Get Free Shipping on orders over $89
Nabokov's Favourite Word Is Mauve : The literary quirks and oddities of our most-loved authors - Ben Blatt

Nabokov's Favourite Word Is Mauve

The literary quirks and oddities of our most-loved authors

By: Ben Blatt

Paperback | 8 February 2018

At a Glance

Paperback


RRP $22.99

$21.75

or 4 interest-free payments of $5.44 with

Ships in 10 to 15 business days

Nabokov's Favourite Word is Mauve is a playful look at what the numbers have to say about our favourite authors and their classic books.

Journalist and statistician Ben Blatt asks the questions that have intrigued curious book lovers for generations: Does each writer have their own stylistic footprint? Do men and women write differently? What are the crutch words our best-loved authors fall back on?

Spanning from Shakespeare and Jane Austen to fan fiction, JK Rowling and Stephen King, Blatt reveals the quirks and oddities of the world's greatest writers. 

This is a lighthearted, humorous book that uses numbers to inform our understanding of words to enlighten, to clarify, and, above all, to entertain.

About the Author

Ben Blatt is a former staff writer for Slate and The Harvard Lampoon who has taken his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, mapmaking, The Beatles, and Jeopardy! He is the author of Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve and, with Eric Brewster, the coauthor of I Don’t Care if We Never Get Back, which follows the duo’s quest to go on the mathematically optimal baseball road trip, traveling 20,000 miles to a game in all thirty ballparks in thirty days without planes. Blatt’s work has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and Deadspin.
Industry Reviews
'What fun this is! Ben Blatt’s charming book applies numerical know-how to questions of literary style, teasing out insights about cliffhangers, adverbs' 

More in Comedy & Humour

The Land and its People - David Sedaris

RRP $32.99

$26.99

18%
OFF
Dandadan, Vol. 18 : Dandadan - Yukinobu Tatsu

RRP $17.99

$16.75

Diddly Squat : The Farmer's Dog - Jeremy Clarkson

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Antiquarian’s Object of Desire : Love’s Academic - India Holton
Famesick : A Memoir - Lena Dunham

RRP $34.99

$24.99

29%
OFF
Delusions : Of Grandeur, of Romance, of Progress - Cazzie David

RRP $50.00

$38.75

22%
OFF
Kaiju No. 8, Vol. 15 : Kaiju No. 8 - Naoya Matsumoto

RRP $17.99

$16.75

Wicked : The Faces & Places of Oz - Universal Pictures

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
Sh*t Towns of Australia : Shit Towns of Australia - Rick Furphy

RRP $22.99

$20.75

10%
OFF
How to Piss Off Men : 109 Things to Say to Shatter the Male Ego - Kyle Prue
Dog Only Knows : The Dog Portraits of Alison Friend - Alison Friend
Ripley's Believe It or Not! 2026 - Ripley

RRP $49.99

$37.75

24%
OFF
The Little Book of Miriam : THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER - Miriam Margolyes
Disappointing Affirmations Deck : 52 Affirmation Cards - Dave Tarnowski

RRP $22.99

$19.75

14%
OFF
Undead Unluck, Vol. 24 : Undead Unluck - Yoshifumi Tozuka

RRP $17.99

$16.75

W*nkernomics : A Deep Dive into Workplace Bullsh*ttery - James Schloeffel