110 Fun Facts About Reading

How many raised dots make up a full braille cell?

That gives 64 possible combinations, counting the empty cell used as a word space.

How old was Louis Braille when he first presented his tactile reading code in 1824?

Louis Braille was 15 when he presented his dot code in 1824, having been blinded at three by an awl accident in his father's harness workshop; the system was published in 1829.

Braille's code was an improvement on 'night writing', a tactile system invented by whom?

Charles Barbier, a French army captain, devised a 12-dot system of 'night writing' meant to let soldiers pass messages silently in the dark; Braille met it at the Paris institute in 1821 and cut the cell down.

What term did Émile Javal coin for the short, rapid jumps the eyes make while reading?

Saccades, from the French for 'jerks', was Émile Javal's 1879 term for the rapid jumps between fixations; contrary to earlier belief, the eyes do not glide smoothly along a line of text.

In his Confessions, Saint Augustine remarks on which bishop's then-unusual habit of reading silently?

Ambrose, bishop of Milan, read with his eyes while 'his voice and tongue were silent', Augustine wrote in Book VI; reading aloud was so much the norm that the habit seemed to need explaining.

Which teacher coined 'speed reading' and launched Reading Dynamics in Washington, D.C. in 1959?

Evelyn Wood, a Utah schoolteacher, opened her Reading Dynamics institute in Washington in 1959 after noticing that sweeping her hand down the page helped her eyes move faster; the term 'speed reading' is credited to her.

Roughly how fast do people read normally for comprehension?

Adults reading silently for comprehension average about 200–230 words per minute; a 2019 review of 190 studies put the mean at 238 for non-fiction, while skimming at 700 or more sacrifices understanding.

What is the name for loss of the ability to read after brain injury?

Alexia, or acquired dyslexia, is the loss of reading ability after brain damage, usually a stroke in the left hemisphere; Jules Dejerine described 'pure alexia' without loss of writing in 1892.

What material did Bi Sheng use for the first movable type, around 1040?

Porcelain, or fired clay, is what Shen Kuo's Dream Pool Essays records Bi Sheng using, baking each cut character hard and setting it in an iron frame; the oldest surviving book printed with metal type is Korea's Jikji of 1377.

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

Gutenberg printed the Bible in Mainz, on the Rhine, around 1454–55; of the roughly 180 copies made, 49 survive in substantial part and 21 are complete.

How many lines per page give the Gutenberg Bible its other name?

It is called the 42-line Bible: the earliest pages were set at 40 lines, then 41, before 42 lines per column became standard, apparently to save paper and vellum.

Which Buddhist text, printed on 11 May 868, is considered the oldest dated printed book?

The Diamond Sutra scroll, a Chinese translation bearing the date 11 May 868, was found in the Dunhuang caves in 1900 by the Daoist monk Wang Yuanlu and bought by Aurel Stein in 1907; it is in the British Library.

What is the name for the paged book format that gradually replaced the scroll in the ancient world?

The codex, pages bound along one edge, takes its name from Latin caudex, a tree trunk or wooden block; the poet Martial praised its convenience in the first century, and early Christians adopted it widely.

Before paper, the pages of early codices were typically parchment or vellum, made from what?

Parchment and vellum are animal hides — sheep, goat or calf skin — soaked in lime, scraped and stretched; vellum strictly means calfskin, and the word parchment comes from Pergamon in Asia Minor.

The first Penguin paperbacks of 1935 were sold through Woolworths for what price?

Penguins cost sixpence, the price of a packet of cigarettes; Allen Lane said the idea came from the dismal reading on sale at Exeter St Davids station, and a large Woolworths order rescued the launch.

Which German publisher's 1931 format, with colour-coded genre covers, did Penguin copy?

The Second World War cut the Albatross experiment short, but its standard size and typographic covers lived on.

Melvil Dewey developed his decimal classification in 1873 while working at the library of which college?

Dewey was a student assistant in the Amherst College library when he worked out the scheme in 1873; he published it anonymously in 1876, and by 2009 OCLC counted it in use in 200,000 libraries across 135 countries.

Whose 6,487 books did Congress buy to rebuild its library after the British burned Washington in 1814?

Thomas Jefferson sold Congress his 6,487 volumes in 1815 for $23,950; a fire in 1851 destroyed about two-thirds of them, and the library's main building, opened in 1897, carries his name.

The Bodleian Library, founded in 1602, is the main research library of which university?

The Bodleian is the University of Oxford's main research library, reopened by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602 on the site of the medieval Duke Humfrey's Library; it is the UK's second-largest library after the British Library.

Which library, endowed by a merchant's will in 1653, is Britain's oldest free public reference library?

Chetham's Library in Manchester was endowed by the 1653 will of the merchant Humphrey Chetham as a free public library; Marx and Engels worked together at one of its reading desks in 1845.

The first modern tax-supported public library, opened in 1833, was in which small New Hampshire town?

Peterborough, New Hampshire, voted in 1833 to fund a town library from tax money, a first for the United States; Boston's public library was authorised in 1848, and Andrew Carnegie later paid for 1,689 American libraries.

Which Roman accidentally burned part of the Library of Alexandria during his civil war in 48 BC?

Julius Caesar set fire to ships in the harbour in 48 BC while besieged in Alexandria, and the blaze spread to buildings including part of the library; ancient estimates of its holdings run from 40,000 to 700,000 scrolls.

The Book of Kells, an illuminated Gospel book from around 800 AD, is on display at which library?

Trinity College Dublin has held the Book of Kells since the 1660s and shows it in its Old Library, with two of its calf-vellum volumes open at a time; the manuscript was made by Columban monks, probably on Iona.

How many digits has an ISBN had since the standard changed in 2007?

An ISBN has 13 digits: the old ten-digit code with a 978 prefix and a recalculated check digit; the scheme grew out of a nine-digit Standard Book Number devised for WHSmith in 1965.

In which year did Amazon launch the first Kindle e-reader?

The first Kindle went on sale on 19 November 2007 at $399 and sold out within hours; Amazon's Lab126 subsidiary developed it, and the larger-screened Kindle DX followed in 2009.

What was Amazon's internal codename for the original Kindle?

The Kindle name itself came from branding consultants Michael Cronan and Karin Hibma, who liked that it means to light a fire.

UNESCO's World Book Day, 23 April, was fixed on the death date of which author?

Miguel de Cervantes died in April 1616 and was buried on the 23rd, the date also given for Shakespeare's death; Spain first held its book day on 7 October 1926, his presumed birthday, moving it to 23 April in 1930.

On which date is International Literacy Day observed each year?

International Literacy Day is 8 September, proclaimed by UNESCO's General Conference in 1966 and first observed in 1967; the date recalls the opening of the 1965 Tehran conference of education ministers on eradicating illiteracy.

Which book has reportedly been translated into more languages than any other except the Bible?

The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's 1943 tale, had appeared in some 600 languages and dialects by 2024; only the Bible, available in well over 3,000 languages, outstrips it.

Which seven-volume French novel holds the Guinness World Record for longest novel?

In Search of Lost Time runs to some 1.2 million words across seven volumes published from 1913 to 1927; Proust paid Grasset to issue the first, Swann's Way, after the NRF turned it down.

What is the Japanese term for acquiring books and letting them pile up unread?

Tsundoku blends 'tsunde oku' (to pile up and leave) with 'doku' (reading); the pun dates from Meiji-era slang of the 1870s–80s and covers the unread books kept on the shelf 'for later'.

Who hosted Reading Rainbow throughout its 1983–2006 run on PBS?

LeVar Burton, then best known as Kunta Kinte in Roots, hosted every season; the show won 26 Emmys and a Peabody Award, and Burton later revived it as the Skybrary app.

In which year did Oprah Winfrey start her television book club?

Oprah's Book Club began in September 1996 with Jacquelyn Mitchard's The Deep End of the Ocean, which promptly topped the bestseller lists; Jonathan Franzen later bristled publicly at The Corrections being chosen in 2001.

Which James Frey memoir, an Oprah pick, was outed as largely fabricated?

A Million Little Pieces, Frey's 2003 addiction memoir, was exposed by The Smoking Gun in January 2006; Winfrey then confronted Frey and his publisher Nan Talese on a live episode.

How many different words does Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat use?

The Cat in the Hat uses 236 different words, drawn from a first-grade vocabulary list, because Seuss was answering John Hersey's 1954 Life article attacking dull Dick and Jane primers; he later called it the book he was proudest of.

Bennett Cerf bet Dr. Seuss he couldn't write a book in how many distinct words?

Cerf wagered $50 that Seuss could not manage a book in 50 distinct words; Green Eggs and Ham (1960) did it, with 'anywhere' the only word of more than one syllable, and Cerf reportedly never paid.

The Dick and Jane readers of 1930–1965 taught reading by which method?

Dick and Jane taught by the whole-word (look-say) method, repeating a small sight vocabulary ('Look, look. See Spot run') until children recognised words on sight; Rudolf Flesch's 1955 Why Johnny Can't Read attacked the approach.

About how many copies of the McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960?

About 120 million McGuffey Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, a sales league shared only with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary; William Holmes McGuffey wrote the series while a professor at Miami University in Ohio.

Michael Hart founded Project Gutenberg, the oldest digital library, in 1971 by typing in which text?

Hart typed the US Declaration of Independence into the University of Illinois's Xerox Sigma V mainframe on 4 July 1971, after being handed a free printed copy at a grocery store, and offered it to other users on the network.

Todd Bol built the first Little Free Library in 2009 in Hudson, in which US state?

Hudson is in Wisconsin, on the St. Croix River opposite Minnesota; Bol shaped the box like a one-room schoolhouse as a tribute to his mother, a teacher, and the movement passed 100,000 registered libraries in 2020.

Dolly Parton's Imagination Library mails children a free book every month until what age?

Children receive a book a month from birth to age five, when they start school; the scheme began in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, where Parton grew up, and passed 100 million books delivered in 2018.

Reading Is Fundamental was founded in 1966 by Margaret McNamara, wife of which US official?

Margaret McNamara was married to Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense under Kennedy and Johnson; she started Reading Is Fundamental as a project in Washington, D.C. schools, and by the 2020s it had given away more than 400 million books.

In which year did Amazon announce its acquisition of Goodreads?

Amazon announced the Goodreads deal in March 2013, buying the site Otis and Elizabeth Chandler had founded; the price was never disclosed, and the move drew criticism from rival booksellers and authors.

Which library activist founded Banned Books Week in 1982?

Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom from 1967 until her death in 2009, launched Banned Books Week in 1982 after a surge in school and library challenges; it is held each autumn.

Which magazine, founded by the Wallaces in 1922, was for decades the world's best-selling?

Reader's Digest, launched by DeWitt and Lila Wallace in 1922 as a pocket-sized compilation of condensed articles, sold more copies worldwide than any other consumer magazine for much of the 20th century, with dozens of foreign-language editions.

The world's largest book trade fair is held each October in which German city?

Frankfurt's Buchmesse, held each October, was revived in 1949 in the city's Paulskirche and grew into the trade's largest gathering, with publishers from more than a hundred countries; Leipzig's spring fair is its smaller German rival.

What does the Latin phrase ex libris on a bookplate mean?

Ex libris means 'from the books of', marking ownership; the earliest known printed bookplates are German, including a hand-coloured woodcut pasted into books that Hildebrand Brandenburg gave to Buxheim monastery around 1480.

The oldest existing bookmark, a 6th-century Coptic leather strap, is held in which Dublin institution?

The Chester Beatty Library holds it: an ornamented leather bookmark, vellum-lined, once strapped to the cover of a Coptic codex from Egypt; the library grew from the collection of the mining magnate Chester Beatty, who settled in Dublin in 1950.

Which institution co-founded the Talking Books programme with the American Foundation for the Blind in 1931?

The Library of Congress ran the scheme from 1931 under the Pratt-Smoot Act, with the American Foundation for the Blind producing the records; the 1932 test recordings included a chapter of Helen Keller's Midstream and Poe's The Raven.

Librarian Mary Titcomb pioneered the American 'book wagon' in 1905 in Washington County, in which state?

Washington County is in western Maryland; Titcomb, librarian of its free library in Hagerstown, sent a horse-drawn wagon of books out to outlying farms in 1905, and a motorised version followed in 1912.

What is the name for a compulsive obsession with collecting books?

Bibliomania was popularised by Thomas Frognall Dibdin's 1809 book Bibliomania; or Book-Madness, a mock-serious account of the collecting frenzy among wealthy English bibliophiles of the day.

Writing was invented by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia in roughly which period?

Proto-cuneiform tablets from Uruk date to about 3400–3200 BCE, inside the 3500–3000 BCE window; the script grew from a clay token system used for counting goods and was pressed into clay with a reed stylus.

The Dolch list of sight words for beginning readers was first published in which year?

Edward William Dolch published his 220 sight words in 1936 in The Elementary School Journal, drawn from children's books of the time; Edward Fry's rival Instant Words list followed in 1957 and was revised in 1980.

The English word 'book' is thought to derive from a Germanic root meaning which tree?

Old English bōc shares a root with bēce, 'beech', the traditional explanation being that early Germanic runes were cut into beechwood tablets; Old Norse bók and Old Saxon bōk are cousins, and Slavic bukva ('letter') is related too.

Which 1952 company, founded by two college graduates, is called the 'seed' of the audiobook industry?

Caedmon Records was started in New York in 1952 by Barbara Holdridge and Marianne Roney, two recent Hunter College graduates; its first LP had Dylan Thomas reading his poems, with A Child's Christmas in Wales filling the B-side.

In which decade did the term 'audiobook' come into use, as cassettes replaced records?

'Audiobook' came into use in the 1970s as cassettes began to replace records; the government's earlier term was 'talking book', and the Audio Publishers Association made 'audiobook' the industry standard in 1994.

What are the annual awards for audiobooks, first given by the Audio Publishers Association in 1996, called?

The Audies, presented annually by the Audio Publishers Association, honour narration and production across dozens of categories, including an Audiobook of the Year; the ceremony is often likened to the industry's Oscars.

Which president signed the 1800 act that founded the Library of Congress?

John Adams signed the act on 24 April 1800 as the government prepared to move to the new capital; it set aside $5,000 for books, and the first order from London brought 740 volumes and three maps.

On Christmas Eve 1851, a fire at the Library of Congress destroyed roughly how many books?

About 35,000 of the library's 55,000 volumes burned on 24 December 1851, including two-thirds of the founding collection Congress had bought in 1815; a faulty chimney flue was blamed, and the room was rebuilt in fireproof cast iron.

The horse-drawn Warrington Perambulating Library, an early mobile library, was set up in which year?

The Warrington Mechanics' Institute launched its horse-drawn perambulating library in 1858 to lend more of its books to enthusiastic local readers; it is usually cited as Britain's first mobile library.

Which writer began Frankenstein at 18 after Lord Byron proposed a ghost-story contest at a villa near Lake Geneva?

Mary Shelley's novel first appeared anonymously on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. The idea had come to her after midnight in what she called a waking dream.

Which crime writer, ranked by Guinness as the best-selling fiction author ever, has sold over two billion books?

Agatha Christie also wrote the world's longest-running play, The Mousetrap, a murder mystery staged in London's West End since 1952.

Which songwriter won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature for new poetic expressions within the American song tradition?

Bob Dylan was nominated in 1996 by Gordon Ball, a Virginia professor, starting a campaign that lasted 20 years. He already held a special Pulitzer citation from 2008.

Which American, denied lessons as an enslaved boy in Baltimore, learned to read from neighbourhood white children?

Frederick Douglass got his first alphabet lessons from Sophia Auld, until her husband stopped them. Hugh Auld feared that literacy would make enslaved people want freedom.

Which Gilded Age tycoon paid for more than 1,600 public library buildings across the United States?

Andrew Carnegie attached strings to every gift: a town had to commit to paying for upkeep and staff itself. His first public library went to Dunfermline, his Scottish birthplace.

Which Disney heroine, thought odd by her village for loving books, is given an entire castle library by her captor?

Belle's passion for reading was greatly expanded for the 1991 film, borrowing from Jo March in Little Women. Voice actor Paige O'Hara said the library scene was among the fastest she recorded.

Which 1987 fantasy film is framed as a grandfather reading a novel aloud to his sick grandson?

The Princess Bride presents its whole adventure as a book read at a bedside, with Peter Falk as the grandfather and Fred Savage as the boy. He begins as a reluctant listener and ends by asking for it again.

Which dystopian novel follows Guy Montag, a fireman whose job is to burn outlawed books and the houses hiding them?

Fahrenheit 451 is named for the temperature at which Ray Bradbury was told book paper catches fire. Later studies put the real figure anywhere between 424 and 475 degrees.

Which author of the Goosebumps horror series has been called the Stephen King of children's literature?

R. L. Stine started out writing joke books for children under the alias Jovial Bob Stine. His spooky series went on to sell over 400 million copies in 35 languages.

Which novel about rival gangs the Greasers and the Socs did S. E. Hinton mostly write at sixteen?

The Outsiders came out when Susan Eloise Hinton was 18. Her publisher suggested initials so that male reviewers would not dismiss a gang novel because a woman wrote it.

Which gluttonous rat fetches scraps of printed words for the spider in E. B. White's Charlotte's Web?

Templeton finds the word 'Radiant' in a laundry detergent advert, and Charlotte weaves it into her web to keep Wilbur famous. He later brings her 'Humble' at the county fair.

Which picture book sends Max, a boy in a wolf suit, to an island of monstrous creatures?

Where the Wild Things Are left its monsters nameless until Maurice Sendak helped turn it into an opera. He then named them after his own relatives, including Tzippy, Moishe and Bernard.

Which author-illustrator's 1969 picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar has appeared in more than 70 languages?

Eric Carle got his break when an author spotted a lobster he had collaged from tissue paper for an advert. The two then made Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? together.

Which former children's librarian created Ramona Quimby after young patrons could not find characters like themselves?

Beverly Cleary worked as a children's librarian in Yakima before her first book came out in 1950. Her stories of ordinary neighbourhood kids went on to sell 91 million copies.

Which Roald Dahl heroine learns to read at three and soon finishes every children's book in the library?

Matilda moves straight on to adult classics such as The Grapes of Wrath. She later finds she can move objects with her mind, and turns the power on her headmistress, Miss Trunchbull.

Which Mary Pope Osborne series sends siblings Jack and Annie from Frog Creek, Pennsylvania, on missions through time?

Magic Tree House trips begin when the children point at an illustration in one of the books stored there. Morgan le Fay, the enchantress of Arthurian legend, sends them on their first 28 adventures.

Which Jeff Kinney series, told as middle-schooler Greg Heffley's journal, first appeared online on Funbrain in 2004?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid moved into print three years later and has since sold more than 250 million copies. Greg himself rejects the title word and insists that what he keeps is a journal.

Which pen name appears on every Nancy Drew mystery, although a team of ghostwriters produced the books?

Carolyn Keene never existed: the Stratemeyer Syndicate hired writers to produce the manuscripts, beginning with Mildred Wirt Benson. She is credited as the main writer of the girl detective's adventures.

Which Louis Sachar novel sends Stanley Yelnats to Camp Green Lake, a desert boot camp, after a wrongful conviction?

Holes turns on a reading lesson: Zero offers to dig part of Stanley's pit each day if Stanley teaches him to read. The warden has the boys digging to find an outlaw's buried treasure.

In Lois Lowry's The Giver, which twelve-year-old is selected to inherit the position of Receiver of Memory?

Jonas lives in a community that has given up colour, climate and terrain to keep order. As Receiver, he alone must store every memory of the time before Sameness.

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which reclusive neighbour leaves Jem and Scout small gifts in a tree knothole?

Boo Radley is reaching out for friendship long before the children ever see him. When they are attacked on a dark walk home, an unseen rescuer saves them, and Scout finally meets her neighbour.

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, which Yale-educated bond salesman narrates the story as Gatsby's neighbour?

Nick Carraway is a Midwesterner and war veteran newly arrived in West Egg, on Long Island. His creator was an Ivy Leaguer too, though Fitzgerald went to Princeton.

In Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which government department employs Winston Smith to falsify historical records?

The Ministry of Truth is named for the opposite of its work, as are all four of Oceania's departments. Peace runs the war, Love handles torture and Plenty manages starvation.

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, which object does Ralph use to summon the boys and command authority as chief?

A conch shell stands for order on the island, so its end is brutal. Roger drops a boulder that kills Piggy and smashes it in the same instant.

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, which loyal cart-horse answers every setback with the maxim 'I will work harder'?

Boxer is repaid with betrayal: the pigs sell him to the knacker's yard and spend the money on a case of whisky. Squealer assures the others that the van belonged to a vet.

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, which dead court jester's skull is dug up in the gravedigger scene of Act 5?

Yorick once carried the young Hamlet on his back 'a thousand times', which is why the skull shakes him. He remembers 'a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy'.

In Homer's Odyssey, which queen of Ithaca stalls her suitors by weaving a burial shroud she never finishes?

Penelope undoes part of the shroud every night for three years, until one of her maids gives the trick away. She had promised to choose a husband once it was done.

Which Arthur Miller play uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the anti-communist hunts of the 1950s?

The Crucible proved prophetic for its author. Miller was questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1956 and convicted of contempt the next year for refusing to name names.

Which Nigerian novelist took the title of Things Fall Apart from a line in a W. B. Yeats poem?

Chinua Achebe wrote it while working at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation. It became the most widely studied, translated and read African novel, appearing in over fifty languages.

In C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which sweet does the White Witch use to win over Edmund?

Turkish delight sales rose after the 2005 film version reached cinemas. In the book the Witch's sweets come with a promise of power, and Edmund betrays his siblings for more.

Which Nobel Peace Prize winner recounted his teenage years in Auschwitz and Buchenwald in the memoir Night?

Elie Wiesel was deported as a teenager from Sighet, his hometown in Romania. Awarding him the prize in 1986, the Nobel committee called him a 'messenger to mankind'.

In the Holocaust memoir Night, which relative does the teenage narrator care for through Auschwitz and Buchenwald?

His father, Shlomo, weakens until the usual roles reverse and the teenage son becomes the caregiver. He dies in January 1945, three months before American troops liberate the camp.

The Holocaust memoir Night began as a far longer manuscript, And the World Remained Silent, written in which language?

Yiddish was the language of the original 862-page manuscript, cut to 245 pages for its first printing in Argentina. A French version, La Nuit, followed with help from the novelist François Mauriac.

What name did Anne Frank give the imaginary friend to whom she addressed her diary entries in hiding?

Kitty was the surrogate friend Anne invented days after the diary arrived as a birthday present. The red-checked autograph book was no surprise: she had chosen it in a bookshop the day before.

Which learning disability, the most common of all, makes it hard to spell words and sound them out when reading?

Dyslexia was once known as word blindness. It affects an estimated 3 to 7 percent of people, and adults who have it often read with good comprehension, only more slowly.

Which age-related stiffening of the eye's lens leaves many adults over forty needing glasses for small print?

Presbyopia shows itself when people start holding reading material farther away to focus. It is also known as age-related farsightedness, or long sight in Britain.

Which phenomenon, first published in English in 1935, slows people naming the ink colour of a mismatched colour word?

The Stroop effect shows how automatic reading becomes: the word 'red' printed in blue is hard to ignore, so naming the colour takes longer. It carries the name of psychologist John Ridley Stroop.

What is the term for the silent inner speech, with tiny movements of the larynx, that accompanies reading?

Subvocalization gives each word its sound as it is read. Speed-reading courses often prescribe long drills to eliminate it, arguing that the inner voice slows readers down.

Which language's alphabet, written right to left in a cursive style, has 28 letters and no capital forms?

Arabic letters change shape instead: most take different forms depending on where they fall in a word. The script stays joined-up and flowing even in print.

Which Cherokee, who never went to school or learned English, completed a writing system for his language in 1821?

Sequoyah first taught the syllabary to his young daughter, Ayokeh. Many neighbours suspected witchcraft, and his wife is said to have burned his early work.

Which language on the Rosetta Stone, carved below hieroglyphs and Demotic script, could scholars already read?

Greek gave scholars their crib: the slab repeats one decree of 196 BC three times with only minor differences. Champollion published his breakthrough on the hieroglyphs in 1822.

Which ancient writing style, named for the way an ox turns while ploughing, reverses direction on alternate lines?

Boustrophedon lines mirror their letters too, so every second row reads backwards. Easter Island's rongorongo tablets go a step further and turn alternate lines upside down.

What is a manuscript page, like one hiding lost Archimedes works, called when its first text was scraped off for reuse?

A palimpsest saved money when writing material was costly. The Archimedes pages were scraped, washed and covered with a religious text in 1229, then read again centuries later using X-ray and ultraviolet imaging.

Which Argentine writer imagined a universe of hexagonal rooms holding every possible book in 'The Library of Babel'?

Jorge Luis Borges was a librarian himself, and in 1955 he was made director of Argentina's National Library. By about the same time he had gone completely blind.

Which merchant is thought to have brought the first printing press to England, setting it up at Westminster?

William Caxton had watched the new printing trade in Cologne and first ran a press in Bruges. Back home, the first book he is known to have produced was Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

Which Umberto Eco murder mystery, set in an Italian monastery in 1327, hinges on a lost book by Aristotle?

The Name of the Rose conceals its lost volume, Aristotle's treatise on comedy, in a labyrinthine library kept by an elderly blind monk. He fears that laughter threatens God's order.

Which Japanese classic, written by a lady-in-waiting in the early 11th century, is often called the world's first novel?

The Tale of Genji is credited to Murasaki Shikibu, a noblewoman and poet of the Heian court. Its claim to be first is still argued, since Roman tales such as the Satyricon are centuries older.

Which eponymous verb comes from the English physician who published The Family Shakespeare with its ruder lines removed?

Bowdlerize does Thomas Bowdler a small injustice: the first edition's cuts were largely the work of his sister, Henrietta. He later gave Gibbon's Decline and Fall the same treatment.

Which publishing term did humorist Gelett Burgess popularise with a joke dust jacket showing a fictional Miss Belinda?

Blurb first appeared on a spoof jacket wrapped around his own book for guests at a trade dinner. It pictured Miss Belinda Blurb calling out 'in the act of blurbing'.

Which American children's book award, first given in 1922, honours an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books?

The Newbery Medal was proposed by Publishers Weekly editor Frederic Melcher, making it the first children's book award in the world. He also paid for the medal's design and production.