades of Grey began as Twilight fan fiction and passed 100 million copies worldwide as a trilogy
- Gone Girl held No. 1 on the hardcover fiction list for eight weeks in 2012
- Unbroken spent roughly four years on the nonfiction list after its November 2010 publication
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sold about 8.3 million U.S. copies in its first 24 hours from a 12 million initial printing
Entities
Artists
- Delia Owens
- Grace Metalious
- Dan Brown
- E.L. James
- Gillian Flynn
- Kathryn Stockett
- Laura Hillenbrand
- Chris Kyle
- J.K. Rowling
- Robert James Waller
- Reese Witherspoon
- Daisy Edgar-Jones
- Lana Turner
- Ron Howard
- Tom Hanks
- David Fincher
- Ben Affleck
- Rosamund Pike
- Paula Hawkins
- Viola Davis
- Octavia Spencer
- Emma Stone
- Angelina Jolie
- Louis Zamperini
- Clint Eastwood
- Bradley Cooper
- Meryl Streep
- Scott McEwen
- Jim DeFelice
Institutions
- The New York Times
- G.P. Putnam's Sons
- Doubleday
- The Writer's Coffee Shop
- Vintage Books
- Scholastic
- Warner Books
- Warner Bros.
- Hello Sunshine
- Entertainment Weekly
- Association of Black Women Historians
- Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
- Quartz
Locations
- United States
- North Carolina
- New England
- Missouri
- Jackson
- Mississippi
- Torrance
- California
- Berlin
- Germany
- Iraq
- Texas
- Fort Worth
- Madison County
- Iowa
- Zambia
- Australia
Sources
- Quartz —