Free Now I Know More by Dan Lewis

book—the nonexistent book—took on a life of its own. Even though it didn’t exist, book clubs and book reviewers were talking about it, according to listeners who called in to Shepherd’s radio show. In a later interview about the hoax, Shepherd noted that a church in Boston had added the book to the proscribed list, banning parishioners from reading it. The attention around the book was so great that many retailers asked their book buyers about the title and in doing so, caught the eye of industry experts. This surge in popularity earned the title the notice of the bestseller lists, and, perhaps more importantly, of Ian Ballantine, publisher of Ballantine Books. Ballantine tracked down the mysterious origins of the title and contacted Shepherd.
    Ballantine, Shepherd, and novelist Thomas Sturgeon met for lunch and discussed making Shepherd’s joke into a real book. A few months later, I, Libertine —a 151-page novel in both paperback and hardcover—hit bookstores across the country. The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article about the hoax, so there was little risk of any readers being bamboozled, and in any event, the proceeds of the book went to charity.
    BONUS FACT
    The house where A Christmas Story was filmed is now a museum, open to the public year-round. (It’s in Cleveland, if you’re inclined to visit.) The movie notably features a lamp that looks like a woman’s leg clad in a fishnet stocking. According to the museum’s website, the lamp was custom-made for the movie, and only three were produced. All three were destroyed during movie production.

THE VERY BAD EGG
THE MISSING CHILD FROM CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
    In 1964, Roald Dahl published his third book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory . Seven years later, in 1971, it was made into a hit movie, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory , starring Gene Wilder. The story is that of a poor child, Charlie Bucket, who lucks into a golden ticket, one that entitles him (and his Grandpa Joe) entry into Willy Wonka’s famous chocolate factory. Four other children also find golden tickets and join Charlie on the tour.
    One by one, each child (other than Charlie) suffers an odd fate. The obese Augustus Gloop, unable to control his love of chocolate, falls into a river of chocolate and is sucked into a pipe—to be made into fudge. Another, compulsive gum chewer Violet Beauregarde, turns into an ever-expanding human blueberry, filling with blueberry juice. A third, the bratty Veruca Salt, is judged a “bad nut” (in the movie, the nuts are changed to eggs) and sent off to the furnace. The fourth, television addict (and aptly named) Mike Teavee, shrinks himself in a television transportation device. Only Charlie avoids a horrific accident. And all the children but Charlie are, on their way out of the factory, serenaded. Wonka’s servants, the green-haired, orange-faced Oompa-Loompas, gleefully marked the occasion of each child’s fall from grace with a song and dance.
    Miranda Piker—the straight-laced daughter of a school headmaster—was child number six. Her story did not make the final version of the book. In Dahl’s original draft, Wonka develops a candy that makes the child break out in spots—a fake illness designed to get the child out of a day of school. Piker objects and she and her schoolmaster father storm the room in which the candy is being made. Something explodes, and Piker and her father, by Wonka’s scheme, are turned into a necessary part of the recipe: “We’ve got to use one or two schoolmasters occasionally or it wouldn’t work,” he says.
    Piker’s story was cut, since the book publishers believed it to be too gruesome for young audiences. But a few years ago, the Times (UK) obtained and printed the excerpt, complete with the Oompa-Loompas’ song, which can be found on the Times website as of May 2014.
    BONUS FACT
    The actor who