Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve

Books

What are our favorite authors' favorite words? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? How can we judge a book by its cover? Data meets literature in this playful and informative look at our favorite authors and their masterpieces. "A literary detective story: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and intriguing." -Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By There's a famous piece of writing advice-offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in between-not to use -ly adverbs like "quickly" or "fitfully." 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 compared to other celebrated authors? What's more, do great books in general-the classics and the bestsellers-share this trait? In Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve, statistician and journalist Ben Blatt brings big data to the literary canon, exploring the wealth of fun findings that remain hidden in the works of the ...