19. April 2026

50 Interesting facts about books and libraries.

Here are 50 fascinating and unusual facts about books and libraries from around the world:

1. The word robot was first introduced in Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, but was actually coined by his brother, Josef Čapek.
2. The Japanese have a word, tsundoku, for letting books pile up unread at home.
3. India is the world’s most avid reading nation, averaging 10.7 hours of reading per person each week.
4. The first ebook ever created was the U.S. Declaration of Independence in 1971, by Michael S. Hart, marking the start of Project Gutenberg.
5. Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet was the world’s first mass-market ebook, causing server crashes with over 400,000 downloads in its first day.
6. J.K. Rowling’s original Harry Potter pitch was rejected by 12 publishers before Bloomsbury accepted it; she also had to use her initials to appeal to young male readers.
7. Theodore Roosevelt read at least one book every day, even while serving as U.S. President.
8. The largest book ever made weighs over 3,000 pounds and is titled This The Prophet Mohamed, created in Dubai in 2012.
9. The longest novel is Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time), at over 1.2 million words.
10. The world’s youngest published author is Dorothy Straight, who wrote How the World Began at age 4.
11. The oldest continually operating library is at Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Egypt, founded in AD 565.
12. The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, with more than 158 million items.
13. There are more public libraries than McDonald’s restaurants in the United States: 16,766 libraries vs. 14,157 McDonald’s.
14. The Biblioteca Joanina in Portugal employs bats as natural pest control—they feast on book-eating insects at night.
15. The longest book title has over 3,700 words and 26,000 characters.
16. The first bookmobile (a horse-drawn wagon) was launched in Great Britain in 1857 to bring books to rural villages.
17. The smallest book in the Library of Congress, Old King Cole, is just 1/25 of an inch square—about the size of a period.
18. In ancient Alexandria, all visiting ships had to surrender their books to be copied for the Royal Library.
19. The M6 toll road in the UK was partly built using pulped Mills & Boon novels to prevent cracking and absorb sound.
20. The most expensive book ever sold is Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester, purchased by Bill Gates for $30.8 million.
21. The word library comes from the Latin liber, meaning the inner bark of trees.
22. Warsaw has the most libraries per capita in the world—11.5 per 100,000 citizens.
23. Tokyo has the highest annual book loans: 111.9 million in a single year.
24. The world record fine for an overdue library book is $345.14 (two cents a day for 47 years).
25. The first generation Amazon Kindle sold out in just 5.5 hours in 2007.
26. James Patterson was the first author to sell over a million ebooks.
27. The oldest existing novel is Chariton’s Chaereas & Callirhoe, written in AD 123.
28. Bertrand Chiado in Lisbon is the world’s oldest operating bookstore, founded in 1732.
29. In Morioka Shoten Ginza (Tokyo), only one book is offered for sale each week, with nightly discussion events.
30. Three books in Harvard’s library are suspected to be bound in human skin.
31. The British Library’s King’s Library contains the entire collection of King George III, displayed separately as he wished.
32. The largest fine for an overdue library book is $345, for a poetry book returned 47 years late.
33. The first typewritten book was Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
34. Alice in Wonderland was inspired by a real girl, Alice Liddell, a friend of Lewis Carroll.
35. Reading for just six minutes can reduce stress by up to 68%—more than listening to music or taking a walk.
36. People who read a lot are statistically more successful; Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day.
37. In Iraq, booksellers leave books outside at night unattended because “the reader does not steal and the thief does not read”.
38. The London Underground once had vending machines that printed short stories on receipt paper for commuters.
39. A German religious book from the 16th century can be read in six different ways due to its unique binding.
40. The world’s fastest reader, Maria Teresa Calderon from the Philippines, could read 80,000 words per minute with full comprehension.
41. Roald Dahl was buried with his favorite items: Burgundy, snooker cues, pencils, a power saw, and chocolate.
42. Harper Lee received a year’s salary as a gift from friends so she could quit her job and write To Kill a Mockingbird.
43. Shakespeare introduced over 300 words to English that start with “un-”, such as unaware and uncomfortable.
44. Librarians once learned a special “library hand” style of handwriting for cataloging, developed by Thomas Edison.
45. Dan Brown uses inversion therapy (hanging upside down) to overcome writer’s block.
46. John Steinbeck’s dog ate half the only manuscript of Of Mice and Men.
47. Victor Hugo locked away his clothes to force himself to finish The Hunchback of Notre Dame on time.
48. Vladimir Nabokov wrote all his novels on index cards so he could easily rearrange the plot.
49. There are “human libraries” where you can “borrow” people to hear their life stories, now in over 80 countries.
50. Some libraries lend out more than books—like animal skeletons, Santa suits, prom dresses, and even dogs!