Sunday, March 13, 2011

…more books and author stuff!

wow! theres so much interesting stuff you could find out about books and authors. heres some more neat facts.

wanna read the most b-o-r-i-n-g book ever? its a book about the calculation of pi to two million places. its got 800 pages! ack!

the first published book ever written on a typewriter was the mark twains adventures of tom sawyer.

in the usa we buy 57 books per second and thats about five million every day.

a new book is published every 13 minutes in america. 125 new titles are published every day.

the first novel ever written is believed to be the tale of genji. it was written in the first decade of the 11th century by murasaki shibuku a japanese noblewoman. it has 54 chapters.

in charles dickens a christmas carol most of the characters were based on people he knew personally including ebenezer scrooge who in real life was ebenezer scroggie a counselor at edinburgh.

south african writer mary faulkner wrote 904 books and according to the guinness book of world records ranks as historys most prolific novelist.

the first recipe book was published in 62 a d. by the roman apicius. its called de re coquinari and it describes food the emperor claudius liked to eat.

shakespeare used around 29,000 different words in his plays. before that about 10,000 of them had never been used in any english literature .

now cause i promised heres the 10 most read books in the world. drum roll

1.The Bible - 3.9 billion copies

2 Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung by Mao Tse-tung - 820 Million Copies

3. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling - 400 Million Copies and translated into 65 languages.

4. Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkian- 103 Million Copies

5. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - 65 Million Copies

6. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown - 57 Million Copies

7. Twilight - The Saga by Stephanie Meyer - 43 Million Copies

8. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell- 33 Million Copies

9. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill - 30 Million Copies

10. Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank- 27 Million Copies

i hope you liked all this cool book and author stuff.

…hugs from lenny

37 comments:

  1. Cool facts! And happy to see the number one book will likely remain number one for many years to come.

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  2. I can't imagine writing 904 books! Wow! Like Alex, glad to see number one still there.

    This was fun reading, thanks :)

    Have a great week!

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  3. Hi Lenny .. certainly fiery facts .. love the reference to the first cookbook .. and I agree with you! It was like a travel, design, style, botanical etc book - a journal .. so we know what life was like 2,000 years ago - pretty amazing?!

    Then all the other facts .. aren't they brilliant - well done on drumming them up! Have a very good week .. Hilary

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  4. Those are cool facts! I can't imagine writing 904 books--wow.

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  5. Awesome facts, thanks for sharing, Lenny! :)

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  6. Wow, I am really surprised by how many recent books are on the top ten list!

    I hope one day I'm in that 125 books published every day stastic. :)

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  7. Great facts. I love the fact about Ebenezer Scrooge. That's really cool.

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  8. Always fun to have these kinds of facts--you never know when they'll come in handy ... and is that for real about ebenezer scroggie? Hilarious.

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  9. Wow, what a fun, fact filled post. Glad to see that the Bible is #1!

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  10. I like the fact about Ebenezer Scrooge~ that's pretty funny! I have to wonder if the man appreciated being named after a character when he saw what Scrooge was like :)

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  11. Very cool facts! I'm impressed that Harry Potter has risen so quickly in so few years! It's a wonderful series :) Thanks for sharing Lenny :)

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  12. Hey, Lenny! Great facts! I had no idea Tom Sawyer was the first book written on a typewriter. Cool!

    I was kind of surprised by the list of most read books, and a little sad to see Twilight on there, 'cause it's really not that great compared to a lot of other classics.

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  13. Wow. 57 books per second . . . that is awesome! Maybe someday, Lenny, we'll both have books being included in the USA's 5 million per day total. Wouldn't that be great?! :-)

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  14. Ah, the diary of Anne Frank! Glad that made it to the list! Was kinda worried the Twilight saga might have pushed it out! :o) Great list of facts, Lenny!

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  15. wow! i had no idea so many books were published every day! and hooray for the diary of anne frank making the list!! the Bible really does take the cake, huh?!! :)

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  16. Serious? Wow! Those are awesome facts. 57 books are bought every second? That just makes me happy. =)

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  17. Wow Lenny these are some awesome facts!!! Sorry I haven't been around lately! I'm slowly getting back into commenting and feeling better with each stop I make!

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  18. Woo hoo!! I guessed #1 right! :) And yes, an 800-page book on pi? BORING! Unless you love math, I guess. (which I don't...) Thanks for some cool facts!

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  19. Wow--lots of great fun facts--thanks for sharing! :D

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  20. Wow, those are some fascinating facts! Who would have thought Twilight would be right up there with the bible? And I do think Charles Dickens could have done a little better job of disguising Scroggie's name - I wonder how much trouble he got in over that? :)

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  21. Wow! Can you imagine what the authors of those widely read books must feel knowing their books are on a list like this? It must be very exciting for them! Thank you for posting such interesting facts!

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  22. Wow, I have even used close to that many different words in my entire life. *hangs head in shame*

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  23. Very cool facts! Lenny, I love coming to your blog and learning something new!

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  24. So much cool stuff. Ok, so if 125 new books come out every day, and 5 million books are bought every day, why isn't my book selling 5,000,000/125 = 40,000 copies a day. Oh right! Because there's a bazillion old books still out there. Being bought! :) Sorry, I can't resist the math. :)

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  25. Wow there was a bunch of stuff here I didn't know. Thanks for keeping us in the know.

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  26. Why would anyone want to write 800 pages of numbers?

    Cool that a Japanese WOMAN wrote the first novel.

    Neat top ten list. Thanks for this fun post.

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  27. This is an awesome post! Fascinating stuff. Maybe I'll win jeopardy someday now that I know these facts. I have never even heard of #9. I better put that on my reading list.

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  28. Holy Bananas! Look at all these stats! Great job, Lenny!

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  29. Happy St. Patrick's Day, Lenny! Love the Snoopy!!!

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  30. Some truly fascinating information. I doubt whether I'll be reading the Pi book, but maybe I'd read a book about "pie".

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

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  31. Wow! Some really interesting stuff...that I did not know. I really love that Tom Sawyer was the first book written on a typewriter.

    As for the top 10 most read books in the world, I'm not sure how I feel about the list. There are a couple surprises in there. Interesting, though.

    And NO! I do not want to read that boring book on pi. Now, make it pie and I'm in! :)

    Have a happy, healthy, delightful weekend, sweet Lenny.
    Love,
    Lola

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  32. Hey there, Lenny Lee! Thanks for reading my interview over at unedited today. :) I did NOT know Scrooge, excuse me, Scrogge, was based on a real person. Hmmm, I visited one of Dicens' former residences last month...wonder if Scrogge ever did...

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  33. Cool stats! Nice to meet you :) I'm making lots of new friends, thanks to Sharon!

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  34. "...a new book is published every 13 minutes in america. 125 new titles are published every day."

    No wonder it's hard to find readers!

    I'm not happy that a certain vampire book sold more copies than Anne Frank.

    Thanks for the interesting stats!

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  35. Thanks for sharing the great facts, Lenny! Great post!

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  36. Hi Lenny! I love your list of fascinating facts about books, especially the part about Shakespeare's 29,000 words. I never knew that!

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