| Agatha Christie is the best selling novelist of all time |
Bestsellers |
| The best selling and most widely distributed book of all time is the Bible |
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| The best selling refernce book is "Xinhua Zidian," a Chinese dictionary |
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| "Don Quixote" by Migel de Cervantes is the bestselling novel of all time |
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| J.K. Rowling was the first author to make a billion dollars from book sales |
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| Shakespeare is said to have invented about 2,000 words |
Words |
| "Bookworm" and "bibliophile" are 2 words used to describe book-lovers |
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| A "tsundoku" is a person who buys more books than they will ever read |
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| Some of us love the smell of old books. This is called "bibliosmia" |
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| Raymond Chandler invented the word "unputdownable" to describe a book |
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| Publishers rejected "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone" 12 times |
Rejected |
| Moby Dick was rejected for being "long and old fashioned" |
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| "Irish Wine" by Dick Wimmer was rejected 162 times before it was published |
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| Beatrix Potter’s "Peter Rabbit" was rejected 6 times by publishers |
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| "First Impressions" was rejected, then published as "Pride and Prejudice" |
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| George Eliot was a woman. Her real name was Mary Ann Evans |
Pseudonyms |
| Eric Blair chose the king's name and a river as his pen name: George Orwell |
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| Horror writer Stephen King also wrote under the name Richard Bachman |
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| JK Rowling published an adult novel under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith |
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| Agatha Christie published 6 romance novels as Mary Westmacott |
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| "The Catcher in the Rye" by JD Salinger is banned in some US schools |
Banned |
| As is "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee |
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| "1984" by George Orwell was banned in the USSR and some US counties |
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| Alice in Wonderland was banned in China because it includes talking animals |
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| In 1960 Penguin were taken to court for publishing "Lady Chaterley's Lover" |
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| The most expensive book cost $30.8 million! It's "Codex Leicester" by Di Vinci |
Trivia |
| Victor Hugo’s "Les Miserables" contains an 823 word sentence |
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| Charles Dickens slept facing north, thinking it would improve his writing |
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| The first novel written on a typewriter was "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain |
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| John Steinbeck's first draught of "Of Mice and Men" was eaten by his dog |
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| The longest novel is "Remembrance of Things Past" with 9,609,000 characters |
Length |
| The longest book title is made up of 3,777 words. There's no room for it here! |
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| The longest series is possibly "Guin Saga" which has over 100 volumes |
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| The shortest novel is 40,000 words. Any shorter and it would be a novella |
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| "The Dinosaur" by Augusto Monterroso is only 9 words long |
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| "Pride goes before a fall" is a misquotation from the Bible |
Misquotes |
| As is "Money is the root of all evil" |
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| The Shakespeare quote "To gild the lily" is a misrepresentation of his words |
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| “Me Tarzan, You Jane” never appeared in any of the Tarzan books |
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| “Elementary, my dear Watson” never appears in the Sherlock Holmes stories |
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| David Walliams has won the Children's Book Award three times |
Awards |
| Established in 1919, the James Tait Black prize is the UK's oldest book award |
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| The Costa Book Awards (the Whitbread Literary Awards) began in 1971 |
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| In 1975 there were 83 Booker Prize entries. Just 2 made it onto the shortlist |
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| The Nobel Prize for Literature has been won most often by French authors |
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| The classic "Bladerunner" is based on "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" |
Adaptations |
| A poll on Goodreads voted the "Percy Jackson" series the worst adaptations |
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| 142 minute film "Shawshank Redemption" is based on a 93 page story |
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| Charles Dickens is the most adapted author of all time |
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| The Grimm Brothers' "Cinderella" is much gorier than Disney's adaptation |
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