10 Facts About Today

#35 - Books | April 23, 2020

Episode Summary

Why is a lot of controversy around Harry Potter? Is there really a book at Harvard that's bound with human skin? What do Winnie the Pooh and the Hobbit have in common? Let's find out because today is World Book Day.

Episode Notes

Here are 10 page-turning facts about books that you didn’t know, that you didn’t need to know:

1. Lord of the Ring author, J.R.R Tolkien typed the whole trilogy with just two fingers!
   1. Exhausting
   2. Over 1200 Pages
   3. Only way he knew how to type
2.  “Old book smell” is produced by the breakdown of two chemical components in paper, cellulose and lignin.  
   1.  byproducts of this process produce pleasant and familiar scents
   2. Vanilla, Flowers, Almonds
   3. It can even work like carbon dating and determine the age of old books
3.  In January 2017, Amazon Sold Out of Physical Copies of 1984.
   1. Book by George Orwell
   2. biggest trending topics in the media were “fake news” and “alternative facts”
   3. inspired consumers to buy every physical copy of 1984 from Amazon, worlds largest online retailer, before the end of the month. 
4.  Books used to have curses in the beginning and end of books.
   1. Transcribing a book could take years. Most people were illiterate so it fell on Clergy. 
   2. Medieval book curses involved punishments such as:
      1.  being mutilated by demonic swords, 
      2. the gouging of eyes, 
      3. bookworms eating away at the entrails of thieves. 
      4. book turn into a serpent in the hands of those who borrow and do punctually not return them.
      5. Most curses  involved excommunication
5.  There is at least 1 book at the Harvard University Library that is bound with human skin.
   1. Anthropodermic bibliopegy
   2. Title translates to Destinies of the Soul
   3. From the 1880’s
6.  Winnie the Pooh and The Hobbit have something in common
   1. They were both written as bedtime stories
   2. Their respective authors wrote them to read to their children as they went to sleep
   3. The Hobbit seems a little intense to put kids to bed
7.  The original manuscript of Of Mice and Men was destroyed
   1. It was eaten by John Steinbeck’s puppy
   2. It was 2 months worth of work that he had to do over
   3. He was quoted saying "I was pretty mad, but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically."
   4. Maybe that’s why Lennie kills the puppy
8.  The Harry Potter books are the most banned books in America
   1. Its said to be because of religious beliefs
   2. A bunch of Protestant, Catholic, Christians, and Muslims have argued against the books
   3. Most of the fight comes from devout evangelical christian groups because witchcraft is dangerous for children to read about
   4. Some people claim that it should be banned it schools because witchcraft is a recognised religion in the US
9.  The Cat in the Hat only used 236 unique words
   1. Which was surprisingly low for Dr. Seuss’ editor 
   2. As a joke, his publisher bet him he couldn’t write a book with fewer words
10. Green Eggs and Ham was written as a joke
    1. It was purposefully written to have fewer words than the cat in the hat
    2. One of the most repeated words is “I” which is written 84 times its tied with “not”