Happy 500!

Yes, this is my 500th blog post. Streamers and balloons and candles and so forth.

It seems an appropriate time to put forward a little puzzler – can you think of book titles with numbers in them? Bonus points if that number is 500.

A few to kick us off:

The 39 Steps by John Buchan

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

26 thoughts on “Happy 500!

  • March 7, 2009 at 3:34 am
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    84 Charing Cross Road
    1984
    Around the World in 80 Days
    20,000 Leagues under the Sea
    Slaughterhouse 5
    Three Musketeers

    I came up with those six before going to google (for only a few):

    Note: Wasn’t that 39 Steps??
    The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubb
    Tale of Two Cities
    One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
    One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
    1000 Places to See Before You Die (etc.)

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 3:38 am
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    Sorry about that! Not seeing your post when writing, I thought I remembered seeing 29 steps. Also, do numbers spelled out in words count. I started to not add those in, but did – and only included those found by googling if they were something I was familiar with.

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 8:09 am
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    Congratulations!

    500 Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington was one of my favourite books as a teenager. I must get round to reading it again, as it was really funny!

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  • March 7, 2009 at 9:42 am
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    The Big Four – Agatha Christie
    The Seven Dials Mystery – Agatha Christie
    One, Two, Buckle My Shoe – Agatha Christie
    5 little pigs – Agatha Christie
    The Sixth Lamentation – William Brodrick
    The Fourth Bear – Jasper Fforde
    1066 and all that
    44 Scotland Street – Alexander McCall Smith
    Three Cups of Tea
    Quartet – Jean Rhys
    The Third Man – Graham Greene
    The Sixth Wife – Jean Plaidy
    The Bookshop at 10 Curzon Street
    The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkein

    That’s all I can think of! No 500’s spring to mind. Congruatulations, I think I still have a birthday brownie or two, if you’d like them!

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  • March 7, 2009 at 10:18 am
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    Doing well, guys!
    And, yes, numbers spelt out as words count. They might even be better…

    I’ll throw some more in.
    Two People – AA Milne
    4.50 From Paddington – Agatha Christie
    101 Dalmations – Dodie Smith

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  • March 7, 2009 at 11:40 am
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    Congratulations, Simon!
    “Instances of the Number 3” by Sally Vickers.

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  • March 7, 2009 at 11:54 am
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    5 Children and It
    Nineteen Eighty Four
    84 Charing Cross Road
    Five on a Treasure Island
    Five Go to Mystery Moor
    (and all the other EB Famous Five books)
    The Secret Seven
    Secret Seven Adventure
    (and all the other EB Secret Seven books)
    Now We Are Six
    2001 A Space Odyssey
    And Then There were None (does zero count?)
    Seven Dials Mystery
    Seven Pillars of Wisdom
    Three Men in A Boat

    This is addictive – I must stop thinking about this and go and do something exciting like ironing or washing.

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 12:01 pm
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    One Hundred Years of Solitude
    The Sign of Four
    Three Men in a Boat
    Three Sisters
    1984
    Nineteen minutes
    Nineteenth Wife
    One Good Turn
    Four Quartets
    One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
    The Five People You Meet in Heaven
    Five Children and It
    (All of the Famous Five books)
    (All of the Secret Seven books)
    Around the World in 80 days
    One Thousand and One Arabian Nights

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 12:44 pm
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    What the Bible & Shakespeare:
    Numbers
    12th Night
    Henry IV Part 1 etc

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  • March 7, 2009 at 12:49 pm
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    Three Singles to Adventure
    One Corpse too Many
    One Pair of Feet
    One Pair of Hands

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  • March 7, 2009 at 12:59 pm
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    Three Men on A Plane
    The Short Reign of Pippin IV
    Six characters In Search of An Author
    Three Blondes (eek where did that book come from?)

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 1:08 pm
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    The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers
    The Three Clerks, Anthony Trollope
    The Fifth Queen, Ford Madox Ford

    At least, those are the only ones I could find on my shelves that hadn’t already been mentioned!
    Karen

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 1:26 pm
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    Everything I can think of has been posted already, I will ponder on, meanwhile, many congratulations and thanks for your blog, it never fails to cheer and illuminate.

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 8:21 pm
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    The 3000 Mile Garden
    13 by Sebastien Beaumont
    Sixpence House
    The Twelve and the Genii
    Half way to Venus (is half a number??)
    The Three of Us
    Thre Day Road
    1000 Nights in Venice
    One Pair of Hands
    The Seven Sisters
    26A
    Four Dreamers and Emily
    And Now on Radio 4…
    Love and Louis X1V
    31 Songs
    Two Caravans
    Three Times Table
    At Swim Two Boys
    1974
    One Fine day
    1599
    A Thousand Acres
    One day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch
    1921
    Instances of the Number 3
    The Power of Three

    Sorry, some of these may already have been listed,

    Carol

    Reply
  • March 7, 2009 at 9:25 pm
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    Here’s a few more!!!

    Child 44
    The 19th Wife
    8th Confession
    1481: The year china invented the world
    The Six Wives of Henry VIII
    The Four Loves

    Reply
  • March 8, 2009 at 1:24 am
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    Happy 500th–that’s quite an accomplishment! I think everyone’s taken all the good titles with numbers in them (meaning I’m too lazy to think of more!). Here’s to the next 500! :)

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  • March 8, 2009 at 6:55 pm
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    One corpse too many
    The animals went in two by two
    Three men in a boat
    The sign of four
    Five share a packet of crisps (unpublished)
    The sixth wife
    The Seven Dials Mystery
    Henry XIIIth
    The nine taylors
    Ten little indians
    The history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters.

    All for now

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  • March 9, 2009 at 8:48 am
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    Ooh I love lists:

    Pistols for Two – Georgette Heyer
    The Secret of Platform 13 – Eva Ibbotson
    Third Girl – Agatha Christie
    A Tale of Two Cities – Dickens
    The Three Clerks – A Trollope
    The Three Sisters -May Sinclair
    One Fine Day – Mollie Panter Downes

    and three of the Melendy series by Elizabeth Enright:

    The Four Storey Mistake
    Then there were Five
    Spiderweb for Two

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  • March 9, 2009 at 8:58 am
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    The Thirteenth Tale
    A Pair of Blue Eyes (am I allowed this?)
    Five Boys
    The Five People You Meet in Heaven
    Goldilocks & the Three Bears
    Three Billy Goats Gruff
    20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
    Seven years in Tibet

    I shall drive myself mad thinking about this all day!

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  • March 9, 2009 at 12:41 pm
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    I thought of a few more:

    A Thousand Spendid Suns
    A Million Little Peices
    Sixty Stories (Donald Barthelme)
    Twelfth Night
    Now we are Sixty

    Reply
  • March 15, 2009 at 5:41 am
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    500! Woot!!

    The Crying of Lot 49

    But no crying about your 500 post achievement.

    Reply

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