10 Interesting facts about Books

 

Here are 10 interesting facts about books:

 1. The world's oldest surviving book is the "Diamond Sutra," a Buddhist scripture that was printed in China in 868 CE.  (Source)

 
2. The largest book published is 7.48 m² (80 ft² 74 in²), and was achieved by iWRITE Literacy Organization, The Bryan Museum, and Ordinary People Change the World (all USA) in Houston, Texas, USA, on 5 November 2022. (Source)

 

3. The world’s smallest book is a reproduction of 30-page Teeny Ted’s story, where the main character wins an annual turnip-growing contest. It was written by Malcolm Douglas Chaplin, while his brother Robert Chaplin did the etching, at the Simon Fraser University, in British Columbia, Canada. The book’s exact measurements are 70 micrometers by 100 micrometers. Printed with pure crystalline silicon, the reproduction costs a staggering $15,000.  (Source)

 

4. The world's most expensive book is the "Bay Psalm Book," which was printed in the 1600s and is considered the first book printed in what is now the United States. It sold for $14.2 million at auction in 2013. (Source)

 
5. The world's most widely read book is the Bible, which has been translated into over 2,000 languages and has sold over 5 billion copies.

 
6. The longest book ever written is "The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion," which was written by Henry Darger and is over 15,000 pages long.
 

7. The book with the most translations is "The Little Prince," which has been translated into over 250 languages and dialects.

 
 

8. The world's most stolen book is "The Catcher in the Rye," by J.D. Salinger, which is often taken from libraries and bookstores.

 
 

9. The world's oldest library, the Library of Alexandria, is believed to have contained over 500,000 scrolls at its peak. It was destroyed in a series of fires over the course of several centuries, and many of the books it contained were lost forever. 

 

10. The world's oldest surviving book is the "Gutenberg Bible," which was printed in the 1440s.