Fewer than 50% of UK children aged eight to 17 read a novel outside class every month, research suggests.

BBC: Novels read monthly by 'less than one in two children'

Now, you might think of art as a novel investment class, but many European aristocrats have preserved their wealth this way for generations.

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His collection of short stories, Tales from Firozsha Baag, and his novel, Such a Long Journey, depict the struggles of working class Parsi communities.

BBC: Literary Mumbai

The most exciting news for the class of 2012 is that 17 drugs (46%) target novel modes of action.

FORBES: The FDA approvals of 2012: are we making progress?

The novel's narrator belongs, like its author, to the black upper-middle class.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

But once I started reading the novel it became apparent that Fellowes was writing about much more than the provincial world of upper class Brits clinging to rapidly disappearing social importance.

FORBES: Move up http://i.forbesimg.com t Move down

Rajaa Alsanea's novel, set in the form of a gossipy internet blog about four upper-middle-class Saudi girls and their calamitous love lives, was officially banned in Saudi Arabia when it was published in Arabic two years ago (and a lawsuit was briefly filed against the author, fortunately away in America studying dentistry).

ECONOMIST: Saudi fiction