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Oscar Winning Books, Literary Percentages and What If?

March 01, 2016 12:00 PM | Anonymous

By the time you read this, the 88th Oscars presentations will have aired. Publishers Weekly pointed out that six of the eight films nominated for best picture this year were based on books. PW also says, “We’ve often checked in on the impact a film release has on a book’s sales, and an Oscar win in a big category definitely provides a sales bump.” For example, last year’s Still Alice, for which Julianne Moore won Best Actress, resulted in book print sales increasing 19%, and Traveling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, for which Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor, saw sales of the Jane Hawking memoir, titled The Theory of Everything, increase a whooping 107%. However, the Sound Editing Oscar didn’t help American Sniper; sales of the book decreased 7%.

In other news, road/street maps and atlases sales are down almost 1%, again according to Publisher’s Weekly. Gee, do you think there might be a correlation to GPS sales?

Meanwhile, Romance Writers of America has determined that romance sales exceeded $1.08 billion in 2013. That’s 13% of all adult fiction sales. E-books accounted for 39% of romance revenue.

Did you know that Dr. Seuss, aka Theodor Geisel, didn’t care much for kids? He’s quoted as saying, “You have ’em, I’ll amuse ’em.”

If you are interested in science and technology, especially the quirkier type, you should check out (literally, from the Longmont Library). What If: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. For example, “How high can a human throw something?” After five pages of humorous theorizing and calculating, the answer is Aroldis Chapman, holder of the world record fastest pitch (105 mph) could (probably) throw a golf ball about sixteen giraffes high. Author Randall Munroe, the creator of xkcd.com, has also written Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words,  which can be found at our first-rate Longmont Library as well.

One book leads to another…

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