Who Knew It Did So Well

I read with a great degree of surprise in a WSJ article entitled Oh, My! That Dirty Book Has Sold 70 Million Copies by Jeffery A Trachtenberg that Fifty Shades of Grey was the fastest selling trilogy ever. That's pretty impressive. I can think of many books and series that should be up there as well, Game of Thrones, Hunger Games, among others, but wouldn't have necessarily guessed that Fifty Shades of Grey beat them all out. According to the article, the numbers are pretty stellar.

E.L. James's "Fifty Shades" erotic trilogy sold more than 70 million copies in print, audio and e-book editions in English, German and Spanish from March through December, according to Bertelsmann SE & Co., parent of the books' publisher Random House. 

Then this:

For a sense of scale, Random House's second biggest selling North American title last year—Gillian Flynn's thriller "Gone Girl," which has been a national best-seller for 41 weeks—sold more than two million copies in the U.S. and Canada in all formats, between June and December.

Not a direct comparison mind you, English, German and Spanish and March through December compared to U.S. and Canada and June and December, but still that's a stunning spread! What's more stunning is not the fact that I bought it and started it, but that I had to put it down after just a few paragraphs. Mayhaps I need to try.

Evershade, evershades, ever shade, ever shades