Sunday, March 06, 2011

...books and authors

heres some cool fact stuff maybe you didnt ever know bout books and authors.

could you believe when youre reading a book for every 8 letters you read one of them is the letter “e”

an author named ernest vincent in 1939 wrote a 50,000 word novel called gadsby and guess what?  it didnt have not one letter  “e” in the whole book.  yikes! how weird is that!

a french author named michel thaler published a 233 page novel called  le train de nulle part (the nowhere train) and didnt use not even one verb in it. he said verbs are like weeds among flowers and should be taken out.  ack!

samuel clemens got using the name mark twain when he was just 27. he got it from how a mississippi river boat measured how deep the water is with a stone tied to a rope cause of so much sand bars. when "mark twain!" got called out it meant they hit the critical mark for the paddle wheel of two fathoms. twain is old english for the number two.

we got taught not to do run on sentences. right? well in the book les miserables the author victor hugo did one sentence thats 823 words long!  yikes! for sure you could need oxygen if you got reading that out loud. ha ha.

but guess what? when victor hugo did his query letter to his editor he just  wrote “?”   wow thats getting to the point real fast. and guess what the editor wrote back?  his answer was “!”  wow how cool is that!  dont you wish querying was that easy.

william shakespeare could write neat words for sure but did you know in his writing he made up lots of words. bet you didnt know he made up all these words and phrases:  hurry, boredom, disgraceful, hostile, moneys worth, obscene, puke, perplex, on purpose, shooting star, sneak.  puke? ack!

we all complain bout so much revising.  when there was no computers or copy machines leo tolstoy  wrote that loooooooong huge book called  war and peace all with a pen and paper and he did seven revisions! and guess who copied his whole ms seven times by hand. his wife! now thats love for sure!

got a writers quirk?  charles dickens had to be facing north before he could write even one word. 

cant wait to get your wip done?  it took noah webster 36 years to write his first dictionary.
 
ok thats enough cool fact stuff for now. but i gotta tell you im not done yet cause next week i got more neat stuff bout books and authors and guess what? im gonna tell you the 10 most read books ever.  wow how cool is that!

so how do you like this fact stuff?  could you guess what the top most book ever read is?

...hugs from lenny

33 comments:

  1. Hi Lenny .. love those facts .. especially Shakespeare making words up!! and the novel with no "E" in it ..how Mark Twain's name came about .. fun ..

    Enjoy today and the coming week .. big hugs to you .. Spring is sort of slowly coming .. won't it be great when it arrives ... cheers Hilary

    PS .. perhaps The Bible?

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  2. I thoroughly enjoyed this post. Not a verb in a whole book? Funny to consider since adverbs have become public enemy #1. And yes, I'd love to send "?" for my query and receive "!" for a yes. Probably can't have that happen two times ever. I'd heard Shakespeare had made up words. Nice to see a list of them. No wonder the English language is so hard to learn!

    Happy Sunday, Lenny.

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  3. Love this post! I post fun facts about books and authors on my blog all the time. I can't get enough of them!

    I'm guessing the Bible is the most read book. I know it's the biggest seller... but I wonder how many people actually read it cover to cover?

    Hope your weekend has been good, Lenny!

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  4. Love these facts, Lenny! Thanks for sharing them. :)

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  5. These are so cool! My favorites were the Mark Twain and Shakespeare ones. I can't believe I never knew where Mark Twain's name came from--I feel like calling my Dad right now (he's a huge Mark Twain fan). Thanks for the neat facts :)

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  6. I really enjoyed this. I said, "Huh!" a few times, especially the Mark Twain bit. I can't imagine an entire story with no verbs. How did his characters do anything if they did not say, walk, sit, or anything? Weird.

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  7. Great post, Lenny (as always)! I love learning about writers and their quirks. I especially liked the story about the Victor Hugo query. Awesome!

    Here's some literary fun stuff for you: Did you know Samuel Johnson wrote the very first English dictionary? He filled it with all these tidbits that are really funny. Here's a website that lists some of them.

    Happy writing!

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  8. Okay -- so it's possible to write a book with no letter e or no verbs, but I have to wonder: Does anybody want to read a book like that?? (I don't!)

    Poor Mrs. Tolstoy! She must have had hand cramps.

    And Charles Dickens -- who knew he was so weird?

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  9. That's a lot of cool facts! Imagine writing a book without e or any verbs. I don't think I could do that.

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  10. I knew a couple of those facts, but not all.
    Everything I've ever read said the best selling book in the world is the Bible, but whether that's the most-read is another story.

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  11. Wow Lenny! :-)
    Another really cool posting dude. I knew quite a few of those facts, but I'm really glad you posted them up :-) And Willie Shakespeare will now remind me of 'puke' LOL
    Have an awesome week, Lenny.
    Hugs and smiles, Mr. Gary :-)

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  12. I love this kind of stuff! I can't imagine writing a novel without a verb - gotta be a boring book! And I think it would be really hard to write a sentence without an e, never mind a whole story!!! Thanks for sharing :)

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  13. Great post. Loved the interesting writing tidbits! :) Thanks for sharing!

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  14. Wow, this was really interesting! Keep it up! I hope to see more posts like it and I'm excited to find out the most read books!

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  15. Really cool post, Lenny! I had no idea that Shakespeare made up those words. I use some of them all the time! Tolstoy had a really good wife...Walter's happy if he gets clean clothes and dinner. LOL!

    My guess is the Bible for the most read book.

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  16. Very, very cool facts indeed. My favorite is the query letter one about Hugo. Looking forward to your next topic.

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  17. haha, Lenny alll these facts are awesome and I didn't even know most of them! Wow! Thanks for such an entertaining post! LOL I bet the most read book is the Bible, huh? Looking forward to reading more funny facts! A book with out e or verbs, now that sounds impossible. I gotta go and do an Internet search now! LOL

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  18. Wow, this is some interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing! :D

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  19. What amazing facts! I'm so glad that my run on sentences will never, ever be that bad!

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  20. I loved these! And talk about love. My hand hurts just thinking about writing out War and Peace SEVEN TIMES!

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  21. Lenny, this was a totally cool post with lots of new info for me! I'm jealous of Victor Hugo. I'm afraid if I sent out a ? query letter, the agent would just reply with another ? .

    Becca @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  22. Lenny, you always have something interesting to share. I love Victor Hugo's query letter and his editor's response. Here's my response to your blog... !!!!

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  23. I'm going to guess the most read book is the bible. Great facts here, Lenny! Poor Mrs. Tolstoy!

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  24. Those are some really cool facts! I WISH I could write a query letter that simple. But after writing Les Mis, Mr. Hugo was probably too tired to write much of a query. Ha! :)

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  25. Wow, why is it when I make up words they don't become part of the English language? I mean sure, I do it accidentally. But still. ;)

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  26. Fun facts, Lenny! You must have done a lot of research! I wish all it took to get published was a "?" and a "!"

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  27. My friend, this is by far my favorite one of your posts. Well, except for alla' the others. Wow! I love alla' those facts. I have so many trivia books with so much information, but I had never heard of that about Shakespeare making up words. Nor what you told about Charles Dickens. That's really somethin'. An' I thought I was OCD. [That's Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder, in case you haven't heard of it before.] I'm not, really. But sometimes, my good hubby-buddy laughs an' says I am.
    Silly B - o - o - o - u - u - y ! ! !

    Keep on learnin' an' sharing your knowledge with the rest of us, Lenny. That's the best thing a writer does, if you ask me.

    BIG HUG,
    ~ Yaya

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  28. awesome post lenny! You were right! I learned lots- some great author facts you've got here. Shakespeare is my hero:)

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  29. Top read book? I'm going to guess... The Bible. I think I've heard that one somewhere before... :) Wow - some cool facts!! I think I'd go crazy if I had to revise by hand, lol! Thanks for all the awesome, Lenny!

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  30. These are all very interesting facts! You always have neat ways of looking at things and have a way of making me think. Thank you!

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  31. Wow, this was a very interesting post! How in the world did anyone write a book without the letter e in it, or without a verb?!!!

    Loved the comment about needing oxygen after that giant run on sentence, lol!

    Can't wait till next week!
    Have a great Friday :)

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  32. I did know that William Shakespeare made up a lot of cool words but I didn't know about 'puke'. What a cool fact!

    Jai

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  33. Lenny!

    Thank you for visiting my blog!

    And I love these facts, as well as your blog post about the dolphins! I never knew that!

    I'm so excited to have found your blog!

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Whatever wonderful, witty and wise words you manage to come up with!