Speaking of the Left Behind series, I think a great many more people are buying the books than are reading them. A set of the first four was purchased for my children by a well-meaning individual. My children haven't read them, and it turns out the guy that bought them hasn't actually read any of them either - he told us they were "really good" based on the "opinion" of someone else - someone else who in all likelihood hasn't actually read them himself. (I dutifully tried to read the first one and found it to be so poorly written I couldn't continue - the characters so poorly drawn as to be barely two-dimensional, the grammar and syntax clumsy, the chauvinism as subtle as a smack in the face with a three day old fish...) He bought them for us because we "like to read" (an odd enthusiasm and one that he can't exactly disparage but still views with suspicion.)

Someone has insisted that our Rural Bookmobile acquire a set of the Left Behind series on tape - interestingly, they never seem to circulate - maybe because the Christians with a capital C around here don't actually patronize the rural bookmobile.