We've put together some of the most amazing book facts for you.
Google has counted the number of all artistic, journalistic and scientific papers in the world. It turned out that the total number of books on Earth is 129,864,880.
One of the most unusual books in the world is Dante's Divine Comedy, written by the Benedictine monk Gabriel Chelani on a sheet of 80 x 60 cm paper. All 14,000 verses can be easily read with the naked eye, and if you look at the sheet from a distance, you will see colorful map of Italy. Chelani spent four years on this work.
One of the largest royalties was paid to the poet Oppian by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. For each line of his two poems about fishing and hunting, he received a gold coin. The total number of lines in the two poems was twenty thousand.
One of the most expensive books in the world is the Code of Leicester by Leonardo da Vinci. This scientific treatise on "water, earth and heavenly bodies" is printed in a mirror type, therefore, in order to read it, you must be sure to arm yourself with a mirror. The owner of Codex Leicester is currently Bill Gates, who purchased the book for twenty-four million dollars.
The most expensive book is currently considered the unique "Apocalypse", published by the Frenchman Joseph Fauré. The book is estimated at 100 million old francs. She is on display in the museum contemporary art in Paris.
“The One's Deepest Secrets of the Art of Medicine” is the title of a sealed 100-page book that was found among the belongings of the famous Dutch doctor Hermann Boerhave after his death in 1738. The book was auctioned for $ 10,000 in gold. After the seal was opened, the pages were found to be blank. Only on the title page was the inscription: "Keep your head in the cold, your feet warm, and you will make the poor man the best doctor."
Literary scholars have calculated that in Shakespeare's books the word "love" is mentioned 2259 times, while "hate" is pronounced only 229 times.
Among the most read books in the world, the first place, undoubtedly, belongs to the Bible. Its total circulation is six billion copies. In second place is Mao Zedong's quotation book, and third place went to "The Lord of the Rings".
When you read about yawning, you start yawning yourself.
In the past, books were stacked the other way around, with the spine against the wall and the front edge facing out.
Research shows that 4-6 years is the most favorable age for teaching a child to read. After 6–7 years, learning to read is more difficult.
On average, people read 6.5 hours a week.
According to a Yale University study, three quarters of students who can't read well in third grade will stay that way in high school.
It takes an average of 475 hours to write a novel.
Among the books that were written or conceived behind bars are Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, The Pilgrim's Journey by John Bunyan, Prison Confessions by Oscar Wilde, The Sovereign by Nicolo Machiavelli.
In public libraries medieval Europe books were chained to the shelves. Such chains were long enough to take a book off the shelf and read, but did not allow the book to be taken out of the library. This practice was widespread until the 18th century, due to the great value of each copy of the book.
On average, a bookstore shopper spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back.
Half of all books sold today are bought by people over the age of 45.
Adults who regularly read literature are more than two and a half times inclined to engage in volunteer or charity work and more than one and a half times inclined to take part in sports events.
Most readers lose interest in the page 18 book.
The longest marathon of command reading aloud lasted 224 hours and was completed by Milton Nain, Sylvina Carbone, Carlos Anton, Edith Diaz, Yolanda Baptista and Natalie Dantaz in mall Mac in Paysandu, Uruguay, 13-22 September 2007.
Penguin paperbacks were created to make books as accessible as cigarettes, and the first “Penguin” paperbacks were distributed in the church.
A biblioleptomaniac is a person who steals books. One of the most famous biblioleptomaniacs is Stephen Bloomberg, who stole over 23,000 rare books from 268 libraries. Bloomberg used a variety of methods to put together his collection, estimated at about $ 20 million, sometimes he sneaked into the library through the ventilation system and even the elevator shaft.
The term bookworm comes from tiny insects that feed on the spines of books.
Not only people were prisoners of the Bastille. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and D'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.
The largest dictionary in the world is Deutsches Wortetbuch, begun by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in 1854. It was completed in 1971. The dictionary, which amounted to 34519 pages, was published in 33 volumes. Today the dictionary is worth 5425 German marks. Most large dictionary English - 20-volume The Oxford English Dictionary. It has 21,728 pages.
The oldest printed work is the Dharani scroll, or sutra. The text was printed from wooden blocks. The scroll was found on October 14, 1996, in the foundations of the Bulguksa Pagoda in South Korea. The sutra was found to have been printed no later than 704 AD.
Most valuable letter: On December 5, 1991, the Historical Portraits Museum in Beverly Hills (USA) purchased at Christie's New York a letter written by Abraham Lincoln on January 8, 1863, for $ 748,000.
The longest novel, People of Goodwill, by Louis Henri Jean Farigoule, aka Jules Romain (France), was published in 27 volumes in 1932-1946. IN English translation the novel was published in 14 volumes in 1933-1946. This 4,959-page work was published by Peter Davis. The novel has approximately 2,070,000 words (not including a 100-page index). And since 1951, Sohachi Yamaoka's novel Tokugawa Iayasu has been published in Japanese daily newspapers. If published now that the novel is complete, it will be a 40-volume edition.
Based on materials from the nashabiblio portal.
Books and the book business are wonderful not only in that they open up new worlds for us, but also in their ability to endlessly surprise. Some of the facts about the books are simply incredible. We tried to collect the most interesting and unusual ones.
1. The smallest library in the world is located in the English town of Westbury-sub-Mandip. Only 800 inhabitants live here. They set up a tiny library in a telephone booth. Due to the growth of mobile communications, traditional phones are no longer relevant. And they found a great use! This is how a small street library appeared in Westbury-sub-Mandip, which is open around the clock: even at night, the booth has lighting and you can read a book. The residents themselves replenish the library fund and make sure that the books are always returned.
The deeds of days gone by
2. The oldest printed! book – Dharani scroll, also called sutra. Researchers consider it to be the oldest of all printed materials. The sutra text was printed using letters carved on wooden blanks. The sutra was found in South Korea in 1966 while excavating the foundations of the Bulguksa Pagoda. Archaeologists believe it was printed around 704 AD. Recall that the first book printed on the press was the Bible of Johannes Gutenberg in 1454.
3. The largest royalties were paid by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius to the poet Oppian. For each line of two poems about ... fishing and hunting, the author received a gold coin. In total, Oppian wrote twenty thousand lines.
4. Previously, books were inaccessible to most, so they were chained in libraries. The chains were long enough to take a book off the shelf and read, but didn't make it possible to take the book out of the library. This practice was widespread until the 18th century.
5. In addition, earlier books were placed with the spines inside the shelf, why is still unclear.
6. Books were sentenced to prison. So, in the Bastille "sat" the French Encyclopedia of Diderot and D'Alembert. Because knowledge caused irreparable harm to obscurantism.
7. Famous writers were also imprisoned. Miguel Cervantes conceived his Don Quixote behind bars, Oscar Wilde wrote The Prison Confession, and Nicolo Machiavelli wrote The Emperor.
Some curious numbers
8. The largest book in the world is "Superbook", published in 1976 in the American city of Denver, Colorado. It has three hundred pages. The book weighs over 250 kilograms. Its length and width are 3.07 and 2.74 meters.
9. The most famous of all the big books is the Codex Gigas, which was made at the beginning of the 13th century (around 1230) in the city of Podlažice (Czech Republic). It was then the largest book in the world. According to legend, the monk who worked on the book sold his soul to the devil. Initially, the book contained 640 pages, but only 624 pages have survived to this day, weight - 75 kilograms, height 915 cm, width 508 cm, thickness 22 cm. At the moment, Codex Gigas is in the Royal Swedish Library in Stockholm.
10. Stephen Bloomberg, a bibliokleptomaniac, has stolen over 23,000 rare books from 268 libraries. The Bloomberg collection was estimated at $ 20 million.
11. One of the most expensive books in the world, Leonardo da Vinci's Codex of Leicester, a notebook of his notes, belongs to Bill Gates, who bought the code for $ 24 million.
12. On average, people read 6.5 hours a week.
13. Women read more, they buy 68% of all books!
14. Buyers look at the front cover of a book for about 8 seconds and at the back for 15 seconds.
15. In 2012, Google counted the number of all artistic, journalistic and scientific materials in the world. At that time, the total number of books on Earth was 129,864,880.
Books disappear into daylight
16. The Argentine publishing house Eterna Cadencia presented a very original idea books with an unusual format "El libro que no puede esperar" (A book that cannot wait long). This book is printed in ink, disappearing 2 months after the reader first opened the book. The book is packed in a special plastic wrapper. As soon as the reader has taken off and opened the book, the ink begins to fade due to reaction with sunlight and air, and after 60 days nothing remains of the text, only blank pages. You cannot put off reading such a book indefinitely.
17. A similar "trick" was embodied in his time by the "father" of the cyber-punk direction, William Gibson, in collaboration with the artist Dennis Ashbaugh and the publisher Kevin Begos Jr. They released in 1992 the conceptual work "Agrippa (Book of the Dead)". The book included an art album, which included a diskette with a poem dedicated to human memory and the gradual disappearance of all moments and memories. The unusual thing was that the poem could be read only once, because the first time it was read, the program on the floppy disk encrypted the text. And the drawings and inscriptions of the album were printed with photosensitive ink, which began to melt when exposed to daylight.
18. After the release of Ray Bradbury's dystopia Fahrenheit 451, Ballantine Books released a limited edition. 200 copies of the novel were wrapped in an asbestos-based material with exceptional fire-fighting properties. Later this "trick" was repeated by Stephen King, who published in an asbestos cover a batch of the novel "Ignite with a Look".
And this is just a small fraction of the secrets and facts that books and libraries hide. Know others interesting stories about books? Share with us!
Who used the "Albanian language" at the beginning of the 20th century?In 1916, the futurist Zdanevich wrote a play without observing the normative rules of spelling and using the "Albanian izyk". The Padonk language, which appeared in the 2000s, whose spelling is based on similar principles, is sometimes called the "Albanian language", but the coincidence with Zdanevich's experience is accidental.
Which book came out under different titles in different countries based on currency exchange rates?
In 2000, Frédéric Beigbeder's novel 99 Francs was published, which was recommended for sale in France at precisely this price. The same principle was the reason why publications in other countries came out under a different name, corresponding to the exchange rate: "39.90 marks" in Germany, "9.99 pounds" in the UK, "999 yen" in Japan, etc. In 2002, the book was republished in connection with the introduction of the euro and received the title "14.99 euros". After some time, the peak of popularity of the book passed, and it was discounted to the name and the corresponding cost of "6 euros".
What circumstances led to the fact that the mathematician Alexander Volkov became a writer?
The fairy tale "Sage of Oz" by American writer Frank Baum was not published in Russian until 1991. At the end of the 30s, Alexander Volkov, who was a mathematician by education and taught this science in one of the Moscow institutes, began to study English and for practice I decided to translate this book to retell it to my children. They really liked it, they began to demand more, and Volkov, in addition to translating, began to invent something of his own. This was the beginning of his literary path, the result of which was "The Wizard of the Emerald City" and many other tales about the Magic Land.
from here: shkolnymir.info
In which work was the Kasparo-Karpov system mentioned long before Kasparov and Karpov became known to the world?
The story of the Strugatsky brothers "Noon, XXII century" mentions the Kasparo-Karpov system - a method that was used to make a "copy" of the brain and build its mathematical model. The story was published in 1962 - Anatoly Karpov was then only 11 years old, and Garry Kasparov was not yet born.
Where does the word "miniature" come from?
The word "miniature" comes from the Latin name for red paint "minium" and in the original designates antique or medieval paintings in the genre of illuminated manuscript. Due to the small size of these paintings and the presence of the prefix “mini” in the word, an etymological metamorphosis later occurred, as a result of which any small drawings, especially portrait miniatures, began to be called miniatures. From painting, the term has penetrated into literature, where it refers to works of a small format.
Who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo?
Alexandre Dumas, while writing his works, used the services of many assistants - the so-called "literary blacks". Among them, the most famous is Auguste Macke, who invented the plot of The Count of Monte Cristo and made a significant contribution to The Three Musketeers.
Auguste Macke - from here: vedicpalmistry.org
What is the name of the main character of Pushkin's story " The Queen of Spades»?
The main character of Pushkin's story "The Queen of Spades" is not named Herman. His name is generally unknown, and Hermann (with two n) is the surname of the hero, of German origin, which is quite common in Germany. But in the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky removed one "n", turning the surname Hermann into the name Herman.
How was a French novel without a single e translated into Russian?
In 1969, a novel by the French writer Georges Perec "La disparition" was published. One of the key features of the novel was that it did not contain a single e, the most common letter in the French language. By the same principle - without the letter e - the book was translated into English, German and Italian. In 2005, the novel was published in Russian, translated by Valery Kislov under the title "Disappearance". In this version, you cannot find the letter o, since it is she who is the most frequent in the Russian language.
Georges Perec, from here: modernista.se
What literary hero used many of the forensic methods before the police?
Arthur Conan Doyle, in his stories about Sherlock Holmes, described many methods of forensic science that were still unknown to the police. Among them are the collection of cigarette butts and cigarette ash, identification of typewriters, looking at the traces at the scene with a magnifying glass. Subsequently, the police began to widely use these and other Holmes methods.
How were Dostoevsky's real walks in St. Petersburg reflected in the novel "Crime and Punishment"?
Dostoevsky made extensive use of the real topography of St. Petersburg in describing the locations of his novel Crime and Punishment. As the writer confessed, the description of the courtyard in which Raskolnikov hides the things he had stolen from the pawnbroker's apartment he compiled from personal experience - when, once walking around the city, Dostoevsky turned into a deserted courtyard in order to relieve himself.
Where and when did Baron Munchausen live?
Baron Munchausen was a very real historical person. In his youth, he left the German town of Bodenwerder for Russia to serve as a page. Then he began a career in the army and rose to the rank of captain, after which he left back to Germany. There he became famous for telling extraordinary stories about service in Russia: for example, entering St. Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, furious fur coats or a cherry tree growing on a deer's head. These stories, as well as completely new ones attributed to the baron by other authors, led to the emergence of Munchausen as a literary character.
from here: http://community.livejournal.com/towns_stories/3173.html
Where and when was the blank-page concept book sold?
When asked what 5 books you would take with you to uninhabited island Bernard Shaw replied that he would take 5 books with blank pages. This concept was embodied in 1974 by the American publishing house Harmony Books, releasing a book called "The Book of Nothing", which consisted only of 192 blank pages. She found her buyer, and subsequently the publishing house republished this book more than once.
Bernard Shaw, from here: http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/spacesite/rubric/1140180/
What literary character of Dumas was invented only for the purpose of increasing the fee?
When Alexandre Dumas wrote "The Three Musketeers" in the format of a series in one of the newspapers, a line-by-line payment for the manuscript was stipulated in the contract with the publisher. To increase the fee, Dumas invented a servant of Athos named Grimaud, who spoke and answered all questions in exclusively monosyllables, in most cases "yes" or "no". The sequel to the book, entitled Twenty Years Later, was paid word by word, and Grimaud became a little more talkative.
Alexandre Dumas, from here: hy.wikipedia.org
Which Kipling characters changed their gender in the Russian translation?
In the original Jungle Book, Bagheera is a male character. Russian translators changed the gender of Bagheera, most likely because the word "panther" is feminine. The same transformation took place with another character of Kipling: the cat became in the Russian translation "A cat that walks by itself."
R. Kipling, from here: flbiblioteka.ru
Which writer got the stone that lay on the first grave of Gogol?
Initially, on the grave of Gogol in the monastery cemetery, there was a stone called Golgotha because of its similarity to the Mount of Jerusalem. When they decided to destroy the cemetery, they decided to install a bust of Gogol on the grave when it was reburied in another place. And the same stone was later put on the grave of Bulgakov by his wife. In this regard, Bulgakov's phrase, which he repeatedly addressed to Gogol during his lifetime, is noteworthy: "Teacher, cover me with your greatcoat."
Gogol, artonline.ru
Elena and Mikhail Bulgakov, from here: chesspro.ru
What famous English-language literary dystopia contains many words of Russian origin?
In the dystopia A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess put in the mouths of teenage heroes a jargon he invented called Nadsat. Most of the words nadsata were of Russian origin - for example, droog (friend), litso (face), viddy (to see). The word Nadsat itself is formed from the ending of the Russian numbers from 11 to 19, its meaning is the same as that of the word teenager ("over ten years old"). The translators of the novel into Russian faced the difficulty of how to adequately convey this slang. In one version of the translation, such words were replaced English words written in Cyrillic (Maine, Face, etc.). In another version, the words of the jargon were left in their original form in Latin letters.
Anthony Burgess, from russianwashingtonbaltimore.com
What writer at the end of his life acknowledged the harm caused to nature by his own work?
Peter Benchley, author of Jaws, later filmed by Steven Spielberg, in last years life has become an ardent defender of sharks and the marine ecosystem in general. He wrote several works in which he criticized the negative attitude towards sharks, inflated in mass consciousness including thanks to "Jaws".
Peter Benchley, from thedailygreen.com
What words from Pushkin's poem "Monument" were cut by the censorship in 1949?
In 1949, Pushkin's 150th anniversary was celebrated. Konstantin Simonov made a report on his life and work on the radio. In one Kazakh town, a loudspeaker gathered big number Kalmyks deported here from their historical homeland. Somewhere in the middle of the report, they lost all interest in him and left the square. The point was that while reading Pushkin's "Monument" Simonov stopped reading right at the moment when he was supposed to say: "And the friend of the steppes is a Kalmyk." This meant that the Kalmyks are still in disgrace and censorship excludes any mention of them even in such harmless cases.
Konstantin Simonov, from here: rian.ru
James Barry created the image of Peter Pan - the boy who will never grow up - for a reason. This hero became a dedication to the author's elder brother, who died the day before he turned 14, and remained forever young in his mother's memory.
James Barry, from here: pl.wikipedia.org
Who is awarded the Shnobel Prize and for what?
At the beginning of October of each year, when the Nobel Prize winners are named, the parody Ig Nobel Prize is awarded in parallel for achievements that cannot be reproduced or it makes no sense to do so. In 2009, among the winners were veterinarians who proved that a cow with any name whatsoever gives more milk than a nameless one. The Literature Prize went to the Irish Police for issuing fifty traffic fines to a certain Prawo Jazdy, which means driver's license in Polish. And in 2002, Gazprom was awarded the prize in economics for the application of the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers to business.
Who did the old woman from the fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm Goldfish want to become?
The basis for Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" was the fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife" by the Brothers Grimm. Pushkin's old woman finds herself at a broken trough after she wanted to become the ruler of the sea, and her German "colleague" at this stage became the Pope. And only after the desire to become the Lord God was left with nothing.
Brothers Grimm, from here: nord-inform.de
How did the cabin boy Richard Parker repeat the sad fate of his literary namesake?
In the story of Edgar Poe, "The Adventure of Arthur Gordon Pym" in 1838, there is an episode when a ship gets caught in a storm and four sailors are saved on a raft. Having no food, they decide to eat one of them by lot - and this victim was Richard Parker. In 1884, a real yacht sank, and four people on the same boat survived as well. They hardly read that story, but they ended up eating a cabin boy named Richard Parker.
Edgar Poe, from here: amcorners.ru
Why Isaev is not Stirlitz's real surname?
Stirlitz's real name is not Maxim Maksimovich Isaev, but Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov. Isaev is the first operational pseudonym of a spy, introduced by Yulian Semyonov in the first novel, "Diamonds for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat," and Stirlitz is already the second pseudonym. This is not reflected in the film "Seventeen Moments of Spring".
Julian Semyonov, from here: merjevich.ru
What kind of insect is the dragonfly from Krylov's fable actually?
In Krylov's fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant" there are lines: "The jumping dragonfly sang red summer." However, it is known that the dragonfly does not make sounds. The fact is that at that time the word "dragonfly" served as a generalized name for several species of insects. And the hero of the fable is actually a grasshopper.
Ivan Andreevich Krylov, from here: rudata.ru
What violent scenes have been removed from folk tales Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm?
Most of the fairy tales known to us under the authorship of Charles Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and other storytellers, arose among the people in the Middle Ages, and their original plots are sometimes distinguished by the cruelty and naturalness of everyday scenes. For example, in the tale of the Sleeping Beauty, the foreign king does not kiss her, but rapes her. The wolf eats not only the grandmother, but half the village to boot, and Little Red Riding Hood then lures him into a pit of boiling tar. In the tale of Cinderella, the sisters still manage to try on a slipper, for which one of them chops off her finger, the other chops off her heel, but then they are exposed by pigeons singing.
Charles Perrault, from here: nnm.ru
What topic in Soviet science fiction was so hackneyed that stories on it were not accepted by magazines for publication?
The theme of the Tunguska meteorite was very popular among Soviet science fiction writers, especially beginners. In the 1980s, the literary magazine "Ural Pathfinder" even had to write a separate paragraph in the requirements for publications: "Works that reveal the secret of the Tunguska meteorite are not considered."
Why do we have a tradition of signing the spines of books from the bottom up, while the Europeans do the opposite?
In Western Europe and America, book spines are signed from top to bottom. This tradition goes back to the days when there were few books: if the book is on the table (or in a small pile), the reader should be comfortable reading the title. And in Eastern Europe and Russia, the tradition of signing the spines from the bottom up has taken root, because it is more convenient to read when books are on the shelf.
Where did the expression "and a no brainer" come from?
The source of the expression “And a no-brainer” is a poem by Mayakovsky (“It's clear even a hedgehog - / This Petya was a bourgeois”). It became widespread, first in the Strugatskys' story "The Land of Crimson Clouds", and then in Soviet boarding schools for gifted children. They recruited adolescents who had two years left to study (grades A, B, C, D, E) or one year (grades E, F, I). The students of the one-year stream were called “hedgehogs”. When they came to the boarding school, biennial students were already ahead of them in a non-standard program, so at the beginning of the school year the expression “no brainer” was very relevant.
Which book was imprisoned at the Bastille?
Not only people were prisoners of the Bastille. Once the famous French Encyclopedia, compiled by Diderot and D'Alembert, was imprisoned. The book was accused of harming religion and public morality.
Denis Diderot, from here:
What did Lenin's phrase about the cook and the state actually sound like?
“Any cook is capable of running the state,” Lenin never said like that. This phrase was attributed to him, taking from Mayakovsky's poem "Vladimir Ilyich Lenin". In fact, he wrote: “We are not utopians. We know that any unskilled laborer and any cook is not able to immediately take over the government ... We demand that training in government administration be carried out by conscientious workers and soldiers and that it should be started immediately. "
Which science fiction writer wrote reviews of non-existent books?
Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a collection of short stories "Absolute Emptiness". All stories are united by the fact that they are reviews of non-existent books written by fictional authors.
from here: nnm.ru
How did Leo Tolstoy feel about his novels?
Leo Tolstoy was skeptical about his novels, including War and Peace. In 1871, he sent a letter to Fet: "How happy I am ... that I will never write verbose nonsense like" War "again." An entry in his diary in 1908 reads: "People love me for those trifles -" War and Peace ", etc., which they think are very important."
What is the meaning of the word peace in War and Peace?
In the title of Leo Tolstoy's novel "War and Peace", the word peace is used as an antonym for war (pre-revolutionary "peace"), and not in the meaning of " the world"(Pre-revolutionary" world "). All lifetime editions of the novel were published under the title "War and Peace", and Tolstoy himself wrote the title of the novel in French as "La guerre et la paix". However, due to misprints in different editions in different time, where the word was written as "mir", disputes about the true meaning of the title of the novel still do not subside.
Which writer suggested that readers put punctuation marks on their own?
The American extravagant writer Timothy Dexter wrote a book in 1802 with a very peculiar language and the absence of any punctuation. In response to the outrage of readers in the second edition of the book, he added a special page with punctuation marks, asking readers to arrange them in the text to their liking.
Why did the poets dislike Mayakovsky for writing poetry with a ladder?
When Mayakovsky introduced his famous poetic "ladder", fellow poets accused him of cheating - after all, then poets were paid for the number of lines, and Mayakovsky received 2-3 times more for poems of the same length.
What pessimist died of laughter?
The Cuban poet Julian del Casal, whose poems were distinguished by deep pessimism, died of laughter. He was having dinner with friends, one of whom told a joke. The poet began a fit of uncontrollable laughter, which caused aortic dissection, bleeding and sudden death.
What was the name of the city where Anna Karenina threw herself under the train?
In the novel by Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train at the Obiralovka station near Moscow. In Soviet times, this settlement became a city and was renamed into Zheleznodorozhny.
Where was the radio play mistaken for the real invasion of the Martians?
On October 30, 1938, a radio show based on the novel by H.G. Wells "War of the Worlds" was broadcast in New Jersey in the form of a parody of radio coverage from the scene. Of the six million people who listened to the broadcast, one million believed in the reality of what was happening. There was a massive panic, tens of thousands of people abandoned their homes (especially after the alleged appeal of President Roosevelt to remain calm), the roads were clogged with refugees. Telephone lines were paralyzed: thousands of people reported on the allegedly seen ships of the Martians. Subsequently, it took the authorities six weeks to convince the population that the attack had not occurred.
What is the real surname of Korney Chukovsky?
Korney Chukovsky was actually called Nikolai Vasilievich Korneichukov.
from here: nnm.ru
Who has preserved Kafka's works for the whole world?
Franz Kafka published only a few short stories during his lifetime. Being seriously ill, he asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his works after death, including several unfinished novels. Brod did not comply with this request, but on the contrary, ensured the publication of works that brought Kafka worldwide fame.
Franz Kafka, from here: germanstudiesblog.wordpress.com
How long did Robinson Crusoe spend in Russia?
The novel about the adventures of Robinson Crusoe has a sequel, in which the hero is shipwrecked off the coast of Southeast Asia and is forced to travel to Europe through all of Russia. In particular, he waits out the winter in Tobolsk for 8 months.
When did the prologue "A green oak near the sea ..." appear?
The prologue "A green oak near the sea ..." of the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" Pushkin wrote for its second edition, released 8 years after the first publication.
What book did the writer ask to sell exactly at the price of a bottle of vodka?
When the poem "Moscow - Petushki" was published as a separate book, at the request of the author Venedikt Erofeev, the price was set at 3 rubles 62 kopecks. That is how much a bottle of vodka cost at the time of writing the poem.
How did Andrei Bitov find out about the new word in his work?
According to Andrei Bitov, he first learned about Zen Buddhism at the age of thirty, having read the thesis of an English literary critic entitled "Zen Buddhism in the early work of Andrei Bitov."
The first official publication of the poem "Moscow - Petushki" by Venedikt Erofeev in the USSR took place in the magazine "Sobriety and Culture".
Who came up with the name Svetlana?
The name Svetlana is not originally Slavic. It was invented and first used by the poet Vostokov in the romance "Svetlana and Mstislav", and gained wide popularity after the release of Zhukovsky's ballad "Svetlana" in 1813.
Who predicted the sinking of the Titanic in a literary work?
14 years before the sinking of the Titanic, Morgan Robertson published a story that became her prediction. In the story, the Titan ship, which was very similar in size to the Titanic, also collided with an iceberg on an April night, and most of the passengers died.
Why was Winnie the Pooh so named?
Winnie the Pooh got the first part of its name from one of the real toys of Christopher Robin, the son of the writer Milne. The toy was named after a bear from the London Zoo named Winnipeg, who came there from Canada. The second part - Pooh - was borrowed from the name of a swan of friends of the Milnov family.
Where did the expression "the case smells like kerosene" come from?
Koltsov's 1924 feuilleton told of a major scam uncovered during the transfer of a concession for the exploitation of oil in California. The most senior US officials were involved in the scam. Here the expression "the case smells like kerosene" was first used.
Where did the expression "back to our rams" come from?
In a medieval French comedy, a wealthy clothier sues a shepherd for stealing his sheep. During the meeting, the clothier forgets about the shepherd and reproaches his lawyer, who did not pay him for six cubits of cloth. The judge interrupts the speech with the words: "Let's return to our rams", which have become winged.
Which writer wrote the story of a religious feat based on the story of going for vodka?
In Leskov's story, the Old Believer walks from one bank of the river to the other along the chains of an unfinished bridge during a stormy ice drift in order to return an icon confiscated from the Old Believers from the monastery. According to the author, the plot is based on real events, only a bricklayer appears there, and he did not go for an icon, but for cheaper vodka.
Who valued books more than people?
In 267, the Goths ravaged Athens and killed many of the inhabitants, but did not burn the books.
How did Bernard Shaw react to the Nobel Prize?
In 1925 Nobel Prize on literature was awarded to Bernard Shaw, who called this event "a token of gratitude for the relief he brought to the world by not publishing anything this year."
What pornographic scene is there in Woe From Wit?
In the 19th century, actresses refused to play Sophia in "Woe from Wit" with the words: "I am a decent woman and do not play in pornographic scenes!" They considered such a scene a night conversation with Molchalin, who was not yet the heroine's husband.
Reading is a favorite pastime of intellectuals. Covering yourself with a blanket by the fireplace, you can spend hours following the adventures of the heroes of your favorite novel, turning the pages of a slightly battered book.
We have collected for you a few facts about this lesson that will allow you not to reproach yourself for the time spent, and perhaps they will remind you of hundreds of books that you have not read, and will force you to take a new volume off the shelf.
1. Reading preserves the physical health of a person
In order to put the letters into words, to understand the main idea of the work, to find your own explanation for everything - you need to do serious work, which is called gymnastics for the brain and is an excellent prevention of some of its diseases. 
By the way, it doesn't matter what you read. For mental exercises, not only a voluminous tome with tasks is suitable. The lightweight bestseller, which evokes a lot of positive emotions and excites the imagination, will also do a good job of this task.
2. Good books heal the soul
The time spent with a good book helps to develop wonderful spiritual qualities: kindness, compassion, fortitude. Science fiction and fantasy books form the ability to dream, to better understand people of different races and the world in general. 
3. Teaching children to read is better before school
Young children learn new knowledge very quickly. Reading is no exception. Experts have come to the conclusion that it is better to start training at the age of 4 to 6 years. In this case, less effort will be required than after 7 years. There are specialists (for example, the authors of the book "Read Before Speaking" Natalya Sozonova and Ekaterina Kutsina) who are sure that teaching preschoolers to read helps to cope with serious speech therapy problems and start speaking. 
4. Reading helps you be more successful.
Books not only develop the imagination, entertain and replenish vocabulary... They teach you to concentrate. A trained reader can easily delve into his favorite pastime in transport, and for many it is not difficult to watch several programs at once, switch channels, keep several important things in mind. 
5. Reading speed of great people
On average, a person reads books at a speed of 200-250 words per minute. This is about 2 pages of the book. The pace of reading speed among the greats is interesting: the great French commander Napoleon read 2000 words per minute, Balzac literally swallowed a novel of 200 pages in half an hour. Thomas Edison easily memorized the text in pages. 
6. Speed reading is a convenient technique
Speed reading is very useful technique that anyone can master. It allows you to significantly reduce the time spent studying printed materials and increase the reading rate from 200 to characters per minute to 3000 without compromising understanding of what is written. The simplest technique is to isolate the main thing from the text, letting the "water" pass through, not to say what you read to yourself. Many great people have used speed reading. Among them: Theodore Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, the classic of proletarian literature Maxim Gorky. 
7. Previously, books were chained
Medieval libraries have come down to us, in the funds of which shelves with books on chains have been preserved. This protected the funds from theft, because many of the copies were very expensive. To prevent the chains from getting tangled, the publications were placed on the shelf with the spine away from us, which is not very familiar to us. This practice existed before the start of mass printing, right up to the 1880s. 
