125 Fun Facts About Book

From which Old English word does 'book' come?

'Book' descends from Old English 'boc', a Germanic word with cognates in Old Norse 'bok' and Old Saxon 'bok'; Latin 'liber' and Greek 'biblos' are unrelated words for the same object.

Roughly how many unique books had been published in total, by Google's 2010 estimate?

In August 2010 Google engineers estimated there were 129,864,880 unique books in the world, around 130 million, after de-duplicating library catalogue records.

What is the name of the format, of pages bound at one edge, that replaced the scroll?

The codex, pages bound along one edge, replaced the scroll in the Roman world; it developed from hinged wax tablets and was adopted early by Christians for their scriptures.

According to Guinness World Records, what is the best-selling book of all time?

Guinness World Records names the Bible the best-selling book of all time, with an estimated five billion or more copies printed and distributed.

Which novel opens with the sentence 'Call me Ishmael'?

Moby-Dick, Herman Melville's 1851 novel, opens with the three-word sentence 'Call me Ishmael', spoken by the sailor who narrates the hunt for the white whale.

Which series has sold more than 600 million copies, the most in history?

Harry Potter is the best-selling book series in history, with more than 600 million copies sold worldwide across its seven novels, translated into over 80 languages.

How many publishers rejected the first Potter book before Bloomsbury took it?

Twelve publishers turned down Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone before Bloomsbury accepted it in 1996, reportedly after the chairman's eight-year-old daughter loved the first chapter.

Which novel, published in 1605 and 1615, is believed to have sold over half a billion copies?

Don Quixote, published by Cervantes in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is often called the first modern novel and is estimated to have sold over 500 million copies.

Which book became the world's most translated non-religious book in 2017?

The Little Prince became the world's most translated non-religious book in April 2017, when a Hassanya version brought Saint-Exupéry's 1943 novella to 300 languages.

Who is the best-selling novelist of all time, with more than two billion copies sold?

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time, with more than two billion copies sold; her 66 detective novels have been translated into over 100 languages.

Which Charles Dickens novel of 1859 is often claimed as one of the best-selling novels ever?

A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens's 1859 novel set in London and Paris during the French Revolution, is often cited with a claimed 200 million copies sold, though the figure is unverified.

Which Chinese title, the 'Little Red Book', has print estimates of up to 6.5 billion?

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, the 'Little Red Book', was mass-printed during the Cultural Revolution; estimates run from one billion to 6.5 billion copies, over a billion of them in 1966–69 alone.

Which woodblock-printed scroll, dated 11 May 868, is the oldest dated printed book?

The Diamond Sutra, a Chinese woodblock-printed scroll dated 11 May 868, is the oldest dated printed book; found in the Dunhuang caves, it is held by the British Library.

What unusual dedication appears in the colophon of the oldest printed book?

The Diamond Sutra's colophon says Wang Jie had it made 'for universal free distribution' on behalf of his parents in 868, often called the first explicit public-domain dedication.

Who invented movable type around 1040 AD, using ceramic characters?

Bi Sheng, a Northern Song commoner, devised movable type from baked clay characters between 1039 and 1048; the statesman Shen Kuo recorded his method in the Dream Pool Essays.

What is the oldest extant book printed with movable metal type, from Korea in 1377?

Jikji, a Buddhist anthology printed at Heungdeok Temple in 1377 under Korea's Goryeo dynasty, is the oldest surviving book printed with movable metal type; its surviving volume is held in Paris.

What was Johannes Gutenberg's trade before he developed the printing press around 1440?

Gutenberg was a goldsmith by trade; his experience with metal alloys and punch-cutting helped him cast the uniform lead-based type that made his press practical around 1440.

In which city did Gutenberg print his Bible in the 1450s?

Gutenberg printed his Bible in Mainz, his home city on the Rhine, around 1454–55; within decades the press had spread to roughly 270 European cities.

How many lines per page give Gutenberg's Bible its alternative name?

Gutenberg's Bible is known as the 42-line Bible, or B42, because most of its pages carry 42 lines per column; it is also called the Mazarin Bible after the copy found in Cardinal Mazarin's library.

How many copies had Western Europe's presses produced by 1500?

Books from before 1500 are called incunabula.

What is a book printed in Europe before 1501 called?

An incunable (plural incunabula) is a book printed in Europe before 1501; the Latin incunabula means 'swaddling clothes' or 'cradle', marking printing's infancy.

Which Venetian printer introduced italic type in 1501 and used a dolphin-and-anchor device?

Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer of the Aldine Press, introduced italic type in a 1501 Virgil and used the dolphin-and-anchor device with the motto festina lente, 'make haste slowly'.

Which punctuation mark did Venice's Aldine Press help standardise around 1500?

The semicolon first appeared in print in 1494 in Pietro Bembo's De Aetna, from Venice's Aldine Press, which also fixed the modern shape of the comma.

What was the first title printed in British North America, in 1640?

The Bay Psalm Book, a metrical psalter printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640 by Stephen Daye, was the first book printed in British North America.

Who bought Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester for $30.8m in 1994?

Bill Gates bought Leonardo's Codex Leicester at Christie's in November 1994 for $30.8 million, then a record price for any manuscript; it had previously belonged to oil magnate Armand Hammer.

What is the main topic of the Codex Leicester?

The Codex Leicester, 72 pages in Leonardo's mirror script, deals mainly with the movement of water, with further notes on fossils, the moon's glow and the properties of air.

Which Holy Roman Emperor reportedly bought the Voynich manuscript for 600 ducats?

Rudolf II, the Habsburg emperor who collected curiosities in Prague, reportedly paid 600 ducats for the Voynich manuscript; a 1665 letter by Johannes Marcus Marci, found with it, records the purchase.

Where has the Voynich manuscript been held since 1969?

Yale's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has held the Voynich manuscript since the dealer Hans P. Kraus donated it in 1969; it is catalogued there as MS 408.

What was the first name of the Polish book dealer who bought the undeciphered manuscript in 1912?

Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish-born antiquarian bookseller, bought the manuscript in 1912 from the Jesuit Villa Mondragone near Rome; it has carried his name ever since.

What is the largest extant medieval illuminated manuscript, nicknamed the Devil's Bible?

The Codex Gigas, made in 13th-century Bohemia, is the largest surviving medieval illuminated manuscript at 92 cm tall; its full-page portrait of the Devil earned it the nickname Devil's Bible, and it is kept in Stockholm.

Where is the Book of Kells on display?

The Book of Kells has been at Trinity College Dublin since the 17th century and is displayed in its Old Library; two of its four bound volumes are shown open at a time.

What material are the leaves of the Book of Kells made from?

The Book of Kells is written on high-quality calf vellum; its four Latin Gospels and their decoration used the skins of an estimated 185 calves.

The ancient Egyptian writing sheet was made from the pith of which plant?

Papyrus sheets were made from the pith of Cyperus papyrus, a wetland sedge that once grew abundantly in the Nile Delta; strips were laid crosswise, pressed and dried.

Which ancient city gives its name to the writing material made from prepared animal skin?

Parchment takes its name from Pergamon in Asia Minor; legend says its kings developed skin-based writing sheets after Egypt cut off papyrus exports to protect the Library of Alexandria.

What is the edge of a book's pages opposite the spine called?

The fore-edge is the edge of a book's pages opposite the spine; the top is the head, the bottom the tail, and the inner margins form the gutter. Fore-edge paintings appear only when the pages are fanned.

What is a casebound book's rigid cover typically made of?

A hardcover's rigid covers are board covered with cloth or paper, typically binder's board or heavy paperboard under buckram, heavy paper or occasionally leather.

Who launched the Penguin paperback revolution in 1935 with ten reprint titles?

Allen Lane launched Penguin Books in 1935 with ten cheap reprints after failing to find a good book to read at Exeter station; his brothers Richard and John co-founded the firm.

For how much were the first Penguin paperbacks sold in the 1930s?

The first Penguins sold for sixpence, the price of a packet of cigarettes; a Woolworths order of about 63,000 copies made the 1935 launch pay.

What was the first book on Penguin's 1935 list?

Penguin no. 1 in July 1935 was Ariel, André Maurois's biography of Shelley; Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms followed as no. 2.

Which US paperback imprint did Robert de Graff create in 1939 with Simon & Schuster?

Pocket Books, founded by Robert de Graff with Simon & Schuster in May 1939, was the first mass-market paperback imprint in the US; 'pocket book' became a North American synonym for paperback.

Which German publisher of the early 1930s gave paperbacks colour-coded covers by genre?

Albatross Books, founded in the early 1930s by John Holroyd-Reece, Max Christian Wegner and Kurt Enoch, sold English-language paperbacks on the Continent with covers colour-coded by genre, a design Penguin copied; the war ended it.

Which American publisher merged with Penguin in 2013?

Random House merged with Penguin on 1 July 2013 to form Penguin Random House, a joint venture of Bertelsmann and Pearson; Bertelsmann bought out Pearson's last 25% stake in 2020.

Roughly what share of the US trade book market did the 'Big Five' publishers control in 2022?

The Big Five, Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster and Macmillan, controlled about 80% of the US trade book market in 2022, a figure aired in the antitrust trial that blocked PRH's purchase of Simon & Schuster.

How many digits does an ISBN assigned since 1 January 2007 have?

ISBNs assigned from 1 January 2007 have thirteen digits, beginning with a 978 or 979 prefix, making them identical to the 'Bookland' EAN barcode numbers printed on books.

In what year was the first ISBN format devised?

The ISBN format was devised in 1967 in the United Kingdom, building on the nine-digit Standard Book Number that WHSmith had introduced in 1966; it became ISO standard 2108 in 1970.

Which Trinity College Dublin statistics professor devised the original book-numbering system?

Gordon Foster, professor of statistics at Trinity College Dublin, devised the nine-digit Standard Book Number as a consultant for WHSmith in 1965–66; it became the basis of the ISBN.

Do the e-book, paperback and casebound editions of the same book share one ISBN?

No: each edition and format of a book, hardback, paperback and e-book, gets its own ISBN, since the number identifies a specific product; only an unchanged reprint keeps the same ISBN.

What was the first name of the librarian who published his decimal classification in 1876?

Melvil Dewey published his Dewey Decimal Classification in 1876 as a 44-page pamphlet while working at the Amherst College library; he also co-founded the American Library Association that year.

In how many libraries was the Dewey system in use as of 2009?

OCLC, which has owned the Dewey Decimal Classification since 1988, counted it in use in more than 200,000 libraries in at least 135 countries in 2009.

Which Dewey class contains literature, including fiction?

The 800s are literature in the Dewey system: 810 covers American literature in English, 820 English literature and 830 German, with fiction classed alongside each language's poetry and drama.

Which is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, founded in 1800?

The Library of Congress, established by an act of 24 April 1800 as the government moved to Washington, is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States.

Whose personal library of 6,487 books restored Congress's collection after the British burned it in 1814?

Thomas Jefferson sold his 6,487-volume personal library to Congress for $23,950 in 1815, rebuilding the collection after British troops burned the Capitol in August 1814.

Roughly how many items does the US national library on Capitol Hill hold?

The Library of Congress holds about 173 million items in more than 470 languages, including books, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings and films, across three buildings on Capitol Hill.

In what year was the British Library created?

The British Library came into existence on 1 July 1973 under the British Library Act 1972, merging the British Museum library with several other national collections.

Which king's 65,000-volume collection sits in a glass tower inside the British Library?

George III's King's Library, some 65,000 volumes collected between 1763 and 1820, was given to the nation by George IV in 1823 and stands in a six-storey glass tower at the British Library.

How many legal deposit libraries are there under UK law?

UK law names six legal deposit libraries: the British Library, Oxford's university library, Cambridge University Library, the National Libraries of Scotland and Wales, and Trinity College Dublin.

Which 1537 French ordinance began legal deposit of books to the king's library?

The Ordonnance de Montpellier, issued by Francis I on 28 December 1537, required printers to deposit a copy of every book in the royal library at Blois, the first legal deposit law.

Which retired diplomat refounded Oxford University's library, which opened under his name in 1602?

Sir Thomas Bodley, a retired diplomat, refounded Oxford's university library, which opened as the Bodleian in 1602 and has borne his name since; it is one of Europe's oldest libraries.

Which Roman is said to have accidentally burned the Library of Alexandria in 48 BC?

Julius Caesar, besieged in Alexandria in 48 BC, set fire to ships in the harbour; the blaze spread and, by tradition, burned part of the Library of Alexandria, which survived or was rebuilt afterwards.

In which city did the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, one of Europe's first public libraries, open in 1609?

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo and opened in 1609, was among the first libraries in Europe open to the public; it holds Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus.

Which Maryland librarian cemented the idea of a horse-drawn 'book wagon' in 1905?

Mary Titcomb, librarian of the Washington County Free Library in Hagerstown, Maryland, sent out a horse-drawn book wagon in 1905, the first American bookmobile; Warrington, England, had run a perambulating library in 1858.

Who built the first Little Free Library in Hudson, Wisconsin, in 2009?

Todd Bol built the first Little Free Library in Hudson, Wisconsin, in 2009 in memory of his mother, June; Rick Brooks later helped him turn the idea into a nonprofit.

The first Little Free Library was designed to look like what?

Over 150,000 are now registered.

On what date is UNESCO's World Book Day?

UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day falls on 23 April, chosen in 1995 as the date of Shakespeare's death in 1616 and of the Catalan festival of Sant Jordi, when books are given as gifts.

Which author did Spain's original Book Day, first held in 1926, honour?

Spain's Día del Libro, proposed by Valencian writer Vicente Clavel and first held in 1926, honoured Miguel de Cervantes; it moved from his presumed birthday, 7 October, to the date of his death in 1930.

Which American humorist coined the word 'blurb'?

Gelett Burgess coined 'blurb' in 1907 with a spoof jacket for his book Are You a Bromide?, featuring a gushing 'Miss Belinda Blurb'; the word stuck for publishers' promotional copy.

Whose praise did Walt Whitman stamp in gold on the spine of Leaves of Grass, an early blurb?

Whitman stamped Ralph Waldo Emerson's line 'I greet you at the beginning of a great career' in gold on the spine of the 1856 second edition of Leaves of Grass, without asking Emerson's permission.

On what kind of publication was the oldest recorded publisher's dust jacket, from 1829, issued?

An English literary annual: the 1829 jacket, found at Oxford's Bodleian Library in 2009, wrapped the gift book Friendship's Offering for 1830.

What is the Latin phrase for a bookplate marking ownership?

Ex libris, Latin for 'from the books of', is printed on bookplates pasted inside the front cover to record the owner's name.

What is the term for the largest traditional book size, above quarto and octavo?

Folio: a sheet folded once gives two leaves, the largest traditional format; quarto (two folds) and octavo (three folds) are progressively smaller.

Who does Pliny the Elder credit as the first to attach a list of contents to a written work?

Quintus Valerius Soranus: in the preface to his Natural History, Pliny says Soranus first added a table of contents, to his work Epoptides.

How does a foreword conventionally differ from a preface?

It is signed by someone other than the author: a foreword is a third party's endorsement, while a preface is the author's own account of the book's origins.

What is the term for a book printer that authors pay to publish their own work, also called a subsidy publisher?

A vanity press charges the author to print and bind the book, unlike a trade publisher, which bears the costs and pays the author royalties.

The 'authors' of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon, were what?

Pseudonyms for ghostwriters: the Stratemeyer Syndicate owned the house names Carolyn Keene and Franklin W. Dixon, and writers such as Mildred Wirt Benson worked under them.

In which year was the term 'best seller' first recorded in print, in a Kansas City newspaper?

1889: the earliest known printed use of 'best seller' appeared in a Kansas City newspaper that year, six years before the first best-seller list.

Which magazine published America's first best-seller list, in 1895?

The Bookman, a New York literary monthly, printed the first American best-seller list in 1895, compiling reports from booksellers in several cities.

When did The New York Times begin publishing its weekly best-seller list?

October 12, 1931: the first list tracked New York City bookstores only, with other cities added before a combined national list appeared in 1942.

In what year did Oprah Winfrey start her book club?

1996: the club launched on The Oprah Winfrey Show that September and picked 70 books over its original 15-year run, which ended in 2011.

Which memoir chosen by Oprah's Book Club was exposed as largely fabricated?

A Million Little Pieces: The Smoking Gun exposed James Frey's fabrications in January 2006, and Oprah confronted him on air later that month.

Which novelist publicly bristled at his book The Corrections being an Oprah pick?

Jonathan Franzen: after he voiced unease about the Oprah logo on The Corrections in 2001, Winfrey withdrew his invitation to appear on the show.

What was the Book of the Month Club's first selection in 1926?

Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1926 debut novel about a spinster who becomes a witch, was the club's first selection in its founding year.

What was Amazon's internal codename for the Kindle?

Fiona: the project codename came from a character in Neal Stephenson's novel The Diamond Age; consultants Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma later named the device Kindle.

In what year was the first Kindle released?

2007: the first Kindle went on sale on November 19, 2007, priced at $399, and sold out in about five and a half hours.

Which Amazon subsidiary developed the Kindle hardware?

Lab126, founded in 2004 in Cupertino, California, is the Amazon hardware group that designed the Kindle and later the Echo.

What did Amazon raise the KDP e-book royalty rate to in 2010, to compete with Apple?

70%: announced in January 2010 to match Apple's iBookstore split, the rate applied to titles priced between $2.99 and $9.99, up from 35%.

What did Michael Hart digitise to begin Project Gutenberg in 1971?

The US Declaration of Independence: Hart typed it into a University of Illinois Xerox Sigma V mainframe in 1971 and made it available to other users on the network.

Who founded the Internet Archive in 1996?

Brewster Kahle, who had earlier built the WAIS search system, founded the non-profit Internet Archive in San Francisco in 1996; its Wayback Machine opened to the public in 2001.

What was the search giant's book-scanning programme first called when unveiled in October 2004?

Google Print: announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004, the programme was renamed Google Book Search in 2005 and had scanned over 40 million titles by 2019.

What was the term for recorded books in the 1930s, before 'audiobook'?

Talking book: in the 1930s US programmes for blind readers recorded books on long-playing discs under that name, decades before 'audiobook' caught on.

Whose poems were the first release of audiobook pioneer Caedmon Records in 1952?

Dylan Thomas: Caedmon's first record, in 1952, had him reading A Child's Christmas in Wales and five of his poems.

Which novel holds the Guinness World Record for longest novel?

In Search of Lost Time: Marcel Proust's seven-volume novel runs to roughly 1.2 million words, which Guinness lists as the longest novel; the madeleine scene is in volume one.

Who created the concept of the Guinness Book of Records to settle pub arguments?

Sir Hugh Beaver, Guinness Brewery's managing director, had the idea after a 1951 shooting-party argument over whether the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird.

Who won the first Booker Prize in 1969?

P. H. Newby won the inaugural 1969 prize for Something to Answer For, beating a shortlist that included Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark.

To what amount was the Booker Prize money raised in 2002?

£50,000: when the Man Group took over sponsorship in 2002 the winner's prize rose from £21,000 to £50,000, with £2,500 for each shortlisted author.

Who was the first writer to win the Booker Prize twice?

J. M. Coetzee won in 1983 for Life & Times of Michael K and in 1999 for Disgrace; Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood later matched him.

Which four authors had each won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice by 2020?

Tarkington (1919, 1922), Faulkner (1955, 1963), Updike (1982, 1991) and Whitehead (2017, 2020, for The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys) each won twice.

Which Hemingway novel was denied a Pulitzer in 1941 after Columbia's president objected?

For Whom the Bell Tolls: the jury chose Hemingway's 1940 Spanish Civil War novel, but Nicholas Murray Butler vetoed it and no fiction prize was given for 1941.

Who was the first Nobel laureate in Literature, in 1901?

Sully Prudhomme, the French poet born René Armand François Prudhomme, received the first prize in 1901, a choice criticised by admirers of Tolstoy.

Who became the youngest Nobel Literature laureate, aged 41, in 1907?

Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay in December 1865, was 41 when he received the 1907 prize, cited for his powers of observation and narration.

Which philosopher declined the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964?

Jean-Paul Sartre refused the 1964 prize, saying a writer should not let himself be turned into an institution; Pasternak had been forced to decline in 1958.

Which award, first given in 1922, was the world's first children's book award?

The Newbery Medal, named after 18th-century London bookseller John Newbery, was first awarded by the American Library Association in 1922, the world's first children's book prize.

Who won the first children's book award in 1922, for The Story of Mankind?

In 1922, for a book published in 1921.

The Caldecott Medal recognises the previous year's most distinguished American what?

Picture book for children: the Caldecott Medal, first awarded in 1938, goes to the illustrator of the year's most distinguished American picture book.

The Hugo Award is named after the founder of which magazine?

Amazing Stories: Hugo Gernsback launched it in 1926 as the first magazine devoted to science fiction, and the awards first given in 1953 took his name.

In what year did the OED begin publication?

1884: the first fascicle, covering A to Ant, appeared on 1 February 1884; the Philological Society had proposed the dictionary in 1857, and the first edition was completed in 1928.

Which verb had the longest entry in the second edition of the OED?

Set: its OED2 entry ran to about 60,000 words over some 430 senses; when entries were revised for the third edition, 'run' overtook it with 645 senses.

In which city was the Encyclopaedia Britannica first published, from 1768?

Edinburgh: the first edition was issued there in weekly numbers from 1768 to 1771, forming three volumes, by printer Colin Macfarquhar and engraver Andrew Bell.

When was Britannica's final print edition, a 32-volume set?

2010: the 32-volume 2010 printing of the 15th edition was the last; Britannica announced in March 2012 that it would continue only online.

Which city hosts the world's largest book trade fair, each October?

Frankfurt: the fair traces its history to the 15th century, soon after Gutenberg began printing in nearby Mainz, and draws more exhibitors than any other book fair.

Which American bookseller traces its origins to Arthur Hinds & Co, founded in 1886?

Barnes & Noble: Arthur Hinds opened the New York shop in 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble became a partner, and the Barnes & Noble name followed in 1917.

Who used a £6,000 WHSmith redundancy payout to found a British bookshop chain in 1982?

Tim Waterstone, sacked by WHSmith in 1981, used his £6,000 payout to open the first Waterstone's on Old Brompton Road, London, in 1982.

Which two men produced some of the first three-dimensional, tab-activated pop-up books?

Ernest Nister and Lothar Meggendorfer, working in Germany in the late 19th century, produced tab-activated movable picture books; Maurice Sendak later collected Meggendorfer's work.

What was the first modern American-style comic book, released in 1933?

Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, a 1933 Eastern Color Printing giveaway reprinting newspaper strips, set the standard format; a newsstand series followed in 1934.

What is the typical English reading speed for most adults?

175 to 320 words per minute: a 2019 meta-analysis by Marc Brysbaert put average adult silent reading in English at about 238 wpm for non-fiction and 260 for fiction.

Which German poet wrote 'Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn people'?

Heinrich Heine wrote the line in his 1821 play Almansor; 112 years later, in May 1933, his own books were among those burned by the Nazis in Berlin.

Which Chinese dynasty is notorious for burning books and burying scholars around 213 BCE?

Qin: the First Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, ordered histories and philosophical works burned in 213 BCE on Chancellor Li Si's advice, and scholars were executed the next year.

Which two 19th-century writers found success through self-publishing?

Jane Austen and Walt Whitman: Austen paid to publish Sense and Sensibility on commission in 1811, and Whitman printed the first Leaves of Grass himself in 1855.

Which innovation of the Aldine Press made classical texts portable?

Small octavo editions without commentary: from 1501 Aldus Manutius issued pocket-sized classics, set in italic, that readers could carry instead of consulting large folios.

Cuneiform clay tablets from about 3200 BC, among the earliest writing, come from which modern country?

The clay tablets of modern-day Iraq date to about 3200 BC, the Uruk period, when scribes pressed a stylus into flattened pieces of clay.

The word 'book' is thought to come from a Germanic root naming which tree, perhaps because early writing was carved on wood?

The Germanic root *bōks is thought to mean beech, and Slavic words for 'letter', like the Russian bukva, share the same cognate, a hint that early writing was carved on wood.

In which country, helped by all-in-one super apps, had ebook readership overtaken paper books by 2016?

China's national reading survey found digital reading, much of it on phones through super apps such as WeChat, had passed paper books by 2016.

Which hot-metal typesetting machine did Ottmar Mergenthaler patent in 1884?

Linotype, patented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1884 and first used by the New York Tribune in 1886, cast each line of type as a single metal slug.

Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican scribes wrote codices, bound between wooden planks, on long folded strips of which material?

Fig bark strips, called amatl, were folded and bound between wooden planks; only a few codices survive, the oldest Maya one dating to the 11th century.

The earliest audiobooks were phonograph records produced by which organisation?

The American Foundation for the Blind made the earliest audiobooks as phonograph records; cassettes in the 1960s and CDs in the 1980s drew in retailers, but digital distribution made the market explode.

What did Indian scribes rub into letters etched on palm-leaf manuscripts to make them legible?

Soot: after scratching the letters with a stylus, scribes rubbed lampblack or charcoal mixed with oil over the leaf so the incised text stood out.