In 2000, Gao Xingjian, author of Soul Mountain and The Other Shore, became the first Chinese writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. His novels and plays have been banned in China since 1986.

Believe it or not, Ba! Ba! Black Sheep was one of several working titles Margaret Mitchell used for her most famous novel, Gone With the Wind. She also considered the titles Tote the Weary Load, Bugles Sang True, Not In Our Stars, and Tomorrow is Another Day before finally settling on a phrase that she had used in the critical scene where Scarlett returns to Tara and asks, "Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia?"

In Hamlet (Act I, Scene III), Polonius offers the sage advice "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" to his son Laertes who is about to leave home.

Set in the distant future in which noble houses, in control of individual planets, owe allegiance to the Padishah Emperor, Dune tells the story of young Paul Atreides, whose noble family accepts the stewardship of the desert planet Arrakis.

The Shining tells the story of Jack Torrance, an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a position as the off-season caretaker of the historic Overlook Hotel.

With over 500 million copies sold, Don Quixote is the best selling novel of all time.

In The Tempest, Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, put him and his three-year-old daughter to sea on "a rotten carcass of a butt." Prospero and Miranda find themselves stranded on a small island, and Prospero learns sorcery from his books in order to help them survive.

The narrator and protagonist of The Hunger Games is Katniss Everdeen who becomes the "tribute" from District 12 and is forced to battle tributes from other districts in a deadly televised game show.

One of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, Hercule Poirot appeared in 33 novels, one play, and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.

Rose of Sharon eventually delivers a stillborn baby, probably due to malnutrition.