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I stumbled upon the sentence below on the Internet and felt confused:

The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo Coelho, which is listed as one of the most read books by successful people says...

Are really "successful people" the ones who read it the most? Like this, it sounds to me as if successful people were the authors of "one of the most successful books," and not the readers.

What's the correct wording?

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    It is just an ambiguous sentence. The wording is 'correct,' but there are better ways to put it to avoid ambiguity - e.g., "The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo Coelho, which is listed as one of the book most read by successful people.'
    – Jascol
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 17:05
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    Basically, if you made a list of all books that successful people read, this book would (supposedly) be high on the list, in terms of the number of such people who have read it. It's valid English and not particularly obscure/obtuse/ambiguous for "blurb" writing. (There should be a comma after "people", though.)
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Nov 11, 2015 at 18:23

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Are really "successful people" the ones who read it the most? Like this, it sounds to me as if successful people were the authors of "one of the most successful books," and not the readers.

The actual meaning should be that it is very likely that a successful person read that book.

The incidental phrase preceding which might be confusing, and it could be merged with the relative phrase. One of the most read books could be replaced by one of the books most read. Here's a possible rewording: The Alchemist, a novel by Paulo Coelho which is listed as one of the books most read by successful people, says...

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