In honor of the new year, here are some fun reading facts… Enjoy!
- The Alnarp Library in Sweden has a 217 volume collection of wooden books called The Tree Library. Each book describes a specific tree—its binding is bark, moss and lichens found on that species and the book interiors hold more natural surprises. The books were made in Germany during the 19th century.
- Abibliophobia – the fear of running out of reading material.
- William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury includes a 600 word section that has no punctuation!
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the first book written with a typewriter.
- The Harvard University library has four law books bound in human skin
- The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy prior.
- Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in only six weeks
- Teeny Ted from Turnip Town is the world’s smallest book. In fact, if it were in a bookstore, you wouldn’t notice because it’s an illustrated story written on 30 pages that, together, would fit on the width of a human hair. It’s so tiny (70 micrometers by 100 micrometers), you can’t even see it with a microscope.
- The largest bound book in the world is The Klencke Atlas. A 1.75 meter tall by 1.9 meter wide tome that is so heavy six people are necessary to lift it. It was presented as a gift to Charles II of England by Johannes Klencke in 1660. The atlas contains 37 printed wall maps.
- Ernest Hemingway survived anthrax, malaria, pneumonia, dysentery, skin cancer, hepatitis, anemia, diabetes, high blood pressure, two plane crashes, a ruptured kidney, a rupture spleen, a ruptured liver, a crushed vertebra, a fractured skull, and more. He ultimately died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
- 33% of high school graduates in the U.S. never read another book the rest of their lives.
- The Harry Potter books are the most banned books in America.
- J.R.R. Tolkien typed the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy with 2 fingers.
- M. Barrie gave the rights of Peter Pan to the Children’s Hospital on Great Ormond Street in London so they could always collect royalties and fund the hospital.
- It is rumored that Teddy Roosevelt read, on average, one book a day even when juggling the responsibilities of his presidential office.
