What books did your ancestors read?

Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

These are the top five best books published during the 1900's decade (1900 - 1909) according to Goodreads Listopia. There's a good chance your ancestor of the era purchased, received or borrowed and read one of those.  

Even if only an occasional reader, your literate ancestor likely read, and maybe savoured one of those books. In writing their biography speculating on what your ancestor read can help bring them to life. By the way, present stats are that the typical person reads four books a year, the average number of books read per year (12) is biased by a minority of voracious readers,

Here are two other internet sources for popular books through history.

In 2018 Literary Hub published a year-by-year list of the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years (And What Everyone Read Instead).

Wikipedia has a list of best-selling books. Below is the list sorted by publication date.

Book	Author(s)	Original language	First published	Sales (million)
Becoming	Michelle Obama	English	2018	11.5
The Girl on the Train	Paula Hawkins	English	2015	20
The Fault in Our Stars	John Green	English	2012	23
Gone Girl	Gillian Flynn	English	2012	20
Me Before You	Jojo Moyes	English	2012	12
Fifty Shades Darker	E. L. James	English	2012	10.4
Fifty Shades of Grey	E. L. James	English	2011	15.2
Mockingjay	Suzanne Collins	English	2010	20
The Lost Symbol	Dan Brown	English	2009	30
Catching Fire	Suzanne Collins	English	2009	21
The Help	Kathryn Stockett	English	2009	10
The Hunger Games	Suzanne Collins	English	2008	29
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows	J. K. Rowling	English	2007	65
The Shack	William P. Young	English	2007	22
The Secret	Rhonda Byrne	English	2006	20
Confucius from the Heart (于丹《论语》心得)	Yu Dan	Chinese	2006	10
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	J. K. Rowling	English	2005	65
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor)	Stieg Larsson	Swedish	2005	30
The Book Thief	Markus Zusak	English	2005	16
Wolf Totem (狼图腾)	Jiang Rong	Chinese	2004	20
The Da Vinci Code	Dan Brown	English	2003	80
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	J. K. Rowling	English	2003	65
The Kite Runner	Khaled Hosseini	English	2003	31.5
The Purpose Driven Life	Rick Warren	English	2002	33
The Lovely Bones	Alice Sebold	English	2002	10
The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento)	Carlos Ruiz Zafón	Spanish	2001	15
Life of Pi	Yann Martel	English	2001	10
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	J. K. Rowling	English	2000	65
Angels & Demons	Dan Brown	English	2000	39
Interpreter of Maladies	Jhumpa Lahiri	English	2000	15
The Dukan Diet	Pierre Dukan	French	2000	10
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban	J. K. Rowling	English	1999	65
The Gruffalo	Julia Donaldson	English	1999	10.5
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets	J. K. Rowling	English	1998	77
Who Moved My Cheese?	Spencer Johnson	English	1998	26
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone	J. K. Rowling	English	1997	120
Tuesdays with Morrie	Mitch Albom	English	1997	14
Angela's Ashes	Frank McCourt	English	1996	10
The Horse Whisperer	Nicholas Evans	English	1995	16
Santa Evita	Tomás Eloy Martínez	Spanish	1995	10
Guess How Much I Love You	Sam McBratney	English	1994	15
Follow Your Heart (Va' dove ti porta il cuore)	Susanna Tamaro	Italian	1994	14
Long Walk to Freedom	Nelson Mandela	English	1994	14
The Celestine Prophecy	James Redfield	English	1993	23
The Giver	Lois Lowry	English	1993	10
The Bridges of Madison County	Robert James Waller	English	1992	60
Diana: Her True Story	Andrew Morton	English	1992	10
Wild Swans	Jung Chang	English	1992	10
Sophie's World (Sofies verden)	Jostein Gaarder	Norwegian	1991	40
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People	Stephen R. Covey	English	1989	25
The Pillars of the Earth	Ken Follett	English	1989	15
The Alchemist (O Alquimista)	Paulo Coelho	Portuguese	1988	65
A Brief History of Time	Stephen Hawking	English	1988	25
Kitchen	Banana Yoshimoto	Japanese	1988	20
Matilda	Roald Dahl	English	1988	17
Norwegian Wood (ノルウェイの森)	Haruki Murakami	Japanese	1987	12
Love You Forever	Robert Munsch	English	1986	20
Perfume (Das Parfum)	Patrick Süskind	German	1985	15
Knowledge-value Revolution (知価革命)	Taichi Sakaiya	Japanese	1985	10
You Can Heal Your Life	Louise Hay	English	1984	50
What to Expect When You're Expecting	Arlene Eisenberg and Heidi Murkoff	English	1984	20
The Goal	Eliyahu M. Goldratt	English	1984	10
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾	Sue Townsend	English	1982	20
Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window (窓ぎわのトットちゃん)	Tetsuko Kuroyanagi	Japanese	1981	18
Ronia, the Robber's Daughter	Astrid Lindgren	Swedish	1981	10
The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa)	Umberto Eco	Italian	1980	50
Cosmos	Carl Sagan	English	1980	40
Flowers in the Attic	V. C. Andrews	English	1979	40
Kane and Abel	Jeffrey Archer	English	1979	37
The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte)	Michael Ende	German	1979	16
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Douglas Adams	English	1979	14
Problems in China's Socialist Economy (中国社会主义经济问题研究)	Xue Muqiao	Chinese	1979	10
Eye of the Needle	Ken Follett	English	1978	10
The Thorn Birds	Colleen McCullough	English	1977	33
The Women's Room	Marilyn French	English	1977	20
The Hite Report	Shere Hite	English	1976	50
Your Erroneous Zones	Wayne Dyer	English	1976	35
The Eagle Has Landed	Jack Higgins	English	1975	50
Shōgun	James Clavell	English	1975	15
Life After Life	Raymond Moody	English	1975	13
The Bermuda Triangle	Charles Berlitz	English	1974	20
Jaws	Peter Benchley	English	1974	20
The Total Woman	Marabel Morgan	English	1974	10
The Front Runner	Patricia Nell Warren	English	1974	10
Fear of Flying	Erica Jong	English	1973	20
Watership Down	Richard Adams	English	1972	50
The Joy of Sex	Alex Comfort	English	1972	10
The Happy Hooker: My Own Story	Xaviera Hollander	English	1971	20
The Exorcist	William Peter Blatty	English	1971	11
Jonathan Livingston Seagull	Richard Bach	English	1970	44
Love Story	Erich Segal	English	1970	21
What Color Is Your Parachute?	Richard Nelson Bolles	English	1970	10
The Very Hungry Caterpillar	Eric Carle	English	1969	43
The Godfather	Mario Puzo	English	1969	21
The Naked Ape	Desmond Morris	English	1968	20
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad)	Gabriel García Márquez	Spanish	1967	50
The Outsiders	S. E. Hinton	English	1967	15
Valley of the Dolls	Jacqueline Susann	English	1966	31
Dune	Frank Herbert	English	1965	20
The Gospel According to Peanuts	Robert L. Short	English	1965	10
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	Roald Dahl	English	1964	20
Where the Wild Things Are	Maurice Sendak	English	1963	20
A Wrinkle in Time	Madeleine L'Engle	English	1962	14
Catch-22	Joseph Heller	English	1961	10
To Kill a Mockingbird	Harper Lee	English	1960	40
Things Fall Apart	Chinua Achebe	English	1958	20
Night (Un di Velt Hot Geshvign)	Elie Wiesel	Yiddish	1958	10
Andromeda Nebula	Ivan Yefremov	Russian	1957	20
The Cat in the Hat	Dr. Seuss	English	1957	10.5
Peyton Place	Grace Metalious	English	1956	12.1
Lolita	Vladimir Nabokov	English	1955	50
The Ginger Man	J. P. Donleavy	English	1955	50
Fahrenheit 451	Ray Bradbury	English	1953	10
Charlotte's Web	E.B. White; illustrated by Garth Williams	English	1952	50
The Power of Positive Thinking	Norman Vincent Peale	English	1952	20
The Old Man and the Sea	Ernest Hemingway	English	1952	13
The Catcher in the Rye	J. D. Salinger	English	1951	65
The Revolt of Mamie Stover	William Bradford Huie	English	1951	30
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	C. S. Lewis	English	1950	85
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft (Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen)	Thor Heyerdahl	Norwegian	1950	20
Nineteen Eighty-Four	George Orwell	English	1949	30
No Longer Human (人間失格)	Osamu Dazai	Japanese	1948	12
The Diary of Anne Frank (Het Achterhuis)	Anne Frank	Dutch	1947	35
Goodnight Moon	Margaret Wise Brown	English	1947	16
The Plague (La Peste)	Albert Camus	French	1947	12
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care	Dr. Benjamin Spock	English	1946	50
Autobiography of a Yogi	Paramahansa Yogananda	Hindi	1946	20
Man's Search for Meaning (Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager)	Viktor Frankl	German	1946	12
The Young Guard (Молодая гвардия)	Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev	Russian	1945	26
Animal Farm	George Orwell	English	1945	20
The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)	Antoine de Saint-Exupéry	French	1943	150
The Poky Little Puppy	Janette Sebring Lowrey	English	1942	15
The Stranger (L'Étranger)	Albert Camus	French	1942	10
And Then There Were None	Agatha Christie	English	1939	100
The Grapes of Wrath	John Steinbeck	English	1939	15
Rebecca	Daphne du Maurier	English	1938	30
The Hobbit	J. R. R. Tolkien	English	1937	100+
Gone with the Wind	Margaret Mitchell	English	1936	30
Uncle Styopa (Дядя Степа)	Sergey Mikhalkov	Russian	1936	21
How to Win Friends and Influence People	Dale Carnegie	English	1936	15
Virgin Soil Upturned (Поднятая целина)	Mikhail Sholokhov	Russian	1935	24
Lust for Life	Irving Stone	English	1934	25
God's Little Acre	Erskine Caldwell	English	1933	14
How the Steel Was Tempered (Как закалялась сталь)	Nikolai Ostrovsky	Russian	1932	36.4
All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues)	Erich Maria Remarque	German	1929	20
The Story of My Experiments with Truth (સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા)	Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi	Gujarati	1925-1929	10
The Great Gatsby	F. Scott Fitzgerald	English	1925	30
The Good Soldier Švejk (Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války)	Jaroslav Hašek	Czech	1923	20
The Prophet	Kahlil Gibran	English	1923	11
Anne of Green Gables	Lucy Maud Montgomery	English	1908	50
The Wind in the Willows	Kenneth Grahame	English	1908	25
The Tale of Peter Rabbit	Beatrix Potter	English	1902	45
A Message to Garcia	Elbert Hubbard	English	1899	40
She: A History of Adventure	H. Rider Haggard	English	1887	83
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn	Mark Twain	English	1885	20
The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio)	Carlo Collodi	Italian	1881	>80
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ	Lew Wallace	English	1880	50
Heidi	Johanna Spyri	Swiss German	1880	50
Black Beauty	Anna Sewell	English	1877	50
War and Peace (Война и мир)	Leo Tolstoy	Russian	1869	36
A Tale of Two Cities	Charles Dickens	English	1859	200
Pride and Prejudice	Jane Austen	English	1813	20
Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢)	Cao Xueqin	Chinese	1791	100
Paul et Virginie	Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre	French	1788	25
The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia)	Dante Alighieri	Italian	1304	11-12

Remember, they likely read the Bible too.