Follow Business Insider: You've seen Google's annual lists of trendy search terms, featuring things like  robin williams, world cup, and ebola , but those show only the most unusually popular terms, not the most popular terms overall.
Murasaki Shikibu is the best known writer to emerge from Japan's glorious Heian period. Her novel, The Tale of Genji (Genji-monogatari) is considered to be one of the world's finest and earliest novels. Some argue that Murasaki is the world's first modern novelist.
The epic of Gilgamesh is generally considered the first work of literary fiction ever written. It was composed around 1950-1750 BC. The first books appearing in modern bound form were developed in the 3rd century, but did not become more popular than papyrus scrolls until almost a thousand years later.