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Religion in top bestsellers
Write Better Now
So, because the topic of religion can be SO polarizing (which feels like the opposite of what it should be), I’ve been stressed about approaching the topic of God and relgion as they pertain to bestsellers.
I know! I know! I’m a wimp.
But, I am trying to be brave here and I want to be helpful even when it scares me since I’m doing this series on elements of bestselling novels.
God and religion is often an element of the bestselling novels with the highest sale numbers ( Gone with the Wind, Peyton Place, To Kill a Mockingbird ,Valley of the Dolls, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Jaws, The Dead Zone, The Hunt for Red October, The Firm, The Bridges of Madison County, The Da Vinci Code, Love Story, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, God’s Little Acre).
So, here we go. . . .
When James Hall and his students looked at the top twelve, highest-grossing American novels, God and/or orthodox religion. Each of them have religious content. Some might be considered “heretical.”
Hall says that they “seem to focus on the worldly consequences of religious practice rather than…
