Over lunch today with the charming, down-to-earth Karen MacNeil in St. Helena, she mentioned that her book,
The Wine Bible, has sold over 380,000 copies compared to the average for a wine book of only 6,000 copies. Released in 2001, sales are still going strong (still ranked #957 on Amazon amongst
all books). While this is a great book for a wine novice, it’s equally appealing to the experienced wine collector, especially in its succinct coverage of wine regions often neglected by collectors like Germany. Selling for less than $14 on Amazon, this 904-pager (which took Karen 10 years to write) is a steal and another great holiday gift idea.
Karen just released a new book on food and wine pairing in September 2006 titled
Wine, Food & Friends. It apparently sold out of its 100,000 copy pre-release production run so Karen may soon have the top
two best-selling wine books of all time.
