Fun Facts About Books

"Habent sua fata libelli," books have their destinies, wrote Terentianus Maurus, a Latin grammarian and theoretician of prosody. How true! It would seem that books set out on journeys of their own. Some books are immediate hits; others remain undiscovered gems. Some books bring their writers instant riches and glory; others are forever chained to the unfulfilled expectations of their creators. Books make bestselling lists, get made into movies; books are commodities and safe havens, products and ideals, sales figures and castles in the sand. Each book is destined for a special encounter with its readers. In the words of Sir Francis Bacon, "some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."

Books may be ships that pass in the night, but they also navigate the same ocean waters of human experience and expectations. The following is a sampler of books that share some fun distinction, grouped by fun fact. The list does not even aspire to being exhaustive. If your favorite book of all times has been left out, please add to the list and have fun!

Bestselling books that got rejected - a lot - before they made history:

Dune by Frank Herbert
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrice Potter

Books that were conceived and/or penned behind bars:

De Profundis by Oscar Wilde
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
The Prince by Machiavelli

Books that spawned sequels - a lot of them and by different writers:

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Books of a kind. Literally. Aka only children:

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Books with less than inspired working titles: