15 Super-Nerdy Book Facts for Bibliophiles: A Guest Post by Desiree Villena

Calling all bibliophiles!  I loved reading this incredible guest post written by Desiree Villena from Reedsy, and think my readers will, too.  Enjoy!

15 Super-Nerdy Book Facts for Bibliophiles:  

A Guest Post by Desiree Villena

Fans of Jane Austen might pride themselves on being able to recite the opening lines of lesser-known titles like Lady Susan as easily as Pride and Prejudice. Potterheads might know the series so well, they can list off the fictional birthdays of each character. Avid Tolkien readers might have encyclopedic familiarity with Middle-earth lore. In general, book-lovers tend to be deep wells of knowledge when it comes to their favorite stories or authors.

In this post, however, I want to talk about the world of literature as a whole and reveal my top 15 pieces of biblio-trivia. How many did you already know?

1.  Longest novel

Words just seem to flow more easily in French. Both of the world’s longest books were written by French authors: Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus by Georges de Scudéry goes on for 1.95 million words, while Men of Good Will by Jules Romains has an astounding 2.07 million word count across 27 volumes. That’s about twice the size of the entire Harry Potter series combined  — and well above the average length of a novel. (And here we were all wondering if Order of the Phoenix could have done with some editing!)

2.  Most expensive print book

Drumroll, please! The most expensive book in the world is none other than the Bay Psalm Book, a pamphlet of hymns produced by Puritans who emigrated to Massachusetts Bay in 1640. These days, there are only 11 original copies in existence. The copy I’m speaking of here was sold for a whopping $14.2 million in 2013 — making this slender pamphlet more expensive than the “Marie Antoinette” necklace and the Moussaieff Red Diamond combined.

3.  Smallest book

How small is the smallest book in the world? Try this on for size: 70 micrometers by 100 micrometers. (That’s about the width of a human hair.) Perhaps fittingly, it’s a reproduction of a book titled Teeny Ted from Turnip Town — a tale about a small bear at a county fair. You won’t be able to read it with your naked eye, so if you want to find out who wins the turnip-growing contest, grab the nearest electron microscope and get ready to squint.

4. tsundoku

For all you bibliophiles out there, there’s actually a Japanese word to describe the act of buying books and not reading them. 積ん読 (tsundoku) is a pun that combines the word tsundeoku (which means to “to pile things up”) and dokusho (which means “to read”). Literally: to pile up things to read. No word yet on whether there’s a cure for this behavior.

5.  Bestselling author of all time

There’s a bit of a debate over who occupies the top spot, with both Agatha Christie and Shakespeare having sold somewhere between 2-4 billion copies of their books. I’m sure that no one would mind if I call it a virtual tie for now. Here’s some more trivia for the road, as well: Danielle Steel sold more total books than J.K. Rowling, and out of the top 10 bestselling authors ever, nine out of ten wrote in English.

6.  Bestselling novel of all time

It’s Don Quixote’s world, and we’re just living in it. This tale of a delusional, romantic knight and his trusty squire has sold an estimated 500 million copies. To be fair, it had a massive head start: Miguel de Cervantes published it in 1605, more than 250 years before the number-two bestselling novel of all time, Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. That gives the next two entrants — Lord of the Rings and The Little Prince — something to aim for in the next quarter-millennium!

7.   Shortest chapter

Taken from Allen Carr's The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, the shortest chapter in existence is titled "The Advantages of Being a Smoker" and is, quite appropriately, blank. Some more famous examples come from William Faulkner’s five-word chapter in As I Lay Dying and Lewis Carroll’s eight-word chapter in Alice In Wonderland. For more wee chapters in literature, check out this page. As it points out, if you read them all, you’ve practically read an entire book, right?

8.  Longest sentence

Until quite recently, the longest sentence in literature came from Jonathan Coe’s 2001 novel The Rotter’s Club. It’s a bonafide mouthful that lasts a whopping 13,955 words (roughly half the word count of Of Mice and Men).

However, that record has since been usurped by Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport, a finalist for the 2019 Booker Prize which famously contains nearly the entire novel in a single sentence of over 400,000 words (!!!).Though Ellman’s gargantuan sentence is clearly the technical champion here, I thought I’d include both in case readers were curious about the longest sentence within a book, as well as comprising the entire thing.

9.  Biggest library ever

Hermione Granger’s secret? “When in doubt, go to the library.” Even if the Library of Congress doesn’t contain any magical books, it is the biggest in the world, boasting over 150 million items and the largest collection of rare books in history (including one of the three perfect copies of the Gutenberg Bible). On top of all that, the Library of Congress receives 15,000 new books every day — which might be enough to keep even the hungriest reader occupied.

10.  Longest word

The longest word in history is the chemical name for the protein ‘titin’: 

methionylthreonylthreonyglutaminylarginyl[…]isoleucine.

The ellipses, by the way, are there for your convenience. Otherwise, this word could take you a solid minute to scroll through on a screen. At a total of 189,819 letters, it would take about 3.5 hours to pronounce from beginning to end.

In comparison, the longest word to ever appear in literature seems practically compact: Lopado­temacho­selacho­galeo­kranio­leipsano­drim­hypo­trimmato­silphio­karabo­melito­katakechy­meno­kichl­epi­kossypho­phatto­perister­alektryon­opte­kephallio­kigklo­peleio­lagoio­siraio­baphe­tragano­pterygon, which is a fictional Greek dish in Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen.

11.  Largest population of bookworms

Since Asia is the biggest continent, it makes sense that it would also have the most bookworms! According to the 2014 NOP World Culture Score Index, India is the country that reads the most, clocking on average more than 10 hours per week per person. That said, people in Thailand and China aren’t far behind — they read 9.24 and 8 hours per week per person, respectively. Meanwhile, the United States only reads a measly 5.6 hours per week per person, ranking it 22nd on the list.

12.  Longest series ever

A Song of Ice and Fire doesn’t even come close. This title goes to Perry Rhodan, a German science fiction series whose first installment was published in 1961. It’s come quite a way since then: as of April 2017, the original series consists of more than 2,900 novels. That pushes Perry Rhodan to just over 300,000 pages in total. To put that into perspective for you, Terry Pratchett's entire 45-book Discworld series comes out to 15,497 pages — and A Song of Ice and Fire totals “only” 4,228 pages so far.

13.  Thickest book published

HarperCollins has the distinct honor of publishing the thickest book in the world: a complete collection of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories that measures 12.6 inches (322 mm) in width. As the Guinness Book of World Records points out, that’s 68 crimes committed, 11 philandering paramours, 68 secrets, 12 poisonings, 6 strangulations, 2 drownings, 1 death by an arrow, 2 people pushed, and 66 maids. All in a day’s work, as Miss Marple might say.

14.  abibliophobia

Fear of spiders? Nope. On the contrary, abibliophobia describes a reader’s worst nightmare: it’s an extreme fear of running out of reading material. Signs of abibliophobia include:

●      Reading receipts when there’s nothing else around;

●      Panicking because you forgot to bring a book with you on a flight; and

●      Re-reading novels more than six times in a row.

If you are experiencing any of the above symptoms, consult your local bookstore immediately.

15.  Most words invented

Sure, Paris Hilton thinks that she invented the word “selfie” — but could she come up with more than 1,700 new words? That’s the number of terms that we owe to Shakespeare, without whom we wouldn’t have such commonly-used words as “anchovy,” “addiction,” “compromise,” “drugged,” “auspicious,” “bedazzle,” “bloodstained,” “assassination,” “negotiate,” “radiance,” “torture,” “dauntless,” “summit,” “frugal,” and “excitement.” I could go on, but I’ll let Shakespeare have the last word: “amazement.”

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Desiree Villena is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors with the world's self-publishing resources and professionals. In her spare time, Desiree enjoys reading contemporary fiction, writing short stories, and boning up on literary trivia!

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Thank you for this nifty, nerdy, noteworthy guest post, Desiree.  I learned a lot of fascinating, new biblio-trivia (at least I knew the word tsundoku)!  I appreciate the time and effort that went into this well-written post, which includes terrific links to various related sites.

What do you think?  Your comments are welcomed as always, so please feel free to add to the conversation.

Kafka on the Shore

For several years, I've been interested in reading the work of Haruki Murakami, so I was very pleased to find the novel, Kafka on the Shore, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel, on a small table in my daughter's room.  Over the years, I've read a lot about Murakami's work, and was interested in several novels by this prolific, bestselling author, as well as his memoir, What I Talk about When I Talk about Running, which caught my interest even before I'd begun to run on a regular basis.

"On my fifteenth birthday I'll run away from home, journey to a far-off town, and live in a corner of a small library."

Published in 2005, Kafka on the Shore focuses on protagonist Kafka Tamura, a fifteen-year-old boy who lives with his father in Tokyo.  Kafka runs away from home to escape from his troubles with his father. The first five chapters in this book are told in the first person narrative by Kafka.  On the run, Kafka travels to a shore village called Takamatsu, and discovers the Komura Family Library, where he meets Oshima, who works at the library.  Throughout the book, Oshima helps Kafka in numerous ways.  Kafka also meets the lovely but sad Miss Saeki, who's in charge of the library.  In Chapter 6, we meet Satoru Nakata, an older man who refers to himself in the third person throughout the book simply as Nakata.  He "used to be smart",  but due to a strange accident Nakata became mentally disabled, and lost his ability to read.  Oddly, though, Nakata can talk to cats, and he helps find missing cats. (Chapter 16, "the scary cat chapter", was very difficult for me to read. Without saying too much about it, what happens in this chapter is horrific; I felt as if I were suddenly, temporarily reading a Stephen King horror story.)  Later Nakata meets Hoshino, a truck driver, and they become good friends. Nakata reminds Hoshino of his grandfather, and together they embark on a special quest. The lives of all of these characters, and other, secondary characters, like Sakura, Johnnie Walker, and Colonel Sanders, intersect in numerous, unusual ways, creating an unforgettable story. 

There are so many things I could say about Kafka on the Shore.  It's a story unlike any other I've read.  It's a beautifully written book that features a passion for books and libraries, music, nature, food (mostly delicious Japanese food), cats, and perhaps most importantly, friendship.  The protagonist's very name, Kafka, reflects themes of writer Franz Kafka's work, of alienation and loneliness. The wonderful friendships that develop in this book, especially between Kafka and Oshima, and Nakata and Hoshino, are antidotes to this alienation; the characters help and care for each other, and in doing so, provide companionship and solace. Throughout the book, Kafka seeks close, familial connection to others; he wonders if Miss Saeki is his mother, if Sakura is his sister. He craves connection.

Kafka on the Shore is a magical story which also has some magic, or more precisely, magical realism, in it, in just the right amount. At times, readers are left to wonder what's real and what's imaginary. I read the book at a leisurely pace, often at night before I went to sleep, a chapter or two at a time. I looked forward to my time with this novel because the book is original and fascinating. The main characters in this novel are unique and I enjoyed spending time with them.  I've been to Japan twice (my daughter lives in Japan so we have a good "excuse" to travel there), which enhanced my enjoyment of the book.  I'd like to reread Kafka on the Shore soon, while it's still fresh in my mind, because I enjoyed it a great deal and would like to understand it at a deeper level.  There are several puzzles and mysteries in the book, and although I'm not sure I will ever solve all of them, a rereading would at least bring me closer.  It would also be a pleasure.   

Special thanks to Bellezza from Dolce Bellezza for hosting the Japanese Literature Challenge 12.  She has hosted this challenge for many years, and in doing so has introduced me to the rich world of Japanese literature, for which I'm grateful.

Thanks for reading!  Your comments are welcomed, as always.