There are 2.5 million of whose books buried under the M6? Who paid $30 million for the most expensive tome ever? What was the name of the very first book bought on Amazon? A fascinating new compendium is a bibliophile’s dream come true…
PULPED FICTION
In 2003, more than 2.5 million damaged or discontinued Mills & Boon titles were acquired by the construction firm building the M6 toll road. The books were pulped and poured on to the road as a strengthening and soundproofing layer before the asphalt was laid. Little do commuters on the M6 toll road know they are driving over 45,000 Mills & Boon titles per mile.
The genre of fiction from which Tarantino got the name of his famous film is typically trashy stories in cheap paperbacks
THE FIRST BOOK ORDERED ON AMAZON
Today Amazon is a shopping behemoth worth over $300 billion, but in 1995 it was a modest online bookstore operating from Jeff Bezos’s garage in Seattle, USA. The first book ordered was the scientific tome Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter. The order was placed on April 3, 1995, by computer scientist John Wainwright. He still owns both the book and the packing slip that came with it.
QUEEN OF ROMANCE
Dame Barbara Cartland (1901- 2000) is most famous for her romance novels, but she also penned plays, cookbooks and poetry. Cartland produced 723 novels over her career.
Dame Barbara Cartland is most famous for her romance novels, but she also penned plays, cookbooks and poetry
THE MOST EXPENSIVE BOOK IN THE WORLD
Bill Gates paid an astonishing $30.8 million in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester. The hand-drawn manuscript was compiled by Renaissance polymath and artist Leonardo da Vinci between 1506 and 1510 and is one of only 30 of his notebooks still in existence. The Codex contains sketches, notes and ideas on a diverse range of subjects, giving scholars a rare glimpse into the mind of a genius.
Bill Gates paid an astonishing $30.8 million in 1994 for Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester
The bestselling novel of all time is ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens
THE BEST-SELLING BOOK OF ALL TIME
… is the Bible, but the bestselling novel of all time is ‘A Tale Of Two Cities’ by Charles Dickens. Published in 1859, 200 million copies have been sold worldwide.
WRITING TIPS FROM GEORGE ORWELL
‘Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. ‘Never use a long word where a short one will do. ‘If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out. ‘Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. ‘Break these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.’
The author got so many rejections for The Tale Of Peter Rabbit that she went on to publish 250 copies herself
FAMOUS PUBLISHING REJECTIONS
Beatrix Potter
The author got so many rejections for The Tale Of Peter Rabbit that she went on to publish 250 copies herself, a move that finally caught the attention of a publisher. It sold 45 million copies.
Margaret Mitchell
Gone With The Wind was rejected by 38 different publishers before securing a deal and selling 30 million copies.
J K Rowling
Rowling’s agent received rejections from 12 publishers before the eight-year-old daughter of an editor at Bloomsbury voiced her love of the manuscript and Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone was finally published.
HOW THEY MADE A BIBLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES
To produce a Bible written on vellum (calfskin), the skins of 170 calves were needed. In the Middle Ages, writing was a two-handed affair: in one hand the quill or stylus would be held; in the other a knife, for sharpening the quill, scrubbing out mistakes and keeping place in the text.
The Book Lovers’ Miscellany by Claire Cock-Starkey is published by The Bodleian Library on Sep 29, priced £9.99. Offer price £7.99 until Sep 24. Pre-order at mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640.