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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

- A lot of people watch it with no background knowledge and subsequently don’t quite understand the “best film ever” label, but Citizen Kane is indeed a fantastic film. Just read about Orson Welles first.

- Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype. The Bible (especially certain books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs), The Quran, The Upanishads, to name a few. Again, don’t just go in blind, or you’ll walk away thinking none of it makes any sense.

- Lifting weights is indeed worth the hype, and its benefits are more diffuse than just “being able to lift heavy things.”

- In terms of old books that are made into modern sci-fi films, I’ve found Philip K. Dick to be absolutely worth the hype. Don’t think I’ve read a bad story by him.

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>A lot of people watch it with no background knowledge and subsequently don’t quite understand the “best film ever” label, but Citizen Kane is indeed a fantastic film. Just read about Orson Welles first.

Interesting. About 10 years ago I was tired of modern cinema and completely stopped watching new films. After some pause I decided to start watching classic cinema from 1930 onward in more or less chronological order (in the last year i've stopped at ~1800 movies, up to 1995).

In general, the quality of 1932-1942 american cinema (and, to a lesser degree, 1945-1950) far exceeded my expectations. And, while Citizen Kane is a very good film and deserves to be seen (it was actually one of the few "critically acclaimed" classic films that I've actually enjoyed), but when seen in context of what was filmed at the time, Citizen Kane doesn't really stand out among its contemporaries that much. A lot of technical details (but not all) that are praised by modern critics were more or less a common thing back at the time. I'd argue that Kane wasn't even the best film of the 1941 year (Sullivan's Travel was better and H.M. Pulham, Esq its equal) and definitely not the best film of the 1930-1950 "golden age" that ended at a very high point with Sunset Blvd. before plunging into the abyss in 1950s.

That's all of course only my opinion.

On a related note, if you enjoyed Citizen Kane, I'd highly recommend to see a soviet film from 1962 Nine Days in One Year. One of the most visually stunning b/w films in my experience. Thematically different, but stylistically very similar.

Sure, I’m not sure I’d actually call it the Best Film Ever, but it is a great movie. Part of its importance, compared to some of the other movies you’ve mentioned, is the story of how it got made / that it got made at all. Welles had zero film experience, yet was fully funded, and the movie itself was a direct attack on one of the single most powerful men of the era. Welles himself was a larger-than-life character and that’s probably half the reason we are still talking about Kane. Art isn’t created in a vacuum, after all.

I’m not sure what a modern equivalent would look like, but imagine a $200 million studio film that eloquently attacks the heads of CNN, The NY Times, and another half-dozen top media firms. That sort of thing would never get made today.

Thanks for the other suggestion though, I’ll look into it for sure!

> I’m not sure I’d actually call it the Best Film Ever

Most critics would, though. And I've never heard that its importance is in any way tied to its production. Welles took film from "filmed stage plays" and literally opened up the genre. He ripped up floorboards to get the right perspective. He innovated direction right and left.

The only aspect of the film being about Hearst was that its debut was canned, distribution was shot, and he would never (really) be allowed to make another film again.

I've started doing the same thing and recommend Witness for the Prosecution highly. Rear Window, Paths of Glory, and North by Northwest are others that have held up to modern eyes, IMHO.

I go back to watching North by Northwest every few months. The writing, the sets, the cinematography, the music and the acting all sublime. One of my favorite random facts is that Albert R Broccoli initially wanted to get Cary Grant for the first Bond film, but the producers ended up deciding to get a younger actor.

After watching all those movies, please would you share some of your favourites, especially lesser known titles.

I can give you my list as I've also been watching lots of "old" movies. Though "old" can mean almost anything depending on who you ask. Note: I'm picky so while I love movies if I check my ratings (I take notes because I forget what I watched), it turns out I only like about one out of 10 movies. Or maybe to put it in a slightly better light, only 1 of 10 or so is worth recommending. Some might be okay but not okay enough to tell someone "you should seek out this movie"

Anyway, here's some from my list from the last year (the list of ones I didn't like is MUCH longer and includes many that are highly rated on IMDB)

"Now, Voyager" (1942)

"Boom Town" (1940)

"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1947)

"The Little Princess" (1939)

"Destry Rides Again" (1939)

"Baby Face" (1933)

"Adam's Rib" (1949)

"In a Lonely Place" (1950)

"It Happened One Night" (1934)

"The Woman of the Year" (1942)

"The Awful Truth" (1937)

"Broken Arrow" (1950)

"The Lady Eve" (1941)

"His Girl Friday" (1940)

"12 O'Clock High" (1949)

"You Can't Take It With You" (1938)

"The Far County" (1954)

"Random Harvest" (1942)

"The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952)

"The Philadelphia Story" (1940)

"Cry Danger" (1951)

"This Gun For Hire" (1942)

"Casablanca" (1942). I didn't get it at 23 where as I shook from crying at 50. Basically I needed to truly feel Rick's loss and what he was going through (Bogart's character). At 23 I didn't. At 50 I did. I suppose you could have similar experiences to Rick at a younger age or you could never have them and then not have it do anything for you.

I don't think any of them are "lesser known". Basically I just look up IMDB. If it's rated > 7 and sounds mildly interesting I'll take a look. Tons of them don't work for me. Those above did. As recent examples of ones that didn't "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" (1946), "Dark Passage" (1947), "Waterloo Bridge" (1940), "The Bishop's Wife" (1947), "Spellbound" (1945), "Fort Apache" (1948). Those are just from the last 2 weeks (^^;)

Ok, I'll try, but keep in mind, that there were a lot of well known films that I didn't lile (for example, I didn't like any film with Katharine Hepburn in it; although i've tried it three times, I've never finished Casablanca).

Anyway, If you are interested in classic movies I think the best way to start is with Frank Capra (1932 - American Madness, 1933 - Lady for a Day, 1934 - It Happened One Night, 1936 - Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1938 - You Can't Take It with You, 1939 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington), Preston Sturges (1940 - The Great McGinty, 1940 - Christmas in July, 1941 - Sullivan's Travels), some of Myrna Loy & William Powell films (1934 - Thin Man, 1936 - After the Thin Man, 1936 - Libeled Lady) and possibly Charlie Chaplin later films (1931 - City Lights, 1952 - Limelight). Continue to

Dramas: 1957 - Le notti di Cabiria - Federico Fellini; 1957 - Il Grido - Michelangelo Antonioni; 1957 - Paths of Glory - Stanley Kubrick; 1952 - Ikiru - Akira Kurosawa; 1954 - A Big Family - Iosif Kheifits; 1951 - The Browning Version - Anthony Asquith; 1959 - Les quatre cents coups - Francois Truffaut; 1959 - Room At The Top - Jack Clayton; 1962 - The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - Tony Richardson; 1962 - Nine Days in a Year - Mikhail Romm; 1960 - The Lady with the Dog - Iosif Kheifits; 1962 - Il Sorpasso - Dino Risi; 1961 - La Ragazza con la valigia - Valerio Zurlini; 1948 - Ladri di biciclette - Vittorio De Sica; 1945 - Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne - Robert Bresson; 1936 - Dodsworth - William Wyler; 1937 - La Grande Illusion - Jean Renoir; 1940 - City for Conquest - Anatole Litvak; 1941 - Citizen Kane - Orson Welles; 1941 - H.M. Pulham, Esq - King Vidor; 1946 - The Best Years of Our Lives - William Wyler; 1942 - Now, Voyager - Irving Rapper; 1942 - Random Harvest - Mervyn LeRoy; 1960 - The Apartment - Billy Wilder; 1950 - Sunset Blvd. - Billy Wilder; 1962 - Lonely Are the Brave - David Miller; 1964 - The Americanization of Emily; 1965 - The Hill - Sidney Lumet; 1966 - A Man for All Seasons - Fred Zinnemann; 1966 - Nayak - Satyajit Ray; 1968 - The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Robert Ellis Miller; 1971 - The Hospital - Arthur Hiller; 1975 - Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick; 1975 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Milos Forman; 1977 - Saturday Night Fever - John Badham; 1979 - ...And Justice for All - Norman Jewison.

Comedies: 1940 - The Shop Around The Corner - Ernst Lubitsch; 1939 - Destry Rides Again - George Marshall; 1950 - Father of the Bride - Vincente Minnelli; 1940 - Pride and Prejudice - Robert Z. Leonard; 1939 - Day-Time Wife - Gregory Ratoff; 1934 - Little Miss Marker - Alexander Hall; 1935 - The Gilded Lily - Wesley Ruggles; 1935 - If You Could Only Cook - William A. Seiter; 1935 - Ruggles of Red Gap - Leo McCarey; 1936 - My Man Godfrey - Gregory La Cava; 1937 - Easy Living - Mitchel Liesen; 1937 - Topper - Norman Z. McLeod; 1938 - Merrily We Live - Norman Z. McLeod; 1940 - My Favorite Wife - Garson Kanin; 1941 - Ball of Fire - Howard Hawks; 1941 - It Started with Eve - Henry Koster; 1941 - Charley's Aunt - Archie Mayo; 1942 - Larceny, Inc. - Lloyd Bacon; 1942 - The Big Street - Irving Reis; 1942 - The Major and the Minor - Billy Wilder; 1943 - The More the Merrier - George Stevens; 1948 - Sitting Pretty - Walter Lang; 1947 - Miracle on 34th Street - George Seaton; 1947 - Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House - H.C. Potter; 1949 - Little Women - Mervyn LeRoy; 1955 - Marty - Delbert Mann; 1956 - Spring on Zarechnaya Street - Marlen Khutsiev; 1957 - Porte Des Lilas - Rene Clair; 1958 - Mon Oncle - Jascques Tati; 1959 - Some Like It Hot - Billy Wilder; 1960 - Make Mine Mink - Robert Asher; 1963 - Sunday in New York - Peter Tewksbury; 1963 - Il Giovedi - Dino Risi; 1963 - Three Plus Two - Genrikh Oganisyan; 1964 - Walking the Streets of Moscow - Georgiy Daneliya; 1964 - A Hard Day's Night - Richard Lester; 1968 - The Odd Couple - Gene Saks; 1977 - The Goodbye Girl - Herbert Ross; 1978 - Same Time Next Year - Robert Mulligan

Crime/Action: 1969 - The Italian Job - Peter Collinson; 1974 - The Taking of Pelham One Two Three - Joseph Sargent; 1967 - Le Samurai - Jean-Pierre Melville; 1960 - Le Trou - Jacques Becker; 1960 - Un taxi pour Tobrouk - Denys de La Patelliere; 1970 - They Call Me Trinity - Enzo Barboni; 1973 - Papillon - Franklin J. Schaffner; 1973 - The Sting - George Roy Hill; 1973 - The Last Detail - Hal Ashby; 1975 - The Great Waldo Pepper - George Roy Hill; 1975 - Three Days of the Condor - Sydney Pollack; 1976 - The Seven-Per-Cent Solution - Herbert Ross; 1977 - Capricorn One - Peter Hyams; 1977 - Smokey and the Bandit - Hal Needham; 1939 - The Roaring Twenties - Raoul Walsh; 1939 - Beau Geste - William A. Wellman; 1939 - Stagecoach - John Ford; 1941 - The Gay Falcon - Irving Reis; 1941 - I Wake Up Screaming - Bruce Humberstone; 1941 - Johnny Eager - Mervyn LeRoy

I didn't like any film noir but three: 1946 - Nobody Lives Forever - Jean Negulesco; 1946 - The Killers - Robert Siodmak; 1956 - The Killing - Stanley Kubrick. There also were two great spoofs 1947 - My Favorite Brunette - Elliott Nugent and 1971 - Gumshoe - Stephen Frears.

I don't enjoy musicals, westerns and 'epic' historical films, so I can't recommend anything.

Thanks for that! I count only about seventeen of those that I've seen, despite having seen old movies in the hundreds.

Funnily enough, my favourite old Hollywood genres are musicals and westerns.

I grew up only really being exposed to post 1960 movie musicals which I never really liked. About seven years ago I thought, "I've never really watched any old movie musicals", and just started watching them. It was a revelation to discover the (to me) amazing stuff from the 30s, 40s and 50s. My ideal movie musical was made in the 1930s, stars Fred Astaire, and has songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter or Irving Berlin.

Some highlights for me would be:

42nd Street (1933) Not the first `backstage musical' but sets the template. One of the things I love about old movie musicals is that people don't randomly start singing and dancing: they sing and/or dance because they are singers or songwriters or dancers or choreographers creating or rehearsing or performing.

Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) More Busby Berkeley.

Footlight Parade (1933) More Busby Berkeley. James Cagney stars.

On the Avenue (1937)

Shall we Dance (1937)

Lady be Good (1941)

You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

The Gang's All Here (1943)

Anchors Aweigh (1945)

The Pirate (1948) Don't listen to the naysayers, this film to me is pretty much perfect.

An American in Paris (1951) Contains the amazing sequence in which Oscar Levant is portrayed conducting, playing every instrument, and being the audience of Gershwin's Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra (which I think is much better than the more famous Rhapsody in Blue).

The Band Wagon (1953)

Daddy Long Legs (1955)

High Society (1956)

Funny Face (1957)

Gypsy (1962)

And then a couple of years ago, I asked myself: which film genres have I never really watched? Westerns (and Horror, still haven't gone there) being my answer. Turns out I really love westerns.

Some favourites:

Destry Rides Again (1939)

Stagecoach (1939)

Fort Apache (1948) To me, this is the best of John Ford's `cavalry trilogy'

Red River (1948)

Winchester '73 (1950) My favourite of the Anthony Mann / James Stewart westerns.

Vera Cruz (1954) Action movies weren't invented in the 1980s.

The Man from Laramie (1955)

Seven Men from Now (1956) The best of the Budd Boetticher / Randolph Scott westerns.

Man of the West (1958)

The Horse Soldiers (1959)

Last Train from Gun Hill (1959)

Two Rode Together (1961)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

El Dorado (1966) Rio Bravo gets all the love, but this is the more satisfying result for me.

Well, to the best of my knowledge, these are nice additions to my list of recommendations :-)

1. I agree, that final scene in An American in Paris is just mindblowing (for the lack of a better word). I've seen it at least 20 times and it still amazes me. Vincente Minnelli was a one of a kind genius. Another highlight for me was Astair's Puttin' on the Ritz from Blue Skies. And as for Gershwin - I myself prefer his Piano concerto.

2. As far as I know, musicals were the most popular genre in 1930s-40s and a lot of talent was put in their creation (and it shows). That said, I just don't like the genre for two reasons:

- Astair/Rogers-style, where actors suddenly transition from dialog to dancing, just seem too weird and far fetched to me;

- Busby Berkeley-style extravaganzas are, indeed, better and, as a rule, visually stunning. But for me they fail as films simply because there is usually not enough plot/dialogues (that is, the whole plot is just a vehicle to show dancing sequences). These type of films are better enjoyed as short clips on youtube :-) Uncharacteristically, I've enjoyed much later Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing, both made in this style. Although I think these two films could have been even better if their creators were more ambitious. There were a lot of unused potential in them.

3. I have no objections to the westerns as a genre. I've included both Destry Rides Again and Stagecoach. It's just that I've seen ~10 westerns from 50s and 60s, didn't like any of them and decided to skip the genre altogether. I might return to them some time in the future.

> In general, the quality of 1932-1942 american cinema (and, to a lesser degree, 1945-1950) far exceeded my expectations.

Survivorship bias? I'm sure there was as much schlock produced back then as there is now, it's just we elevated the best and have forgotten the rest.

Revisiting the bad stuff is the entire premise of MST3K:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Science_Theater_3000

People often claim survivorship bias for such things, and it may sometimes be true, but I think it often misses the point. It may be true that overall, the landscape of an art form wasn't much different than today. However, it is obviously plausible that the "highest highs" would be higher in some period X than some period Y - it would be actually much more surprising if an art form were of uniform quality across many decades.

I don't have enough cinema culture to comment on cinema specifically, but I believe this is pretty obvious in music. Comparing things like Beethoven's 5th and 9th symphonies to any modern music (especially if comparing only the main themes, given today's preference for very short form music), it's obvious that there is nothing similar, and even modern audiences generally recognize the superiority of the older one.

As a more focused comparison, it's also obvious and largely uncontroversial that the amount of good rock music being produced has plummeted since at least the 1970s-1980s. There are still a few good bands (Rammstein has been an unexpected highlight for me), but compared to a period when you had Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Queen, Deep Purple, Metallica, The Rolling Stones and a good many others, it's obvious that something has gone down in the highest highs of music.

Well, I myself is an avid concert goer (before Covid at least) and I probably know more about classical music than I do about classical cinema :-) Although I mostly prefer music written c. 1900-1950 rather than Beethoven or his contemporaries (what a lot of people don't realise is that there were a lot of changes in classical orchestral music over time; the difference between, say, Mozart and William Walton is no less than the difference between Beatles and Metallica, probably even more so).

And indeed, the large & majestic sound of a symphonic orchestra has no parallels with the modern music. But on the other hand I think we can easily compare classical chamber music with jazz/tango/rock. And in this field I'd rather listen something like [1] than any classical quartet/quinter regardless whether it was written by Beethoven or by Shostakovich.

[1]https://youtu.be/XGeLtdmviGM

No, obviously out of ~300 films produced in 30s and 40s each year, 90% or more were dross. What I've meant is:

1. The best films of this period far surpassed my expectations from the technical point of view. And there were a lot of decent-to-exceptional films produced at the time; I could name at least 50 american films worth watching from 1930 to 1950. In comparison, I could hardly name 10 films from 1951 to 1960 that are at least decent (and yes, Paths of Glory, named below, is the best).

I think it was mostly due to the fact that all personnel, connected with the creation of a film at the time were still largely pioneers at the field and they had all possible expertiese in it (films in the 60s and especially in the 70s became noticeably more amateur; 50s suffered due to McCarthy). Movies were still relatively new and there were a lot of innovation in it each year. On top of that, it was a time of the Great Depression and high unemploymend. Hollywood were one of the better off industries and so were able to easlily atrract best of the best.

2. Even B-movies from rich studios had high production values. From the same 1941 I could easily recommend for example The Gay Falcon - Irving Reis - RKO/Nothing But the Truth - Elliott Nugent - Paramount/Charley's Aunt - Archie Mayo - 20 Fox. All are relatively simple, but well worth the watch.

3. What's more important, the 30s and 40s cinema had its own unique style and dynamic, very different from later decades. I'd say it was closer to Imre Kalman and Franz Lehar operettas, rather than more convential movies we are used today. It was, if I may say so, a thing-in-itself, hardly comparable with what came later.

> - Lifting weights is indeed worth the hype, and its benefits are more diffuse than just “being able to lift heavy things.”

This was unexpected, but true. I started a few month ago, because I moved and noticed that carrying the goceries in the 4th floor interrupted my whole day...

Every movement includes moving weight. It basically makes the whole life easier

As Mark Rippetoe says, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people and more useful in general.” Harder to kill doesn’t just mean combat either. Real life isn’t like video games either, you can get a great return on strength training time. So good in fact that gaining strength won’t impair your other abilities at all unless you’re planning to compete at the highest levels.

If you want to maintain a high quality of life and an active life into old age, you are going to need to lift weights. Or a similar equivalent exercise that provides impact to preserve strength and bone density.

The sooner one starts the better.

For me i was grabbing something not heavy and instinctly went like a deadlift. And i was impressed i am now instinctly grabbing even easy things with correct posture.

Casablanca for me. Oddly I can't think of many stand-out moments in it. If you asked me why you would enjoy it, I couldn't say. But you would.

I watched this for the first time last week and I was surprised that the plot has remained pretty novel. It's one thing to watch an old movie and recognize it for first producing a certain story (or at least capturing it on film) but I can't think of a similar story to Casablanca and that impressed me.

It was also neat to see the film shot just like a play where there are very particular sets each scene. I wish I could have the scene the original play once.

A few things I didn't like though was the flashback. There was no subtlety and poor writing. They could have started the film with their time in France. The real plot point wasn't that the two characters knew each other but _why_ she left him.

And it was also odd to me that the general was in his headquarters when he learned about the escape attempt but then showed up at the airport... without any men.

Anyway, I did enjoy the movie and am grateful to it for introducing As Time Goes By.

The stand-out moment for me is when somebody shows Rick his ID (a passport?) and his reaction is just "are my eyes really brown?". I can't explain why I like that bit of characterization so much.

I had a film professor who always thought that Casablanca should be number 1 on AFIs Top 100. I tend to agree with him. I think Citizen Kane is a cinematic masterpiece, but Casablanca has a much better and more coherent story.

I've always said Citizen Kane is the best film but Casablanca is the best screenplay.

Apart from anything else, it's rammed with highly quotable and widely quoted dialogue. Anybody watching it for the first time will probably find themselves thinking "Ah - so that's where that comes from" at least a few times.

> I can't think of many stand-out moments in it

To me, the `La Marseillaise` scene[1] is incredibly powerful. The crowd trying to out-sing the German soldiers with the French national anthem, and the sheer raw emotion of the scene. Amazing character moments from Ricky, Victor, and Illsa.

I haven't looked into the veracity, but the legend around the scene is that most of the extras in the bar were French refuges - and the emotion of the scene was very much present on set. Casablanca was filmed during the height of WW2, and came out in 1942, so it does seem plausible.

Louis's brief "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!" - Handed a pile of his winnings by the croupier - "Oh, thank you very much." exchange [2] is also a fantastically memorable comedic exchange.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeFhSzoTuc

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME

> Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype. The Bible (especially certain books like Ecclesiastes or Proverbs), The Quran, The Upanishads, to name a few. Again, don’t just go in blind, or you’ll walk away thinking none of it makes any sense.

Seeing as how the Quran was "written" over decades and the Bible over millennia, they DON'T make sense. They're both self-contradictory, with various authors pushing various purposes depending on what they wrote and when. There's value in each, but let's not pretend they're towering forks of art with a singular purpose and vision.

Yep, they should be seen more as anthologies rather than a single work.

Seconding Ecclesiastes. I'm an atheist and I have never read a more eloquent affirmation of nihilism. It's fascinating knowing someone had these same thoughts 2500 years ago.

> "Religious books standing the test of the time.."

Humans started to stay in one location after the invention of agriculture which is quite recent about 10000 years. The mass gathering and agriculture Only after the invention of agriculture some people were able to have leisure time and mass organization became necessary. Bible is roughly 2000 years old. Islam is probably 800 years old. The vedic caste Hinduism is about probably 600 to 800 years old.

   Religion is blip within a blip.

Many secular books have stood the test of time as well, I would place Plutarch lives and Montaigne's essays on par with the Bible/other ancient religious texts.

How can a movie be a fantastic movie if it requires background reading? That's a failure of storytelling.

I think Citizen Kane stands alone. It can be understood as an architypal "power and wealth corrupts" narrative. But our appreciation of art benefits from an understanding of its context and the history of the genre/medium. Citizen Kane may be more meaningful to you if you are aware of Hearst and the related social history in the same way that Wagner's music is wonderful in its own terms, but possibly richer and more meaningful when you understand the philosophy, social context, theology, and mythology he was engaging with as well as the composers he was influenced by and their thinking.

All art is produced in a specific historical moment.

It doesn't require background reading at all.

But like many great works of art context can add even more to their enjoyment and impact.

> Most religious books that have stood the test of time have lived up to the hype.

They really haven't. Not a single one of them. There is, however, organized religion around them that has twisted those book to mean whatever it is that brings the flock.

Are they influential? Yes. Have they stood the test of time? Hell, no

You’re talking about the best selling book of all time (by far). Its more likely that you misunderstand it than all the readers misunderstand it.

Its just one of those things that is so popular that people find any way possible to criticize.

There are two types of religious texts: those that people like to criticise, and those that nobody reads.

Among Christians hardly anyone reads the Bible except for a number easy passages. And those passages are invariably in the New Testament. The Old Testament is an unknown quantity to the vast number of Christians. I doubt anyone knows the story of Job or Noah except through what preachers tell them.

The Bible a huge book of ancient texts with little structure and inscrutable context that is as alien to a modern person as Mesopotamic cuneiform. Ah, yes, inhabitants of Maktesh, and son of Pethuel, and Cyrus king of Persia, and Sheshbazzar, and... what's for dinner?

For a good chunk of history, wasn't the bible about the only book you could buy in Europe?

Separating the social structures around the bible from the book and trying to talk about it as if it is a product following the same rules as Tom Clancy's next novel is gross and laughable.

This is quite a funny conversation to be having on Christmas Eve :)

There’s probably a reason the Bible was the only available book instead of no books being available in Europe.

It is estimated that around 5 billion copies of the Bible were sold and distributed throughout history. [1] This has happened over the course of over two thousand years. Which makes it less popular than Harry Potter (120 million copies of the first book in 20 years) or Twilight.

And that 5 billion number includes a very significant chunk of bibles which are just distributed through various religious centers (same goes for all other religious texts).

And, of course, the number of books sold says literally nothing about whether a book has stood the test of time.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books?wpr...

That’s not really a great comparison, considering that the printing press didn’t exist for ~1,500 of those years and a mass market didn’t exist for ~1700 of them.

Even that makes the Bible less popular than Harry Potter.

We'll see how many Harry Potters vs the Bible will be printed in total say in 2300 or 2500 AD. Somehow I'm betting on the Bible.

There's no organised institution around Harry Potter. For most part the past 2000 years the Bible was probably the only book most people in the Western World saw or had. It was a required attribute of school curriculum. It was a required book to have at home etc.

None of that makes the Bible "stand the test of time" or make it popular in the same sense as Harry Potter is popular. Compare Bible's "popularity" to Quotations from the Works of Mao Zedong (emphasis mine) [1]:

--- start quote ---

It has been reported that 800 million copies of the red-covered booklet Quotations from the Works of Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) were sold or distributed between June 1966, when possession became virtually mandatory in China, and September 1971, when its promoter Marshal Lin Biao died in an air crash.

--- end quote ---

I doubt any significant number of Bibles are actually sold anymore (especially in what's called "developed world"), but are distributed via churches or other religious organisations. Gideon distributes 50 million bibles per year [2]. Most available statistics talk about "printed" or "distributed" when talking about number of bibles sold which is definitely not the same.

For example [3] (emphasis mine):

--- start quote ---

The Bible is by far the worlds best-selling book of all time. No other book, fact or fiction, even comes close. Most estimates place the number of Bibles printed each year at over 100 million. 20 million Bibles are sold each year in the United States alone.

--- end quote ---

The United States is quite religious, and it still only manages ~20 million books per year for a population of ~400 million people. This number will be significantly smaller in less religious countries, and higher in more religious countries. But once again it hardly makes it popular in the same sense as Harry Potter is popular.

And, of course, once you make more and more books available to people, you will inevitably have smaller numbers of those books sold, but a greater number of them in total. There are 650 million books sold in the US each year. [4] There are 300 thousand new titles each year [5]

But yeah, the Bible is "popular" because it's pushed through an organised religion and has for centuries been a required reading for everyone (for everyone who could read that is, as literacy was scarce at best). And even today it's possible that most bibles go to the same people ("The average American Christian owns 9 Bibles and wants to purchase more" [2])

[1] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/best-sell...

[2] https://brandongaille.com/27-good-bible-sales-statistics/

[3] https://thebibleanswer.org/bibles-sold-each-year/

[4] https://www.statista.com/topics/1177/book-market/

[5] https://www.theifod.com/how-many-new-books-are-published-eac...

How many of those Bible copies were actually read?

- A Gallup survey found that less than 50% of Americans can name the first book of the Bible.

- Only 1 in 3 Bible owners know that Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount. Billy Graham is a more popular answer than the correct answer.

- 12%. That’s the percentage of Christians who believed that Noah was married to Joan of Arc.

https://brandongaille.com/27-good-bible-sales-statistics/

Yes pure garbage, the book of Job, the Psalms, the Ecclesiastes, the sermon of the mountain, the Sefer Yetzirah, the Popol Vuh, the Upanishads, the Tao Te Ching...garbage,garbage, garbage.

For more garbage please visit https://www.sacred-texts.com/

See what you did? You called it garbage, and then started vehemently disagreeing with yourself.

Listing parts of those books and linking to their texts proves nothing about them standing the test of time.

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