Everyone’s favorite billionaire Bill Gates bought ‘Codex Leicester’, one of Leonardo Di Vinci’s scientific journals for $30.8 million.

2. Longest book in the world:

‘A la recherche du temps perdu’ by Marcel Proust is the longest book in the world at 9,609,000 characters. Translated into Remembers of Things Past, the book tells the story of the narrator’s experiences growing up.

3. Roald Dahl’s interesting life experiences:

Dahl served in the Royal Air Force during World War II and also tested chocolates for Cadbury’s while he was at school. (I guess we know where his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came from).

5. Victor Hugo’s 823 word long sentence:

In Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables, you can find a sentence that is 823 words long. However, there may be other sentences that surpasses this length. But this one is worth knowing.

6. J.K. Rowling is not actually her name:

Our favorite author who goes by initials, actually doesn’t have a middle name. After a suggestion from her publisher, she chose her grandmother’s name, Kathleen.

7. Charles Dickens’ superstitious behaviour:

Dickens believed that sleeping facing North, would improve his writing. He also carried a compass when travelling to make sure he was facing the right direction and he always touched things 3 times for luck.

8. Tolstoy owes War and Peace to his wife’s efforts:

The 1400 page novel was copied around 7 times by Leo Tolstoy’s wife, Sophia, by hand – that’s love.

9. The words F. Scott Fitzgerald created that you use everyday:

Oxford English Dictionary notes the earliest use of the word ‘wicked’ to mean good/cool to be from Fitzgerald’s novel ‘This Side of Paradise’. He is also thought to have used the word T-shirt for the first time.

10. The children’s story that China banned:

The Governor of Hunan Province in China banned Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland because he believed that animals should not be given the power to use the language of humans and to put animals and humans on the same level would be ‘disastrous’.

A world without Roald Dahl would be a world without Oompa Loompas, Snozzcumbers, or Muggle-Wumps. And who would ever want to live in a world like that?

Below are interesting facts about the famous children’s author.

• Dahl was a fighter pilot with the Royal Air Force during World War II. And it was a plane crash near Alexandria, Egypt that actually inspired him to begin writing.
• Alongside fellow officers Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy, Dahl provided intelligence to an MI6 organization known as the British Security Coordination.
• Roald Dahl wrote many of his books in a shed in his garden, sitting upon an old battered armchair. He wrote everyday from 10 am to 12 noon and then from 4 pm to 6pm. No one else was allowed inside.
• He was friends with the American author, Ernest Hemingway.
• Roald Dahl wrote seventeen children’s stories, and he also produced many works for adults, as well as children’s poetry and film scripts.
• He wrote the screenplays for the movies You Only Live Twice (the James Bond film) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• He always wrote in pencil on yellow paper.

For more facts about Roald Dahl, watch the video below:

MATILDA
Author:Roald Dahl
ISBN:9780141341248

“The Trunchbull” is no match for Matilda!

Matilda is a sweet, exceptional young girl, but her parents think she’s just a nuisance. She expects school to be different but there she has to face Miss Trunchbull, a kid-hating terror of a headmistress. When Matilda is attacked by the Trunchbull she suddenly discovers she has a remarkable power with which to fight back. It’ll take a superhuman genius to give Miss Trunchbull what she deserves and Matilda may be just the one to do it!

Price: 16,9 GEL

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/penguin/matilda/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Author: Roald Dahl
ISBN: 9780141329857

Willy Wonka’s Famous Chocolate Factory is opening at last! But only five lucky children will be allowed inside … and what Augustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, and Charlie Bucket find is even wilder than any of the wild rumors they’ve heard!

Price: 15,9 GEL

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/penguin/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

The theme for this week is about Roald Dahl, a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot, and screenwriter.

He has been referred to as “one of the greatest storytellers for children of the 20th century”. Dahl’s short stories are known for their unexpected endings and his children’s books for their unsentimental, often very dark humor.

Dahl went on to create some of the best-loved children’s stories of the 20th century, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. Many of his titles have become successful, blockbuster movies.

Meanwhile enjoy a scene from Matilda, a movie adapted from his award-winning book of the same name.

This week we celebrate authors of the past who had birthdays in the month of September. Check them out below.

Truman Capote

(September 30, 1924- August 25, 1984)

Capote wrote favorites such as:

Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Children on Their Birthdays

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/bestsellers/breakfast-at-tiffanys/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/modernclassics/children-on-their-birthdays/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

Agatha Christie

(September 15, 1890- January 12, 1976)

Appointed the title of “Dame” by the Queen of England, she is also the best-selling author of all time with books like:

The Labours of Hercules and Poirot: The Perfect Murders: Omnibus

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/harpercollins/the-labours-of-hercules/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/harpercollins/poirot-omnibus-the-perfect-murders/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

Roald Dahl

(September 13, 1916- November 23,1990)

Few children’s authors have been as influential and prolific as Roald Dahl. Some of his works include:

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as well as Matilda

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/christmasgifts/charlie-and-the-chocolate-factory/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/christmasgifts/matilda/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

F. Scott Fitzgerald

(September 24, 1896- December 21, 1940)

Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age in many novels such as:

The Great Gatsby, Babylon Revisited and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Six Other Stories

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/christmasgifts/the-great-gatsby-2/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/modernclassics/babylon-revisited/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/bestsellers/the-curious-case-of-benjamin-button-and-six-other-stories/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

Ken Kesey

(September 17, 1935- November 10, 2001)

Kesey gained fame for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/modernclassics/one-flew-over-the-cuckoos-nest/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

H.G. Wells

(September 21, 1866- August 13, 1946)

Regarded as “the father of science fiction”, Wells wrote many novels, including:

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds

[button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/englishlibrary/the-time-machine/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]                          [button color=”blue” size=”small” link=”http://englishbookgeorgia.com/catalogue/shop/englishlibrary/the-war-of-the-worlds/” target=”blank” ]Buy the Book[/button]

Author Facts: Roald Dahl

As one of the world’s best loved children’s authors, the last thing you’d expect of Roald Dahl is that he’d be a real life James Bond. During World War II, Dahl got a taste of the bad guys, an action-packed lifestyle and a fair share of his very own dashing Dahl girls as a British undercover spy.

A dab hand in the RAF, Dahl took down German pilots single handedly. According to letters he kept during his time as wing commander, after a long day’s work, his sexual conquests ranged from the heiress of a Standard Oil fortune to a glamorous congresswoman, with countless other women falling at his feet.

As if that wasn’t enough of a Bond lifestyle for you, after a victorious career in the RAF, Dahl was sent to America to persuade the wealthy and influential that their country was needed in the war effort, and it turns out he was rather successful in the sheets there, too. Queue another string of willing women–even, as he told fellow philanderer President Roosevelt–the Crown Princess of Norway. So next time you think of Dahl as the jolly old author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the ever-so lovely BFG, just remember that when he was alive, he could quite as easily kill you–or your marriage–as he could write a successful children’s book.

Author Facts: L. Frank Baum

From flying Brits to flying monkeys, L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz, took a serious detour before making it onto the yellow brick road. Fifteen or so years before the Wizard of Oz was released, Baum had turned his hand to a dramatically different kind of book; specifically, one about chickens.It turns out that Baum was quite a chicken aficionado and his first book, The Book of Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs, which really did have that lengthy title, was all about looking after his feathered friends.

Now selling for more than $100 on rare book collection sites (and Amazon), Baum’s fowl non-fiction focused on what was an incredibly valuable breed of chicken. So strong was his love for the farm fowl that he ran a regular trade journal about chickens for months before he released his book. His love for the breed didn’t stop there. In the sequel to the Wizard of Oz, Baum brought in Billina; a sharp beaked, talkative yellow hen that replaced the beloved Toto. What a shame that his true passion never saw the same fame as his band of merry misfits.

Author Facts: J. K. Rowling

As one of the most famous authors in the world and proud penner of the fastest selling novel in the universe, J. K. Rowling is a literary force to be reckoned with. But do you know the story behind her initials? The author’s full name is Joanne Rowling, but interestingly, she has no middle name.

Sadly, the special ‘K’ comes from a suggestion by her publishers. They speculated that at the time of Harry Potter’s launch, a wizarding book written by a female author might put people off and thus keep the book on the shelves.