BOOKS - SOME ALLURING FACTS
WHY ARE BOOKS IMPORTANT?
BOOKS feed our imagination, amuse and inform us, and introduce us to new ways of understanding the world. Most of human knowledge is recorded in books.
RECORD BREAKERS:
- The oldest book in the world dates from 2,500 years ago. It is six pages of gold, hinged together at the top and written in ancient ETRUSCAN - a language no one can read today.
- The most expensive book ever sold at auctions is the CODEX LEICESTER - the manuscript Renaissance genius LEONARDO DA VINCE. It was bought by Microsoft founder Bill Gates for US $ 30.8 million in 1994.
- A copy of James Audubon's BIRD'S OF AMERICA sold for $ 8.8 million in 2000, making it the world's most expensive printed books.
DO BOOKS HAVE A FUTURE?
Some people have suggested that the INTERNET threatens the long-term survival of books, as more and more works can be downloaded. But books still have many advantages : they are more easily read than a screen, are good to handle, and can be taken almost anywhere.
PRINTING IN THE PAST:
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| THE FIRST PRINTED BIBLE |
- The Chinese invented printing. The World's oldest printed book is a copy of the DIAMOND SUTRA - one of Buddhism's most sacred texts - which was printed in China in 868 BCE.
- Printing didn't take off in China, though, because the Chinese script has thousands of different characters.
- Johann Gutenberg of Germany came up with the idea of the "printing press" in about 1450.
- The printing press could produce books quickly and in multiple copies - a technological breakthrough that has been compared to the invention of the internet.
- The first book printed was the BIBLE.
TEN GREAT CHILDREN AUTHORS:
- ENID BLYTON - AUTHOR OF NODDY & FAMOUS FIVE
- DR. SEUSS- AUTHOR OF THE CAT IN THE HAT
- J.K.ROWLING- AUTHOR OF HARRY POTTER
- R.L.STINE- AUTHOR OF GOOSEBUMPS
- C.S.LEWIS- AUTHOR OF THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
- J.R.R.TOLKEIN- AUTHOR OF THE HOBBIT
- BEATRIX POTTER-
- RICHARD SCARRY- AUTHOR OF BEST WORLD BOOK EVER
- ROALD DAHL- AUTHOR OF CHARLIE AND THE CHOCLATE FACTORY
- ROGER HARGREAVES- AUTHOR OF MR MEN & LITTLE MISS.
BEST SELLERS:
- The best-selling book of all time is the BIBLE, followed by the collected works of Chinese communist leader MAO ZEDONG.
- The world's best-selling novel is thought to be Charles Dickens's TALE OF TWO CITIES.
- The best-selling book in French is LE PETIT PRINCE (THE LITTLE PRINCE) by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
- The best-selling practical book is SCOUTING FOR BOYS by Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the international scout movement.
BEST SELLING COMIC BOOKS:
- MANGA are highly popular Japanese comic books, or graphic novels.
- MANGA is a huge business in Japan worth about US $ 4.4 billion.
- MANGA is not just for sci-fi and fantasy geeks - you'll see businessmen, schoolchildren, and housewives reading manga books on all kinds of subjects from sports and historical fiction to romance and cookery.
- Animated game and movie versions of manga stories have boosted their popularity around the world.
- Comic books in France and Belgium are known as BANDES DESSINEES (BDs).
SOME COMMON FACTS ABOUT BOOKS:
- Books come in two types i) FACT BOOKS- that tell you about real things, like this encyclopedia, ii) FICTION BOOKS - which are made-up stories, or novels.
- What is an ISBN? An International Standard Book Number - a 13 - digit number that is printed at the front of every book to show where it was published.
- The Nobel Prize for Literature, founded in 1901, is given for outstanding work in the field of literature in any language. Moody French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre is the only person known to have declined it.
- With NANOTECHNOLOGY (engineering on a molecular scale) you can create books smaller than a grain of salt. A book called TEENY TED from TURNIP TOWN made in 2007 at Simon Fraser University, Canada, measures 0.07 x 0.1 mm. The only way to read it is with an electron microscope at 8,000 times magnification.
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