A List of 50 Secrets

30. Most prose writers should be discouraged from reading their work in public. See Somerset Maugham’s “Mr Harrington’s Washing.”

31. Moby-Dick sold fewer than 10,000 copies in Melville’s lifetime.

32. A secret is something that is only repeated to one person at a time.

33. The majority of bestsellers are ghosted.

34. Lists are the curse of the age.

The Guardian’s Robert McCrum has a delightful list of “Fifty things I’ve learned about the literary age.”

[Via]