Fun Facts – 8 January 2014

Fun Fact #1

Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E" is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright.

The novel is written as a lipogram and, as the title suggests, does not include words that contain the letter "e". Though self-published and little-noticed in its time, the book is a favourite of fans of constrained writing and is a sought-after rarity among some book collectors.

Fun Fact #2

There is a man in Nanjing, China who has saved more than 144 lives, though he is not a doctor.

Since 2003, Chen Si has spent every weekend on the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, a notorious spot from which to commit suicide. He patrols the bridge on foot looking for people who may be attempting to commit suicide and does his best to help. Often this just requires talking to them for a while.