Sunday, June 9, 2013

Best selling Norwegian book

The hottest new title in Norway is not a dystopian detective novel.  It's a book which has its own sort of apocalyptic ending: The Bible
 
Norway's hot new title? The Bible, now outselling 'Fifty Shades of Grey'
Saleha Mohsin Associated Press, 7 June 2013 (hat tip: MR)
It may sound like an unlikely No. 1 best-seller for any country, but in Norway — one of the most secular nations in an increasingly godless Europe — the runaway popularity of the Bible has caught the country by surprise. The Scriptures, in a new Norwegian language version, even outpaced "Fifty Shades of Grey" to become Norway's best-selling book. The sudden burst of interest in God's word has also spread to the stage, with a six-hour play called "Bibelen," Norwegian for "the Bible," drawing 16,000 people in a three-month run that recently ended at one of Oslo's most prominent theaters.
Officials of the Lutheran Church of Norway have stopped short of calling it a spiritual awakening, but they see the newfound interest in the Bible as proof that it still resonates in a country where only 1 percent of the 5 million residents regularly attends church...
It has sold nearly 160,000 copies and was Norway's best-selling book in 2012. Church officials concede that hefty marketing campaigns helped explain the strong sales.


2 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

That's good?

russell1200 said...

Francis: On this side most, even those not committed to a particular set of beliefs would probably say yes. But people buying bibles, or for that matter the bible being a best seller, isn't particularly newsworthy. That it is a best seller in annual sales in Norway is interesting. Compare it to a similarly selling, non-religious (too most) item, Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", which has been around in the Top 100 forever, but only made No. 1 on the week of its release.