• the twenty-six tons of books and artifacts from Dr. Robert Bell's private library were almost destroyed in an Ottawa fire?
• the DC comic book Batman: The Last Arkham drew on the influences of psychology and biology books such as "Superstition in the Common Pigeon"?
• the books and manuscripts in the Renaissance era Cotton library were categorized by their location in relation to busts of Caesars shelved alongside them?
  
• the 16-volume series of theatre history books, The London Stage, by J. P. Wearing has been called "invaluable, thoroughly accurate" and "a proverbial mine of useful information"?
• Ethelbert of York's 8th century library was probably the largest book collection of its day outside of Rome?

Facts on topics related to Book

Novel

• 49 of Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Quddous's novels have had film adaptations?
• Alistair Beaton predicted the flooding of New Orleans in his 2004 satirical novel A Planet for the President?
• Charles Dickens wrote his novels Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities at his Tavistock House home?
• F. Sionil José's Viajero (The Wanderer) is a novel about a Filipino boy adopted by an African-American soldier?
• Jacek Dukaj's Black Oceans, a Polish science-fiction novel, received the Janusz A. Zajdel Award Polish award for sci-fi literature in 2001?
• novelist Charles Dickens received news of the death in India of his son Walter Landor Dickens on his own birthday on February 7, 1864?
• Peter Benchley wanted to write about pirates, but editor Thomas Congdon preferred his idea for a novel about sharks that became the bestseller Jaws?
• Reginald Hill's novel "A Clubbable Woman" was his first story about Dalziel and Pascoe?
• Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard composed the music for Space Jazz – a concept album companion to his science fiction novel Battlefield Earth?
• Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard's SF novel To the Stars was nominated for a 2001 "Retro" Hugo Award?

Poetry

• Egyptian poet Farouk Shousha has described the decline in the quality of Arabic in Egypt as "an issue of national security"?
• poet Robert Hass, a two-term American Poet Laureate, is a neighbor of Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz?
• British Conservative politician Sir John Loveridge published poetry and exhibited paintings and sculpture after serving 13 years as a member of Parliament?
• Andrew Carroll went on a 1998 nationwide tour sponsored by the Academy of American Poets, distributing 100,000 free poetry books at truck stops, hospital waiting rooms and train stations?
• Charles Wilfred Orr wrote more settings of A. E. Housman's poetry than any other composer?
• Thomas Bancroft's Times out of Tune (1658) includes verses against whoring, gluttony, alcoholism, hedonism, lying, pride in clothing, betrayal, ambition, cowardice, and the abuse of poetry?
• Tomás Rivera, a Chicano author, poet, and educator, was the first Mexican American chancellor of the University of California system?
• Urdu literature is dominated by poetry, often of the ghazal form?
• Western Ganga literature included Kannada poetry and prose written by royalty, on topics ranging from religion to elephant management?
• a cento is a poetic work composed entirely of verses taken from other authors?

Library

• Polish bishop Józef Andrzej Załuski, founded Załuski Library, one of the largest 18th century European libraries?
• Choa Chu Kang Community Library was the first library in Singapore to install self-check machines for borrowing and returning of books?
• Ethelbert of York's 8th century library was probably the largest book collection of its day outside of Rome?
• Robert Walpole, father of England's first Prime Minister, holds the record for the longest overdue library book at 288 years?
• Escape from Paradise, a book which documents a Singaporean woman's divorce, was removed from bookstores and libraries in the country in 2002, even after it had been reviewed in the Singapore press?
• American art historian Charles Rufus Morey published a pamphlet on library planning called "Laboratory-Library"?
• besides a mobile library, the Mobile Public Library also operates a system of libraries with eight branches and a local history and genealogy division with permanent addresses in Alabama?
• the Church of Scientology attempted to ban the non-fiction book Scientology: The Now Religion in Canadian libraries during 1974?
• the library in Michigan's Calumet and Hecla Industrial District originally housed public baths in its basement?
• the Welsh library educator Peter Havard-Williams served as Chief Librarian to the Council of Europe?

History of literature

• Gerhard Gran was appointed professor in the history of literature at the University of Kristiania in 1899, despite there being remarks about "the holes present in his knowledge"?
• Harald Beyer's textbook on literary history was the most used textbook in its field at Norwegian universities from the 1950s to the mid 1990s?

Literature

• "many-sided" priest Father Patrick McLaughlin (pictured) promoted links between the Church and the world of literature by staging plays, and by commissioning lectures from T. S. Eliot and Dorothy L. Sayers?
• Danish botanist Christen C. Raunkiær made quantitative studies of plants in literature?
• Sinop Fortress Prison in Turkey, abandoned in 1997, hosts hundreds of thousands tourists yearly thanks to its featuring in popular literature, music and film?
• before Nielsen BookScan began tracking point of sale data at bookstores, nobody knew how many copies were being sold of literary works that were published by multiple publishers and had entered the public domain?
• the names of broad gauge railway locomotives were drawn from areas such as Greek, Roman and other mythologies, famous people, literature, flora, fauna, towns, geographical features, speed and power?

Play (theatre)

• Camille Saint-Saëns's 1911 opera Déjanire was originally a 1898 play accompanied by symphonic music, choruses and a ballet?
• John Boylan, who won an acting award in the play On the Harmful Effects of Tobacco, eventually died of lung cancer?

Drama

• Craig Stevens's CBS series, Mr. Broadway, featured Liza Minnelli in her first television dramatic role in the episode "Nightingale for Sale"?
• dramatic actor Alexander Ostuzhev, who completely lost his hearing in 1910, played leading roles at Maly Theatre for four more decades?
• Robert Redford made one of his last guest-starring appearances in a television series in a 1963 episode of the ABC psychiatric drama Breaking Point?
• William Fawcett, a character actor in B-films and television from 1946 to the early 1970s, held a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska and was a drama professor at Michigan State University prior to the start of his acting career?
• Empire, a 1962–1963 NBC Western dramatic series set on a New Mexico ranch, provided the first recurring role for future film star Ryan O'Neal?
• Kordian, a romantic drama by one of Poland's Three Bards, Juliusz Słowacki, is a polemic with Dziady, an earlier work by another of the Three Bards, Adam Mickiewicz?
• at age 19, Felix Barker became the youngest drama critic working on Fleet Street?
• guest stars on The Greatest Show on Earth, an ABC circus drama in 1963–1964, included Lucille Ball, James Coburn and Edgar Bergen?

Satire

• Alistair Beaton predicted the flooding of New Orleans in his 2004 satirical novel A Planet for the President?
• Edgar Allan Poe satirized the concept of a self-made man in his story "The Business Man" using a character that makes his fortune cutting the tails off cats?
• James Russell Lowell's satirical poem A Fable for Critics (1848) made fun of many poets of the day, including himself?
• Mexican writer Juan José Arreola's short story The Switchman can be interpreted as a satire of the Mexican train system?
• satirist Stephen Colbert has a species of spider called Aptostichus stephencolberti named after him?
• Soviet scholars coined the term ‘democratic satire’ to describe the three-century old Russian tale of Frol Skobeev?
• Ferrante Pallavicino was the anonymous author of Il Divortio celeste (1643), a satire wherein Jesus Christ asks God for a divorce from his eternal bride, the Roman Catholic Church?
• Frithjof Sælen was known for the book Snorri the Seal, banned during the German occupation of Norway for being a subtle satire on Nazi Germany?
• Jeż Jerzy is a popular Polish comic, a satire on modern life, often making fun of subcultures like skinheads or dresiarze?
• John Rolle, 1st Baron Rolle inspired one of the pioneering works of British satire, and half a century later, fell down the stairs at the coronation of Queen Victoria?