The First ebook In The World Was Released In 1971. Can You Name It?

National Read A Book Day is observed annually on September 6th.  On August 9th, we all celebrated National Book Lovers Day.  =While these bookish days may seem similar, National Read a Book Day invites us ALL to grab a book we might enjoy and spend the day reading.

• 4000 BC – Writing began in Mesopotamia. With some rudimentary squiggles and lines that represent pictures of animals, marks are made on clay that are the first parts of writing
• 2300 BC – Earliest known author in history. Akkadian Princess and High Priestess Enheduanna writes hymns and signs her name on the clay tablets. These and other early texts are meant to be read out loud.
• 7th Century BC – The First organized library was established. In the Ancient Middle East, an Assyrian ruler in Nineveh created a collection of more than 30,000 cruciform tablets
• 1st Century AD – Paper and the papermaking process were invented in China.
• 1450 – Gutenberg invents the printing press. An invention that changed everything for education was developed as a working prototype in Germany by Gutenberg. It is ready for commercial use in just a few more years
• 1800s-1900s – As the Industrial Revolution brought an increase in accessibility to books, the ability to read also increased for the common person
• 1997 – The first novel in the “Harry Potter” series is released and goes on to sell over 500 million books, making it the highest-selling series of all time by a single author (J. K. Rowling).
• 2010 – 66% of public libraries now offer electronic books (or e-books).
• 1,207,937 — the number of reading sessions started on Bookly in the past year.
• 8.27 — the number of books per person by which book sales fell in 2001.
• 359,803 — the number of books and e-books added on Bookly between 2019 and 2020.
• 16,555 — the number of audiobooks added on Bookly between 2019 and 2020.
• 909,394 — the number of reading sessions started by female users on Bookly between 2019 and 2020.
• 350,485 — the number of reading sessions started by male users on Bookly between 2019 and 2020.
• 25-34 — the ages between which the most books are read.
• 80 million — the number of active users on the popular book site Goodreads.
• 24% — the percentage of American adults who have not read a book in 2018.
• 6 — The number of books by Dr. Seuss that rank among the top 20 bestselling children’s books of all time.
• Reading improves memory and concentration as well as reduces stress.
• Older adults who spend time reading show a slower cognitive decline and tend to participate in more mentally stimulating activities over their lifetime.
• In 1455, people around the world were given the chance to read thanks to the Gutenberg Bible. This was the first book that was mass-printed. It was produced in Mainz, Germany. As the name indicates, it is a Bible. It was produced by Johann Gutenberg and it is written in Latin.
• The first book that was printed in English was “The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye.” This was printed by William Caxton in 1473. The text is a translation of the French stories about Troy.
• The first-ever “Harry Potter” was a short story published in communist Poland in 1972.
• In the Harvard Library, there are three books suspected to be bound in human skin.
• The longest-ever book title consists of over 3,700 words.  Written by Vityala Yethindra and released on 20 March 2019, the title of The Historical Development of the Heart… is made up of a whopping 26,000 characters.
• A monastery in Egypt is home to the oldest continually operating library in the world, established in AD 565.  The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai is the oldest currently operating in the world and has the second-largest collection of ancient manuscripts and codices, just after Vatican City.
• The word library comes from Latin liber – the inner bark of trees – and was first used in written form in the 14th century.  In Old English – the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in the early Middle Ages – “book hoards” (from Old English bōchord) were what we know as libraries or collections of books today.
• Dorothy Straight wrote her book How the World Began when she was 4 years and 3 months old, making her the youngest person in the world to write a published book.
• The first ebook in the world is The Declaration of Independence, released in 1971.
• Former American President Theodore Roosevelt read at least one book per day.
• The word “robot” was invented by Czech painter Josef Čapek and was first used in his brother’s sci-fi play R.U.R in 1920.
• Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction. Originally titled Master of the Universe and published episodically on fan-fiction websites, the work featured characters named after Stephanie Meyer’s Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. E. L. James later rewrote the story and extended it into three parts: Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed.
• Dan Brown finds hanging upside down the ultimate cure for writer’s block.  According to the author of The Da Vinci Code, the so-called inversion therapy makes you relax and concentrate better. He also has an hourglass on his writing desk which reminds him to do some push-ups, sit-ups and stretches every hour.
• John Steinbeck’s dog ate the original manuscript for Of Mice and Men.
• There are more public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants in the United States.
• There’s a word for loving the smell of old books.  “Bibliosmia”
• The first book ever written using a typewriter was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
• The three most-read books in the world are…The Holy Bible, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, and Harry Potter.
• Alice in Wonderland is based on a real 10-year-old girl.
• As of the year 2019, there are almost 130 million books in the entire world.
• Teeny Ted from Turnip Town is the smallest book in the world.
• It is possible to make up to 50 books from 1 tree.
• One in five adults worldwide is unable to read or write.
• The world’s longest audiobook is “50 Lectures” by Takaaki Yoshimoto (Japanese poet) which can last for about 5 days long. In conclusion, the audiobook has Mr. Yoshimoto’s lectures from the 1960s and ’70s.
• Victor Hugo wrote the longest sentence ever printed and most noteworthy, the novel Les Miserables has a total of 823 words in one sentence.
• The word “bestseller” for books was first used in Fools of Nature by Alice Brown in 1889.
• The word “yahoo” originated from the book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (an Irish author and satirist) which was published in 1726.
• Scarry’s “Millard Fillmore” states that “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” was the first American novel to sell 1 million copies.
• The Powell’s Bookstore in Oregon, Portland is the world’s largest bookstore. Above all, the mega bookstore has about 1.6 acres, (68,000 square feet) of retail floor space.
• While broke and dying, Ulysses S. Grant, an American soldier and politician who served as the 18th president of the United States, wrote a book of biographies and historical accounts for his wife so she could live with royalties. Mark Twain offered Grant a royalty of 75%. Consequently, Grant’s book was a commercial success, giving his wife about $450,000 in royalties.
• SF writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) is the only author to have published a book in nine out of the ten Dewey library categories.
• The first book bought on Amazon was called Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.
• The Japanese word ‘tsundoku’ means ‘buying a load of books and then not getting round to reading them’.
• The earliest known written instance of the word ‘book’ is in a book by Alfred the Great.
• Howard Berg was recognized in 1990 by The Guinness World Record Book as the world’s fastest reader at over 25,000 words per minute. Mind blown.
• The average person (aka non-speed reader) reads between 200 – 300 words per minute.
• Can the final volume of Harry Potter be read in 47 minutes? Apparently so! Anne Jones, a six-time winner of the World Championship Speed Reading Competition, read Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows in 47 minutes equating to 4,200 words per minute.
• Over 675 million print books were sold in the US throughout 2018.
• Americans spend an average of $28 on books annually.
• The US tied with Germany as #22 in the world for time spent reading at just under 6 hours per week; India holds the top spot at almost 12 hours of reading per person per week.
• One study showed adults who read at least 30 minutes per week are 20% more satisfied with life than those who are not spending the same time reading.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Days of the Year

EBook Friendly

Hello Giggles

Facts

Interesting Literature

National Today