Score

twighlight is literally more influential than any book every written-literary masterpiece on the levels of the brontes and the bible

I'm so happy the Bible is number one. There is still hope for this world.

Reverted title back to original. This was changed by someone other than the list creator.

I have voted for The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe

In Polen in 1930-ish a radio operator was inspired by this story to start trying to analyse the German codes (his job was to just copy the signals). This was the start of Polish code breaking before WWII and the first breaking of Enigma. A crucial progress that was later given to the English and gave them a head start. It may have had a direct impact on WWII.

From my reading of this list, it is apparent few understand the meaning of influential. This is more like best-sellers. Not very helpful.

David wrote: "The bible isn't the most influential book ever!"

I agree...after all it was written by men. It should be in the fiction section :)

Ian wrote: "How is the Origin of Spieces above the Bible? It's only been around for 160 years! I can see how it would be no. 1 if this was a list for most influential books nowadays, but c'mon! There've been w..."

How about Truth over Fiction for a reason? I like that one.

Rommy wrote: "The Epic of Gilgamesh: No. 1
Written ~2100 B.C.E, exerting over 4,000 yrs of influence throughout history."

Yes! Read "The Written World" for an amazing perspective on language, writing, and literature's influence on the progress of civilization. Hint: There wouldn't be any without it.
It has the very exciting story about how The Epic of Gilgamesh was discovered. Blew my mind, and made me mourn for all the rest that has been lost, burnt, destroyed, and suppressed (Vatican City, I'm looking straight at you.)

The Epic of Gilgamesh: No. 1
Written ~2100 B.C.E, exerting over 4,000 yrs of influence throughout history.

The Book Thief!?

So terrible list!

There is no way Orwell to be so influential like Bible, Shakespeare, Plato and Quran, sorry but Marx and Darwin are also overrated, outside the top 10 would be of good size for both, only a few decades later and few people still are influenced by Communism and Evolution, ...

Martin Luther, Isaac Newton, Mormons Book and Homer should be in the top 10, though.

Mukesh wrote: "The bible isn't the most influential book ever!"

Influence doesn't have to be positive. The Bible has probably had more influence on the world than any other book, but much of that influence has been incredibly negative.

Daniel wrote: "Mukesh wrote: "The bible isn't the most influential book ever!"

No matter what religion you practice (I'm not a catholic by the way), Guttenberg's edition of the Bible IS the most influential book..."
nope, not the first printed book. the Chinese were way ahead and were printing a thousand years before Guttenburg. G. invented moveable type.

Francisco wrote: "Danna wrote: "George wrote: "Koran is number 3?!!!"

yeah.?"

If you ask me this poll is very inflamable... dont get me wrong, if it were inflable AND had a point id be happy, but books are so subj..."
Francisco, Americans are killing Americans, right here, right now, on Ameican soil. But seriously, I must ask, why do you think religious wars should exist at all/

The Old Testament Bible (any version) is heavily influenced by earlier works, especially Sumerian stories. Just saying....

Rik wrote: "Marte wrote: "Faith in humanity restored. The Origin of Species at number one!"

So faith in humanity is restored when the book that tells us that we are descended from the apes is at nr. 1? I pref..."
Rik, with all due respect to a fellow reader, that's not what "Origin of Species" says.

The Book of Mormon outranks the Bhagavad Gita even though there are nearly a billion Hindus and only 16 million or so Mormons. I find this very odd. Somebody needs to fix this error in judgment.

Needs more Ovid, Augustine, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Goethe... the list could go on, but you know, influential books that practically everyone knew before WWII or so.

Western bias list, few non-Western people could cite Charles Darwin as the Bible and the Qur'an.
Origin of Species had no direct impact on the world, the mere mention of Darwin as influential as Jesus and Muhammad is mere mockery.
This list is just awful.

My books to add to the list:
La Comédie Humaine by Honoré de Balzac
The Thousand and One Nights, also called The Arabian Nights
Divine Comedy and Inferno by Dante Alighieri
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
L'Homme qui Rit by Victor Hugo
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Golden Calf by Ilf and Petrov
Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky, Arkady Strugatsky
The Accursed Kings by Maurice Druon
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
Sun King, Louis XIV King of France by Alexander Dumas

How is the Origin of Spieces above the Bible? It's only been around for 160 years! I can see how it would be no. 1 if this was a list for most influential books nowadays, but c'mon! There've been wars and martyrs and all that for thousands of years over the Bible. Lke Francisco said, Medieval Europe and everything. How could Darwin have influence over more people in one and a half centuies than than all the billions of people before him put together influenced by the Bible?! These last couple generations havn't been the only ones.

The Hobbit, yay! (:

Meh, opinion is subjective, but does not mean that there was no influence. Marx certainly has influence, Rousseau not much. We can not like Shakespeare, but all his genius is there, his metric rhyme, poetry, complex characters and whole their influence in nearly 500 years. The books on the list are not we like or sympathize, but that actually have more impact, whether cultural, political or religious. You may have learned more on political reading Sherlock Holmes, but that does not make him be as politically influential as Marx.