Read to Lead!

Let me start by asking you a simple question.

What is so special or rather unusual about the following statement?

Eg. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

What’s unusual about this statement?

You’re absolutely correct if you said “This is a Pangram”

What is a Pangram? It is a written text deliberately composed of words with all the alphabets.

Now here’s the challenge: Can you write five sentences without using the letter ‘E’ which is the most common letter in the English language.

In 1939, Ernest Vinent Wright, wrote a novel “Gaudsby: Champion of Youth” with 50,000 words not using the letter “E”.

By the way, Have you noticed anything spectacular about these words? 

When someone says Hurry, have you ever realised this word was coined or invented by William Shakespeare? Similarly, words like boredom, disgraceful, hostile, money’s worth, obscene, puke, perplex, on purpose, these words were also invented by William Shakespeare. Until his time, people were talking without these words, can you imagine?

Just to tickle your grey matter little more…

Do you know which is the most boring book in the world?

Yeah… I could hear some of my boys telling it is the book I teach everyday.

Perhaps the most uninteresting book ever written is The calculation of pi to two million places, in 800 pages.

Which is the most expensive book ever purchased?

The world's most expensive book ever purchased was bought by Bill Gates at auction for $30.8 million dollars.

The title of the book is Codex Leicester by Leonard da Vinci.

Which is the most expensive book in the world?

The most expensive book is The Task by Tomas Alexander Hartmann. It has a value by the author for 153 million euros. That's about 213 million U.S. dollars. And the kicker, it's only 13 pages long.

Every published book is assigned a unique 10-digit ISBN (International Standard Book Number).

The final digit of any ISBN is included as a way for computers to make an instant check for incorrectly entered numbers.The check works like this: you multiply the first digit by 10, the second by 9, the third by 8 and so on until you reach the final, tenth digit, which is multiplied by 1 and thus stays unchanged.Then you add all the answers together. The total will always, if no mistake has been made, be divisible by 11. For example, the ISBN (International Standard Book Number (ISBN) of the first edition of Jon-Stephen Fink's book Cluck! The True Story of Chickens in The Cinema is 0907080154. The above process gives us (10 x 0) + (9 x 9) + (8 x 0) + (7 x 7) + (6 x 0) + (5 x 8) + (4 x 0) + (3 x 1) + (2 x 5) + (1 x 4), giving a total of 187, which is 11 x 17.The final digit of the ISBN is calculated specifically to make this happen.That is why some ISBNs end in X, signifying 10, in order to provide a total divisible by 11. 

Isn’t it interesting to talk about books?

But a recent survey in 2012 tells that 54% of children said they preferred watching TV for reading.

It is really saddening to watch children fall prey to

-          TV which is just 89 years old.

-          Internet which is just 32 years old

-          Facebook is still a minor celebrated its 10^th birthday last week Feb 4^th.

Get into the world of Books and develop the habit of reading. The worst crime than burning a book is not reading them.

TV is called an Idiot box not because it is an idiot but it makes us idiots. It doesn’t allow us to think, imagine, construct  but only watch it with mouth wide open.

Facebook is like a Fridge. Even if you know there’s nothing inside, you still open it every five minutes.

Yes, I find TV very educating, when someone switches on the TV, I go to my room shut myself and start reading a book, says Groucho Marx.

As I leave you, I leave this message with you:

I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense.

Keep aside your TV set and rather install a book shelf in its place and start reading.

Without Books, we have No History and No Future.

Have a wonderful day and happy Reading.

Thanks for all the books which I referred regarding the interesting facts. I owe everything to the books which I read through to get here.