Unless you’ve been living under a rock or maybe bound with rope & blind-folded? You Must have clearly understood by now that we are talking about the phenomenon- 50 Shades of Grey.
1. Bible being still the biggest selling book in the world, the owner of the Damson Dene Hotel in the Lake District has opted to replace it in all rooms with the copies of 50 Shades of Grey. Apparently, it’s thought guests might enjoy them more.
2. The books that originally started out as Twilight fan fiction which was entitled Master of the Universe, before being completely rewritten as an original piece. Anastasia Steele & Christian Grey are based on the Twilight characters Bella Swan & Edward Cullen.
3. James used the pen name Snowqueen’s Icedragon when she first wrote the series.
4. Buyers of fifty Shades are predominantly middle-aged women.
5. The fifty Shades trilogy has sold thirty-one million copies worldwide, which has overtaken Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows & The Da Vinci Code as the bestselling books in Britain.
6. E.L James’ website includes the playlists of songs that helped stimulate her sex scenes. Every book in the trilogy has its own playlist & includes Britney Spears’ Toxic, Frank Sinatra’s Witchcraft & Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire.
7. James has never been to Seattle or Portland, where Fifty Shades is set. Alternatively, she used Google Street View to help her imagine them.
8. According to the experts, the books are more powerful than porn movies. Psychotherapist Rachel Morris said that if the heroine they identified with is both willing & in control, it allows us to imagine making the same choices & enjoying it, even if they’d run a mile in real life.
9. The Song ‘Sexy’ by Black Eyed Peas helped in inspiring E.L James to write some of the saucy scenes in her novels.
10. The rights to the fifty Shades of Grey movie were bought for a reported £3 million by Focus/Universal pictures.
11. To gauge whether or not the actresses could cope with the film’s hardcore subject matter, those who were being auditioned to play the role of Anastasia Steele had to read a monolog from Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film, Persona, famed for its erotic sex scene.
