Book Records

Recently, while editing my new book which will be on sale in the nearest future, suddenly I wonder: how many books were issued during all history of book printing? Billion ? Ten billions ? Hundred billions ? I haven’t found the answer to this question but read lots of interesting information about books, writers, antiquaries. The most interesting fact you can read right now:

Shocking edition
Russian writer Maksim Aleshin ( Nizhny Novgorod, Russia ) is preparing a book’s release which cover is made of his own skin. In such a way 40 – year-old author decided to become world – famous. The problem is that none of publishing companies didn’t agree to such an unordinary book release. But Maksim Aleshin believes that he will get a positive result in solving this issue. Then, in order not to do harm neither to editors nor to readers, Aleshin agreed to the book’s release after his death. Else, he was very disappointed to know that his skin is not enough for all collected works. But this didn’t stop the eccentric author. The title of his exclusive edition called “Living book” is tattooed on his back. At present he is busy not only with the book writing but also he takes care of his skin in beauty salons.

Literary minimalism
In 2009 in the city of Ekaterinburg Vladimir Blinov received the “Nobel Prize Buka”* for his book “ The novel with no title” which contains one phrase – “Nope! I will do it myself!”. His book was admitted as “original work of 2009 which develops the principles of minimalism in the Russian literature”. The author got a medal for this work.

*The “Nobel Prize Buka” was established in Ekaterinburg by the “Old Man Bukashkin” association, and was dedicated to the writer and artist Evgeny Malakhin. It is planning the prize will be awarded in other directions of art.

The most popular author
A British writer, queen of crime, Agatha Christie is on the first place with millions sales of her novels, 78 works were translated into 44 languages. The total amount of sold copies - 2 billions.

The most prolific author
Few writers can compete in speed of writing with the Brazilian whose name is Jose Carlos Ryoki de Alpoim Jnoue. Within ten years, from June 1986 till August 1996, he published 1046 scientific – fiction novels, vesterns and thrillers. In other words, he spent three and a half of a day for one novel writing.

The longest biography
The longest of the existed biographies is the history of life of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It consists of eight basic volumes, sixteen additional volumes and counts approximately 10 million words. The authors of the biography is the son of famous Prime Minister Randolph and the official biographer of Churchill sir Martin Gilbert.

The book completist No.1 in the world
A U.S. citizen John Bentham who lives in Evoke, the state of Indiana, created the largest home library in the world. It consists of 1.5 million books. It is hard to imagine how much time, money and strengths he spent for setting such a record.

The most expensive book
One fine day Bill Gates was scrolling along the streets of New York and went at auction where he bought the Codex Leicester written by Leonardo Da Vinci for 30.8 million dollars. This book became not only the most expensive in the world, it is the only work authorized by Da Vinci which is in possession of the private person. Leonardo Da Vinci predicted the creation of steam engine and submarine.

The most expensive book page
Donald Sheer (Atlanta, the U.S.), one more connoisseur, bought a book page at the cost of more than 2.4 million dollars. The explanation for such a big price – it is one of the pages of Declaration of Independence issued in 1776 in Philadelphia.

The most unrealizable book
The New Testament translated by David Wilkins in 1716 and printed in an edition of 500 copies impresses by the speed of the sales. In average, one book was being sold within 20 weeks. The author made the translation from Coptic into Latin. Due to the lack of knowledge in Coptic, the translation was not precise. Probably, it became the reason why 500 copies were being sold within 191 years.

The biggest book
Until recently the biggest book has been considered “Super Book” issued in Denver ( the state of Colorado, USA) in 1976. Its measurements were 2.74 m x 3.07 m, the weight was 252.6 kg, and it consisted of 300 pages. However, in 2004 in Russia was issued a book named “The biggest book in the world for children”. Although this book has only four pages and contains 12 poems for kids, it has enormous measurements. The height is 6 m, the width is 3 m, but the weight is 492 kg. The authors of the book are the famous children’s writers Sergey Mikhalkov, Sergey Eremeev, Vladimir Stepanov and Andrey Tyunyaev. The book was being made in the open air by means of unique tools. It was stuck according to the special technology. For the XVII Moscow International Book Fair which was held on September 2004 the book was brought by a panel trailer. 15 persons took part in loading works.

The biggest manuscript
The Devil’s Bible or the Codex Gigas is the largest manuscript in the world written within one night. According to the legend, the author is a monk who committed a serious crime. As a punishment for his sin he swore to the fallen angel to write in all human knowledge and decorated the manuscript with miniatures in one single night. In such a way he glorified the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice, Czech Republic for many ages. Finally, the monk sold his soul to the Devil who helped him in writing the manuscript on time. From 1648 the manuscript is kept at the National Library of Sweden in Stockholm.

The smallest book
According to the official record the smallest book “New Testament” was issued in 2001 by the Massachusetts institute of technology, its measurements are 5 x 5 mm. But in 2002 the Russian microminiaturist Anatoly Konenko created a book by Anton Chekhov, Chameleon, which measurements are 0.9 x 0.9mm. In this year this copy was defined in the Guinness Book of Records.

Best – selling book
There is no doubt the bestseller for ages is the Bible. From 1815 its number of printed copies exceeds 2.5 billion. According to the other data 3.9 billion of copies were sold from 1815 up to 1999. The contemporary best – selling book is the Guinness Book of World Recor