Facebook's 'books that stayed with you' meme: Here are the top picks
If you鈥檝e been on Facebook recently, chances are one or more of your friends has completed the 鈥�10 books that have stayed with you鈥� meme (there鈥檚 also a movie version).
Lada Adamic, who is a computational social scientist at Facebook, and Pinkesh Patel of Facebook recently some numbers on the site as to what books are topping users鈥� lists. The top result, based on more than 130,000 status updates from the last two weeks of this August, according to Adamic, should shock no one: the 鈥淗arry Potter鈥� series by J.K. Rowling was the most popular. Adamic pointed out that the books 鈥渆njoy鈥� the advantage that it was most often referred to as a series and our clustering algorithm lumped all Harry Potter books into the same cluster.鈥� While some might believe the presence of 鈥淧otter鈥� is due to a young sample age, Adamic wrote that the average age of the contributor was 37.
Meanwhile, Harper Lee鈥檚 classic novel 鈥淭o Kill a Mockingbird鈥� came in at number two and J.R.R. Tolkien鈥檚 fantasy trilogy 鈥� also a series 鈥� followed at number three. Tolkien鈥檚 other work, 鈥淭he Hobbit,鈥� took fourth place, while Jane Austen鈥檚 book 鈥淧ride and Prejudice鈥� took fifth.
The Bible came in at sixth while Douglas Adams鈥� 鈥淭he Hitchhiker鈥檚 Guide to the Galaxy鈥� took seventh, the 鈥淗unger Games鈥� books by Suzanne Collins was number eight, 鈥淭he Catcher in the Rye鈥� by J.D. Salinger came in at number nine, and 鈥淭he Chronicles of Narnia鈥� by C.S. Lewis was tenth.聽
The list is fantasy and sci-fi heavy, with 鈥淢ockingbird,鈥� 鈥淩ye,鈥� and 鈥淧rejudice鈥� some of the few books on the ranking that are set in our own world. In addition, the ranking shows just how many users bent the rules by including series (there are seven 鈥淧otter鈥� books, after all).聽
