Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal

Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

Data meets literature in this â€œenlighteningâ€ (The Wall Street Journal), â€œbrilliantâ€ (The Boston Globe), â€œNate Silver-esqueâ€ (O, The Oprah Magazine) look at what the numbers have to say about our favorite authors and their masterpieces.

Thereâ€™s a famous piece of writing adviceâ€”offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in betweenâ€”not to use -ly adverbs like â€œquicklyâ€ or â€œangrily.â€ It sounds like solid advice, but can we actually test it? If we were to count all the -ly adverbs these authors used in their careers, do they follow their own advice? Whatâ€™s more, do great books in generalâ€”the classics and the bestsellersâ€”share this trait?

In the age of big data we can answer questions like these in the blink of an eye. In Nabokovâ€™s Favorite Word Is Mauve, a â€œliterary detective story: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and intriguingâ€ (Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By), statistician and journalist Ben Blatt explores the wealth of fun findings that can be discovered by using text and data analysis. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and then he asks the questions that have intrigued book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authorsâ€™ favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichÃ©s? What makes a great opening sentence? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring?

All of Blattâ€™s investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to enjoy the book. On every page, there are new and eye-opening findings. By the end, you will have a newfound appreciation of your favorite authors and also come away with a fresh perspective on your own writing. â€œBlattâ€™s new book reveals surprising literary secretsâ€ (Entertainment Weekly) and casts an x-ray through literature, allowing us to see both the patterns that hold it together and the brilliant flourishes that allow it to spring to life.

Country	USA
Author	Ben Blatt
Binding	Kindle Edition
Edition	Reprint
EISBN	9781501105401
Format	Kindle eBook
Label	Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer	Simon & Schuster
NumberOfItems	1
NumberOfPages	289
PublicationDate	2017-03-14
Publisher	Simon & Schuster
ReleaseDate	2017-03-14
Studio	Simon & Schuster

Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

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