Tuesday is World Book NightandShakespeare's birthday (449-years-old) - 23rd April could not be more literary.
Ready your dictionaries and dust off your favourite childhood books and highbrow classics, as the world reminds itself the value of the written, printed and digital word.
In the spirit of spreading the love of reading, World Book Night will also be handing out nearly half a million books around the country.
20,000 volunteers will give away 20 specially printed World Book Night editions, of one of 20 titles, to people who don’t regularly read, or don’t have access to books. Over 23,000 people applied to be givers in a record-breaking year for the country’s largest annual book giveaway.
The UK is marking the evening with events in London, Liverpool, Edinburgh and Cambridge, featuring readings from authors such as Philippa Gregory, Jeanette Winterson, Rose Tremain, Mark Haddon and Tracy Chevalier, to name just a few.
London's World Book Night will be undercover with a Bond theme as actress Lucy Fleming will read from her uncle Ian Fleming's How to write a Thriller, followed by author David Nichols (One Day) reading an extract from Casino Royale.
In preparation for this colossal literary event, we want to whet your reading appetite - take a look at our top scandalous books, the publishers who got it embarrassingly wrong and 11 things you never knew about Shakespeare:
10 Scandalous Authors From History
Joris-Karl Huysmans (1848-1907)(01 of10)
Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours (Against Nature), is a landmark in early gay literature. Its gorging decadence and its protagonist's liaison with a beautiful youth appalled contemporary critics, but found fans among the new generation of artistic aesthetes - among them Oscar Wilde. In 1895 À rebours was used as an exhibit at Wilde's trial on 'sodomy' charges.PHOTO: Wikimedia
D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930)(02 of10)
When he died, Laurence was regarded as a writer of pornography who had gained many enemies throughout his life and spent much of it in voluntary exile. Even after death he wasn't immune from scandal, with the 1960 Lady Chatterley trial becoming one of the most famous literary controversies of all time when the book's publishers Penguin were tried under the Obscene Publications Act.
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (born 1947)(03 of10)
At the centre of what was perhaps the most famous literary scandal in modern history, Rushdie's The Satanic Verses provoked protests from Muslims in several countries, some violent. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā issued by Iran's Ayatollah in 1989.
Aphra Behn (1640-1689)(04 of10)
After working as a political spy and ending up in prison for not straightening her debts, this fair-faced rebel finally settled down enough to start a literary career. Along with two fellow women writers Aphra Behn scandalised the male critics by writing about women's sexual desires - they were called the "naughty triumvirate". Speaking of women of pleasure...
John Cleland (1709-1789)(05 of10)
When Cleland's erotic novel, Fanny Hill: or, the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, was first published in the mid-eighteenth century, he, his publisher and printer were promptly arrested. In court, Cleland disavowed the novel, and the book was officially withdrawn, not to be legally published again for over a century.PHOTO: Wikimedia
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)(06 of10)
When his overtly sexual poetry collection Leaves of Grass was first published in 1855, Whitman was immediately fired from his job at the US Department of the Interior. The book was considered profane and immoral in its exaltation of pleasure, but the bad press didn't stop Whitman spending the rest of his life writing and rewriting this American epic.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008) (07 of10)
Most controversial writers learn not to let the critics get to them, but Russian author Solzhenitsyn didn't have much choice. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 for his criticism of the regime and harrowing descriptions of life in a gulag, one of many dissidents to be forced to leave their country, but the only one to have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)(08 of10)
Being stabbed in a dodgy Deptford backstreet wasn't (believe it or not) the peak of this devilish playwright's scandalous career whose play, Doctor Faustus, was said to drive people insane. After his death his translation of Ovid was banned and copies publicly burned as part of a crackdown on offensive material.
William Borroughs (1914-1997)(09 of10)
Burroughs' semi-autobiographical book about heroin addiction, Naked Lunch, proved extremely controversial both for its content and its obscene language when it was first published in 1959. It was banned in Boston and Los Angeles and was one of the most recent American books over which an obscenity trial was held - though that's perhaps not saying much when we consider our next contender in the controversy charts...
Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson(10 of10)
When this duo published And Tango Makes Three in 2005 they couldn't have guessed the stir it would cause, or could they? The children's book about two penguin parents in a same sex relationship caused uproar amongst some adults in the United States, for its depiction of homosexuality in animals. It became America's most challenged book for three years running.
The Publishers Who Got It Embarrassingly Wrong
Oscar Wilde's 'Lady Windermere's Fan'(01 of25)
Lady Windermere's Fan was a hugely successful play from Wilde, but one publisher rejected it, with the rather polite, and shocked comment: "My dear sir, I have read your manuscript. Oh, my dear sir."
Anne Frank's 'The Diary of a Young Girl'(02 of25)
Anne Frank's diary only found a publisher successfully after being featured in a newspaper article. Before this, the famous memoir was rejected repeatedly, with one publisher saying, "The girl doesn't, it seems to me, have a special perception or feeling which would lift that book above the 'curiosity' level."
Irving Stone's 'Lust For Life'(03 of25)
Irving Stone's novel about Vincent Van Gogh went on to sell 25 million copies globally, but not before it was rejected 16 times, once with the announcement that it was "a long, dull novel about an artist."
D. H. Lawrence's 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'(04 of25)
Lawrence's controversial novel was a bit of a publishing nightmare. One publisher warned: "for your own sake do not publish this book". It was published eventually, but it took until 1960 for the full version to be published by Penguin in the UK - over 30 years after it was first published in Italy in 1928.
Anthony Trollope's 'Barchester Towers' (05 of25)
One publisher commented: "The grand defect of the work, I think, as a work of art is the low-mindedness and vulgarity of the chief actors. There is hardly a lady or a gentleman amongst them" when rejecting Trollope's Barchester Towers, before it was published in 1857.
William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies'(06 of25)
Presumably not foreseeing Golding's classic novel becoming a schoolroom staple, 20 publishers rejected it. One with the damning comment, "an absurd and uninteresting fantasy which was rubbish and dull." Try writing that on a GCSE English paper.
Joseph Heller's 'Catch-22'(07 of25)
Heller may have been trained in rejection from an early age; as a teen his short story was rejected by the New York Times. However, it probably still hurt when one publisher denounced Catch-22, saying: "I haven't the foggiest idea about what the man is trying to say...Apparently the author intends it to be funny - possibly even satire - but it is really not funny on any intellectual level."
J.G. Ballard's 'Crash'(08 of25)
One publisher rejected Ballard's dystopian novel with the note, "the author of this book is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish." How did the author react? By regarding it as a sign of "complete artistic success."
Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita' (09 of25)
Eventually published in Paris (where else?), Lolita was rejected by Viking, Simon & Schuster, New Directions, Farrar, Straus, and Doubleday. Originally cast away as, "overwhelmingly nauseating, even to an enlightened Freudian...the whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy. It often becomes a wild neurotic daydream...I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years.", the American version of the novel went on to be a bestseller, selling 100,000 copies in the first three weeks.
Anita Loos' 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'(10 of25)
Loos' comical novel was initially rejected, with this curt comment from a publisher: "Do you realize, young woman, that you're the first American writer ever to poke fun at sex."It subsequently because the second best selling title of 1926, a year after it was published, and was dubbed "The great American novel" by Edith Wharton. A musical and two film versions followed after. Poking fun at sex has never been so successful.
Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road'(11 of25)
Kerouac's famous journey novel was rejected repeatedly. While some publishers thought it "pornographic", another thought it would never catch on: "his frenetic and scrambled prose perfectly express the feverish travels of the Beat Generation. But is that enough? I don't think so."
Sylvia Plath(12 of25)
Tragic poet Plath suffered rejection a number of times, including from one publisher who said, "there certainly isn't enough genuine talent for us to take notice."We think she took it rather well, saying, "I love my rejection slips. They show me I try." IMAGE: PA
Rudyard Kipling(13 of25)
The San Francisco Examiner told Kipling, frankly, "I'm sorry Mr. Kipling, but you just don't know how to use the English language." IMAGE: PA
Jorge Luis Borges(14 of25)
One publisher claimed Borges was "utterly untranslatable". His global success would suggest otherwise. IMAGE: PA
Isaac Bashevis Singer(15 of25)
A submission of Singer's was done so with the comment, "it's Poland and the rich Jews again."The author went on to win a Nobel Prize. IMAGE: AP
William Faulkner's 'Sanctuary'(16 of25)
One editor exclaimed, of Faulkner's Sanctuary: "Good God, I can't publish this! We'd both be in jail." Nobody ended up in prison, but Faulkner's literary reputation was established as a result of it.
John le Carré's 'The Spy Who Came In From The Cold'(17 of25)
It's not unusual for first novels to be rejected, but John le Carré's went on to make TIME Magazine's All-Time 100 Novels list. The publisher who passed on the author with the comment, "You're welcome to le Carré - he hasn't got any future", presumably didn't imagine this.
Stephen King's 'Carrie'(18 of25)
"We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias. They do not sell." These were the words of one publisher who passed over Carrie, which King submitted when he was 20. By this point, he was fairly used to rejection, having sent off stories since the age of 16. He kept track of the rejection slips by sticking them on a nail, until he got so many he "replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing."
Kenneth Grahame's 'The Wind in the Willows'(19 of25)
The Wind in the Willows very nearly didn't get published. After several rejections, one of which claimed it "An irresponsible holiday story", and a positive campaign from President Roosevelt himself, the much-loved story was published in 1908. Over 100 years later, it's still going strong.
Richard Adams' 'Watership Down'(20 of25)
On a ratio of rejections to rabbits associated with Watership Down, the rejections would probably win. Adams received 17 'no's beforebeing accepted by Rex Collings Ltd. One of whom claimed "older children wouldn't like it because its language was too difficult." It's since never been out of print, and is Penguin's best-selling novel of all time.
Norman Mailer's 'The Deer Park'(21 of25)
The Deer Park was nearly at the centre of a court case, after Mailer's publisher, Rinehard & Company rejected it for obscenity, saying "this will set publishing back 25 years." Eventually, the matter was settled and Mailer kept the advance.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'Great Gatsby'(22 of25)
Fitzgerald's principle character is arguably as famous as the novel he appears in, yet one publisher advised the author in a rejection letter, "You'd have a decent book if you'd get rid of that Gatsby character."
James Joyce(23 of25)
Joyce encountered many rejections - Dubliners was rejected over 20 times, and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was only published after he re-wrote it several times.
J.D. Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' (24 of25)
Before Salinger gained success with coming-of-age masterpiece The Catcher in the Rye, he struggled to get a collection of short stories published. After the publisher suggested the book would be published and offered a $1000 advance, Story Press' Lippincott Imprint refused to print. All of which, ironically, made the debut an even more brilliant first novel.
Chuck Palahniuk's 'Fight Club'(25 of25)
Fight Club was published twice - but only once as the novel we know it as today. Initially, Palahnuik's work existed as a seven-page short story, which then became chapter six in the full-length novel. It was a double success for the author, who managed to publish the previously rejected Invisible Monsters off the back of it.
11 Things You Didn't Know About Shakespeare
(01 of11)
Shakespeare's work contains the first recordings of over 2000 English words including elbow, lackluster and moonbeam.PICTURE: Artfinder
(02 of11)
He is also responsible for inventing a huge number of expressions still in common use today. These include: fancy free; dash to pieces; lay it on with a trowel; rhyme nor reason, and wear your heart on your sleevePICTURE: Wikimedia
(03 of11)
In Shakespeare's time theatres had no curtain and no scenery, and lighting was just daylight or candlelight, so the set had to be written into the play and described by the actors.PICTURE: Wikimedia
(04 of11)
In 1613 the original Globe theatre burned down when a cannon shot during a performance of Henry VIII caused it to go up in flames.
(05 of11)
There is evidence to suggest that the William Shakespeare did not in fact write the Shakespeare plays: about 50 other candidates have been suggested, include Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford. Among those who doubt Shakespeare's authorship are Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud and Charlie Chaplin.PICTURE: Wikimedia
(06 of11)
The First Folio was the first extensive collection of Shakespeare's plays, and was published after his death in 1623. It is the only source for about 20 of Shakespeare's plays, which otherwise would be lost.
(07 of11)
Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, made gloves for a living but in the 1570s he was prosecuted four times for breaking the law by trading in wool and money-lending. PICTURE: Wikimedia
(08 of11)
According to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Shakespeare wrote about one tenth of the most quotable quotations ever written or spoken in the English language.
(09 of11)
When Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, she was already three months pregnant with their first child.PICTURE: Wikimedia
(10 of11)
Although he spelled it all kinds of ways throughout his life (such as Willm Shaksp and William Shakspere) he never actually signed his name 'William Shakespeare'. PICTURE: Wikimedia
(11 of11)
The family line ended in 1670 when Shakespeare's daughter Judith died. She was the only one of his three children to have children, and they all died young. PICTURE: Wikimedia