Ah but it wouldn't be the same if you could meet your hero, would it? A legend from a book may disappoint when you meet him and he's just a man.

But re TtoJF, it is, so far as I can remember, one of only two books of fiction mentioned in the entire series (the other is chick lit - Hearts of Flame. Maybe Egwene was reading that instead). Randland is weird already in that it seems to have hear-universal literacy even among peasants, but assuming that most of the population can both read and write, there should be a far greater demand for books, even if they are expensive. Of course, you could argue that Jordan was too busy with plot to bother with book titles, but he did seem to manage the time to squeeze in descriptions of every conceivable type of clothing, ever.

Secondly is how this one book - the Travels of Jain Farstrider - managed to become so universal. This world does not yet have printing presses (I don't think?) so who is writing all these copies of the same book? Why does every village and town seem to have one sitting on a mantelpiece somewhere? Why has this book (and this book only) defied the storytelling conventions of the age, which are overwhelmingly oral? Is it possible RJ had more in mind for Noal Charin?