Question: What role did the author of the best-selling book Matilda serve during wartime ?

text: List of best-selling books
List of best-selling individual books -- Between 10 million and 20 million copies

This page provides lists of best-selling individual books and book series to date and in any language. Best selling refers to the estimated number of copies sold of each book, rather than the number of books printed or currently owned. Comics and textbooks are not included in this list. The books are listed according to the highest sales estimate as reported in reliable, independent sources. This list is incomplete because there are many books, such as The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, or A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, that are commonly cited as best-selling books yet have no reliable sales figures. Similarly, many notable book series that sold very widely are poorly documented (Land of Oz) or consist of multiple sub-series (Tom Swift). According to Guinness World Records as of 1995, the Bible is the best-selling book of all time, with an estimated 5 billion copies sold and distributed. The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, also known as the Little Red Book, has produced a wide array of sales and distribution figures - with estimates ranging from 800 million to over 6.5 billion printed volumes, with some claiming the distribution ran into the billions and some citing over a billion official volumes between 1966 and 1969 alone as well as untold numbers of unofficial local reprints and unofficial translations. Exact print figures for these and other books may also be missing or unreliable since these kinds of books may be produced by many different and unrelated publishers, in some cases over many centuries. All books of a religious, ideological, philosophical or political nature have thus been excluded from the below lists of best-selling books for these reasons. Having sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling is the best-selling book series in history. The first novel in the series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, has sold in excess of 120 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books of all time.
Book Author ( s ) Original language First published Approximate sales
Totto-chan , the Little Girl at the Window ( 窓ぎわのトットちゃん ) Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Japanese 1981 18 million ( in Japan and China )
Matilda Roald Dahl United Kingdom 1988 17 million
The Book Thief Markus Zusak English 2005 16 million
The Horse Whisperer Nicholas Evans English 1995 16 million
Goodnight Moon Margaret Wise Brown English 1947 16 million
The Neverending Story ( Die unendliche Geschichte ) Michael Ende German 1979 16 million
Fifty Shades of Grey E. L. James United Kingdom 2011 15.2 million in U.S
The Outsiders S. E. Hinton English 1967 15 million
Guess How Much I Love You Sam McBratney English 1994 15 million
Shōgun James Clavell English 1975 15 million
The Poky Little Puppy Janette Sebring Lowrey English 1942 15 million
The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett English 1989 15 million
How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie English 1936 15 million
Perfume ( Das Parfum ) Patrick Süskind German 1985 15 million
The Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck English 1939 15 million
The Shadow of the Wind ( La sombra del viento ) Carlos Ruiz Zafón Spanish 2001 15 million
Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri English 2000 15 million
The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams English 1979 14 million
Tuesdays with Morrie Mitch Albom English 1997 14 million
God 's Little Acre Erskine Caldwell English 1933 14 million