"E.B. White once said that "a book is a sneeze," and it's hard to disagree. Each classic literary work began as a germ of an idea, often conceived in the most unlikely circumstances and transposed despite critical indifference, personal tragedy, and plain old writer's block. But few sneezes are purely random occurrences. Arthur Golden knew he wanted to write about a geisha's family in Japan, he just didn't know how--until he met one. Stephen King needed an outlet to examine his own cocaine dependency, so he came up with Annie Wilkes; suddenly, he was writing Misery. Ann Patchett wrote Bel Canto after watching the Lima Crisis unfold over 126 excruciating days. If these are sneezes, then they are loud ones. Inside this book are the origins of 202 of the most famous books ever written, from Catch-22 to Curious George. Their histories are not just context clues, but inspiring tales in their own right--meant to teach, astonish, and galvanize. Spanning across every genre, from comedy to tragedy to science fiction, this collection offers origin stories for the works of luminaries like Lee, Dahl, Vonnegut, Wilde, and Faulkner. These books all found their way to the page thanks to the brilliance--and persistence-- of their writers and are a reminder that behind every story is an author with a story of their own."--Jacket flaps.