Top 20 Facts – The Best Facts about Books
Do you want to know the most interesting book facts?
I think it’s a safe fact to say that most people enjoy snuggling up with a good book in front of the fire on a grizzly day. It sounds like a perfect day to us and probably one for most of you readers.
Books give you a chance to drift off from the world and join another, so it’s no wonder that the average person will read around 4 books a year.
Since we share the love of books with many others we decided to look at books a little further, in particular, book facts and all things interesting about books and the many facts that go with them.
We have come up with a fantastic compilation of funny, unusual and exciting facts about books.
You’ll be surprised how many wonderful facts there are about books, we have learnt a lot.
Here we have decided to choose the top 20 most fascinating facts about books, which you can share and compare with your book-loving friends!
In no particular order, here are the most amazing facts about the books we found.
1. Did you know, the fear of running out of something to read is called Abibliophobia.
via Pinterest
You really don’t have to worry about this fact. With all the different reading material in the world, I doubt this is even possible.
2. The world’s smallest book is Teeny Ted from Turnip Town.
This book is now the worlds smallest and it is verified by The Guiness Book of Records. The book is in production and measures 100 micrometres by 70 micrometres. It has an ISBN number too – 978-1-894897-17-4.
3. There are four law books bound in human skin at the Harvard University Library.
This is a very interesting fact. Anthropodermic bibliopegy is the term given to binding books in human skin. There are actually several books known to be bound in human skin. Interestingly it was mainly doctors who bound these books. There are also several books bound in animal skin.
4. Fact has it that former American President Theodore Roosevelt read one book a day.
An interesting fact for sure, with todays distractions we would find it difficult to read this much. There are plenty of people that read a lot of books in a week but one day is an achievement. The fact is, reading every day can reduce your stress levels and help with depression.
5. People say the longest sentence to ever be printed in literature belongs to Victor Hugo. The claim is that in Les Misérables there is a sentence which is 823 words long.
This is the longest fact we have on our list. I don’t think a blog post would work very well with sentences this long. We actually managed to find a version of the sentence, the one we found is 805 words. You can read it here – Longest Sentence.
6. 1 in 5 adults around the world cannot read or write.
This fact is a little sad. In the western world, we take for granted our education system and sometimes forget about the people in the less privileged parts of the world.
This fact has lead us on to find out about School Aid. They are a charity providing sustainable literacy development for children and young people in Africa. If you have a spare few minutes give their website a read.
7. Up to 50 books can be made from 1 tree.
We love this fact. Being sustainable is a massive part of our day-to-day lives and being able to make up to 50 books from one tree is fantastic especially with printing companies using fully sustainable paper. Also a new movement on youtube is trying to plant 20 million trees.
8. Copies of pulped Mills and Boon novels were used to build part of the M6 toll road.
The M6 toll road is in Birmingham, UK. It is 26 miles of a 6 lane motorway. 2.5 million copies of Mills and Boon novels were acquired and then pulped at a recycling firm in South Wales, UK. They were used in the top layer of the motorway.
9. The most expensive book in the world is Codex Leicester by Leonardo Da Vinci. It was purchased by Bill Gates for 30.8 million dollars.
This is the most expensive book fact in the world.
Bill Gates purchased the Codex Leicester in 1994 for $30.8 million. When you add inflation to that the book would cost $53.3 million. If Bill Gates were to sell this book today we reckon the book would sell for a lot more.
10. In America, the most banned books are Harry Potter. The apparent reasons are because they promote witchcraft, they set bad examples and are too dark.
Harry Potter Series
Most of the books have been banned in catholic schools as they contain ‘real’ spells. It is also said that the Harry Potter series presents witchcraft and wizardry in a good light which is simply not true.
I have yet to be able to use a spell successfully, perhaps it’s my technique?
11. To write a novel, it takes around 475 hours.
This fact about novel-length is argued quite a lot over the internet. Writing the actual novel probably can be completed within 475 hours. The average novel is 90,000 words which mean writing 189 words an hour. Most people can achieve this.
However, writing a novel is not just about putting words on some paper. There is much more to a novel than 189 words an hour. All the research that goes into a novel could easily add another 475 hours to this time.
12. The Holy Bible, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung and Harry Potter are the 3 most read books in the world.
It is not surprising to see the holy bible and quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung top this list but Harry Potter? Well, the total number of Harry Potter books sold worldwide is close to 400 million. That is almost 1 Harry Potter book for every 17.5 people on earth.
13. A study found that you are 2 ½ times less likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in later life if you read regularly.
Keep Reading to Keep Alzheimer’s at Bay
It’s impossible to argue the many benefits of reading. This fact is quite amazing and one that many people should think about.
“Our study suggests that exercising your brain by taking part in activities such as these across a person’s lifetime, from childhood through old age, is important for brain health in old age,” – Robert S. Wilson, at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago
14. Mark Twain’s, Adventure of Tom Sawyer is said to be the first novel written on a typewriter.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete
Mark Twain Wrote the First Book Ever
Mark Twain wrote ‘The Adventure’s of Tom Sawyer’ in 1875 and it was published the following year, 1876. Mark Twain was not a fan of the typewriter when he first used it though.
In fact, he gave away the typewriter when he was writing ‘The Adventure’s of Tom Sawyer’ twice. Both times it returned to him.
15. There is an actual word for loving the smell of old books, it’s Bibliosmia.
This interesting fact is for the reading addicts. Has there been a time when someone has asked you if you prefer paperback or hardback books over eBooks? Maybe there were several times when you were asked this question and you responded about how you disliked eBooks? Quite often people say they prefer paperback and hardback books but are not able to give an exact reason. Could this be that reason?
16. The author of Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie gave the rights of this book to Great Ormond Street Hospital
Peter Pan (Harper Design Classics)
J.M Barrie, gave one of the greatest gifts to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for which the hospital is still receiving royalties to this day. Giving the rights to this hospital helped fund it and provides an ongoing income to benefit the many lives that the hospital saves.
17. On estimate, there are over 900,000 new books published each year.
This fact is quite hard to get an exact number. In all honesty, this number is probably closer to well over 1,000,000 books published a year as some of the figures are slightly out of date. China leads this fact with over 440,000, the USA in second place at over 300,000 and the UK in third with over 184,000.
We would like to see the statistics Amazon has on this fact.
18. The earliest known written existence of the word ‘book’ is in a book by Alfred the Great.
Books were not called books until a long time after they were actually books! Confused? Well if you want to delve deeper into this story then have a look at our blog post on the History of Books.
19. Lord of the Ring author, J.R.R Tolkien typed the whole trilogy with just two fingers!
The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Boxed Set
LOTR was Typed with just two fingers
J.R.R Tolkien said writing the trilogy was ‘Exhausting’. That is no surprise. The Lord of The Rings trilogy is over 1200 pages. Tolkien said the only way he learned to type was with just two fingers.
20. In Sydney, 2012 a record was made for the most people to balance books on their head
998 people balance books on their heads
In November of 2012, 998 people set a world record for balancing books on their head. The event was organised by Danielle Di-Masi.
We hope you have enjoyed our list of the Top 20 Book Facts. We certainly had fun researching and writing for this post. If you have any interesting facts about books that we have missed be sure to let us know so we can update these facts.
