National Book Month

October is National Book Month! Created by the National Book Foundation, October is National Book Month in an effort to help raise the profile of reading in American culture. The month-long celebration coincides with the Oct. 15 announcement of 20 finalists for the National Book Awards. The National Book Award ceremonies are held Nov. 19 in New York City. 2020 marks the 15th anniversary of the creation of National Book Month. For more information, visit www.nationalbook.org

To celebrate National Book Month, PPL has created a drawing on the large chalkboard wall located outside of the Computer Lab, and is utilizing the hashtag (#) #nationalbookmonth across their social media platforms. Patrons are encouraged to take selfies of themselves reading, of others reading, or just a picture of a book they love in general, and use the hashtag yourself, along with tagging PPL (@pplmedia on Facebook and Twitter).

To further celebrate National Book Month, along with an overall love of reading; here are some fun book/reading related facts collected from around the internet!

33% of all high school graduates never read a book again in their lives.

Theodore Roosevelt read a book a day, even while he was actively President.

Abibliophobia is the fear of running out of reading material.

The name “Wendy” was made-up by J.M. Barrie, specifically for his story “Peter Pan.” The name Wendy was never recorded anywhere until the publication of that book.

A lifetime of avid reading has been proven to reduce the rate of memory decline by as much as 32%.

Studies have shown that reading even only six minutes a day can reduce overall stress by up to 68%.

Reading just 20 minutes a day means you will have read an average of 1.8 million words in a calendar year.

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts revealed that reading makes you more engaged throughout your entire lifetime, in terms of exercise, being more cultural, and being more likely to vote.

Dr. Seuss invented the word “nerd,” first using it in his book “If I Ran the Zoo.”

There are currently over 131 million books in existence, which means Abibliophobes have nothing to worry about!

Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” was the first book to ever be written on a typewriter.

Per capita, the people of Iceland read more than any other country in the world.

The top three best-selling books of all-time are: The Holy Bible (an estimated 6 billion copies sold), Quotations from Chairman Mao TseTung (an estimated 900 million copies sold) and the first Harry Potter book (an estimated 500 million copies sold).

Happy National Book Month!