2. The Little Prince / Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
(Approx. 140 million copies)
Amid World War II, during bitter and sad days, this short book was published that evokes a spectrum of emotions in every reader – from laughter and affection for the little prince, who landed from another planet and whose customs are so strange, to the point of identifying the multitude of stars he visited with his stories.
Only those with hearts of stone did not cry at the end when the little prince disappears somewhere in the sands, And even sadder was the fate of Exupery himself, a pilot in the service of the French army, whose plane was shot down in 1944.