For Whom the Typo Tolls: A Hemingway Pub Flub

Typos aren’t just for unedited self-published efforts. These days it seems like you can spot at least one or two in novels from the Big Six (soon to become the Big Five?). It’s another thing entirely, though, when there’s a typo on the book’s cover. Even worse when it’s the title. Even worse when it’s one of the classics of American literature.

Close, but no cigar.

This copy of For Whom the Bells Toll appeared at the used bookstore where I work, and no, it’s not a spoof of For Whom the Bell Tolls. This particular title was spotted in a stack of books from the International Collector’s Library, with a note on top admonishing employees in so many words to stop putting high prices on such crappy publications.

It’s the publisher that’s crap, not the books. And not just because the copy editor doesn’t know her Hemingway. In fact, there’s not much collector-y at all about the International Collector’s Library, which was a branch of Doubleday. The quality is cheap, despite the faux gilding, and the spines have a propensity for cracking. The paper is acidic too, so unless you’re fond of yellow, they don’t age well. They’re the sort of books that look kind of nice if you have a lot of them on a bookshelf and no one looks very closely.

But back to that title. Where have I heard/seen that particular mangling of Hemingway before? Oh, yeah. On a friend’s Facebook post.

Perhaps whoever signed off on the book binding was just a huge fan of mod fashion?

I’m still lamenting that I never saved a copy of Tess of the D’Ubervilles [sic] or the paperback by Ruth Rendall [sic] I once spotted, but if they appear again, you can be sure they’ll be posted here.

Seen any egregious errors in publishing lately? Do tell.

Nic Cage Inadvertently Teaches Biology to Serbs

Bizarre book covers are part of the book biz, as anyone who’s done time working in a used book store can tell you. That’s why I was amused, but certainly not surprised, to see this oddity that popped up on Twitter recently.

Nic Cage on the cover of a Serbian Biology textbook. To quote his character in Raising Arizona: "Well...it ain't Ozzie and Harriet." (Photo via Belgraded)

That’s no Photoshop gag --It’s the cover of a 1998 Biology textbook from Serbia, inexplicably emblazoned with Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter and their stolen baby from Raising Arizona.
 

How a pair of movie kidnappers ended up on the cover of a Serbian Biology book is up for debate, but Viktor Markovic from Belgraded (a website about Belgrade, Serbia and the Balkans) says the book’s designer told him it was “an honest mistake.”


This isn’t the first time Nicolas Cage has unexpectedly turned up on a book cover, though, as anyone who putters around on the Net reading both goofy celeb news and bookish things can tell you.

Cage as a military pyromaniac in 1814. (Photo via Buzzfeed.)

The actor --or his doppelganger, anyway,  also appears on the cover of this history book for young folks, The Story of the Burning of Washington.

This is one happy Redcoat. The Burning of Washington looks like a blast.

Maybe Cage can surpass Isaac Asimov, who (sort of) published in every category of the Dewey Decimal System, by being the first person to have his face emblazoned on a book for every category. He can certainly cross the 500s and the 900s off the list. 

Seen any weird book covers lately? Better yet, seen Nic Cage anywhere strange lately?

6 Scary Books for Halloween Gift-Giving: A New Tradition Everyone Should Adopt

Last October, writer Neil Gaiman proposed a brilliant new way to celebrate Halloween. Noting on his blog that there ought to be more traditions that involve the giving of books, Gaiman suggested All Hallow’s Read: 

I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy.

And to that, I (and I imagine most bookish types) say Bravo.

Giving scary books to friends and family doesn’t have to mean giving gory slash-’em-up books. (If you and your friends like gory slash-’em-up books, though, have at it.) These are six books I personally give the Book Dirt seal of approval. They’re moody, broody, atmospheric --and best of all: scary.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson


You probably know Jackson for her short story “The Lottery,” a favorite of the public school system and a masterful example of pre-Shyamalan twist endings. What you might not know is that Jackson was also a master of the American Gothic novel. More psychologically spooky than supernatural, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is domestic creepiness at its best and most beautiful, complete with poisoned sugarbowls, books nailed to trees and villagers of the torch and rake-bearing variety. You’ll be riveted as this story unspools.

The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale


Joe R. Lansdale is an odd bird. The author of tons and tons of books and stories, he penned the novella that the Bruce Campbell movie Bubba Ho-Tep was based on, as well as the Texas-based, street noir Hap and Leonard mysteries (with titles like Bad Chili). Lansdale turned literary with The Bottoms (Random House called it “a thriller with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee"), a depression-era novel that’s alternately folksy and gruesome. It’s hard to say what’s scarier in The Bottoms: the murders or the Southern-style racism? All tie together in a disturbingly effective way.

 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The key to reading this classic horror story is to forget everything you know about it. Forget that you saw the Looney Tunes spoof or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In other words, forget that you know man and monster are one and the same. The concept is so ingrained in our culture that we use Jekyll & Hyde as an adjective (especially in front of “personality.”) The Victorians who first read Stevenson, though, did so without knowing the two were one. It was a shocker of an ending of Fight Club proportions. Read it with that in mind (or not in mind, really), and you’ll understand what thrilled your ancestors so much.

A Judgement in Stone by Ruth Rendell 


“Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write.” That’s the first line of A Judgement in Stone, and it’s one of the best mystery openers I’ve ever encountered. Not only because it demands that you keep reading, but it lays out everything right from the get-go. The rest of the novel is a whydunnit, and knowing what’s in store for the Coverdales drives rather than hinders the telling. 

The House With a Clock In Its Walls by John Bellairs


Oh, to be ten again and read Bellairs for the first time! There aren’t nearly enough gothic horror novels for pre-teens (what there is gets squeezed off the shelf by sparkly vampires and gossipy girls), and the genre may have peaked in 1973 with Bellairs smart, spooky series. I remember being drawn in by the Edward Gorey line drawings and nifty proper names like Barnavelt and Zebedee. If you know a kid who really loves reading, make this a gift, or if you don’t mind reading young adult fiction yourself, prepare to be chillingly charmed.

Ghost Stories of M.R. James


You can’t have Halloween without some ghosts, and if anyone perfected the ghost story, it was M.R. James. Also known for his work as an antiquary (with Medieval documents, no less), James moved the ghost story out of the dusty Victorian era and into the modern world. James’ ghosts aren’t so much supernatural as they are a part of everyday existence, often summoned through an ancient tome or in a library, which may explain his appeal to bookworm types. Give ‘Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’ a try, and you’ll never see an unmade bed in the same way again.

Do you plan on giving books for Halloween? What's the scariest book you've ever read? Post your spookiest selections in the comments section.

Jeffery Eugenides Looms Over Times Square; Sells Books to Women

Wall Street Journal

You don’t often see authors’ faces on billboards, so even Jeffrey Eugenides was surprised when Farrar, Straus and Giroux decided to hype his new book The Marriage Plot with a Times Square ad. It’s a refreshing sight, but it’s also a throwback to a time when we treated writers a little more like we ought to --like rock stars.

It's not like 1971 anymore, when Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal got into a literal fistfight on the Dick Cavett show.  How long has it been since two writers faced off on a talk show? When Jonathan Franzen appeared on the cover of Time last year, he was the first writer in ten years to do so. So, more of this, I say. Our writers ought to be our idols.

The Eugenides billboard brings up another point, though. Take a good look at how the billboard is designed, and at how the book appears to be marketing itself. From the wedding ring on the cover to the frilly font and the posing of Eugenides himself as a sex god, The Marriage Plot (note the title, too --sounds madcap) is clearly aimed at women.

Wedding ring covers: pretty much an indicator of marketing to women.

Just to make it extra-clear that the billboard is more yin than yang, I did a Google search to see what sorts of things are described as “swoon-worthy.” 

Swoon-worthy things, according to Google:

• Zac Efron shirtless
• the cast of Twilight
• wine and sunsets
• lace-trimmed outfits
• cakes
• wedding dresses
• lavender sweatpants
• a pistachio-colored handbag
• boyfriends doing the cooking

Is it me, or do those seem a tad on the girls’ team?

I bring all this up because a few female authors of late have taken umbrage at the packaging of their books, complaining that the marketing strategy is too female, and that the publishers are selling the authors short. Most recently Polly Courtney dropped her publisher because of cover art she claimed made her novels seem like chick-lit.

The cover that was the last straw for Polly Courtney.

If anything makes Polly Courtney’s novels seem like chick-lit, it might actually be the novels themselves. While they may not have the fashion designer namedropping, they do have amnesiac women torn between two men or feisty women working in a man’s world. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these storylines (this isn’t a criticism of Coutney’s work or genre), but they do seem aimed at women. Chick-lit review sites concur that her book is par for the course with what they read and review.

Courtney isn’t a literary writer or a particularly ground-breaking one. Eugenides actually is (That’s his Pulitzer talking, not me.) It’s a distinction worth noting because it raises the question: Why isn’t Eugenides upset that his books are being marketed toward women? He certainly could argue that the publisher is narrowing his potential fan base.

The answer, though I can’t speak for Eugenides himself, is probably due to the fact that women make up a whopping 80% of the fiction market. With that in mind, why wouldn’t someone like Courtney --whose books are not going to close any gender gap in fiction reading by plot alone-- want to market to the people who are actually doing the buying and reading of books like hers?

Nicholas Sparks is another example of a man who seems pretty pleased to have his books marketed to women (his covers tend to have moody sunsets and couples-in-a-clinch). His estimated net worth is a cool $30 million. (His latest movie deal stars Zac Efron. Whether or not he’s shirtless will no doubt determine the swoon-worthiness.)

Nicholas Sparks: Marketing to the 80%.

Best of luck to Polly Courtney, but if she wants to succeed on a level like Sparks or Eugenides, she might do well to understand who her audience is and embrace them instead of looking down on them. She might also want to understand that book packaging has less to do with the gender of the author and everything to do with sales.

Do you think publishers are wrong to determine a book’s audience, or should the author have the final say? And which author would you like to see looming over you from a billboard? Better yet --if you were on the billboard yourself, which adjective would you want emblazoned across it?