BookLikes

by Warren Adler

Like every author on the planet, I've spent endless hours mulling over creating titles for my work. One strives, of course, to be both memorable and honestly descriptive of the content.

There are also marketing aspects to be considered. The marquee value cannot be neglected since the book, especially fiction, must compete in the market place and be "discoverable" to the searching eye of the browser and the impulsive book buyer who scans bookshelves of those bookstores still remaining and interminable book cover images that clutter the e-reader "shelves."

Another wild aspiration that motivates the author is the possibility of a movie production of their novel and the limitations of the actual movie marquee. Anything more than a four-word title could be a dream killer. Imagine any great movie or TV adaptation based on a novel where the title of the novel is changed. I have been lucky in that regard with three of my works The War of the Roses, Random Hearts and The Sunset Gang.

The title's suggestion to a cover artist was, and perhaps still is, an aspect that had to be taken into account. The book cover design and illustration has always been an integral part of the marketing process and many fine prize winning designs have been an essential marketing tool for books in both fiction and non-fiction categories.

For books in categories such as romance, science fiction, mysteries, fantasy, zombie and vampire stories, young adult and children's books and all their sub-categories, the titles and covers must reflect the specific genre to clearly designate its content.

But for the author of mainstream fiction whose story line is not in any genre category, he or she must face the agony of choice. Many famous authors chose to name their books after a main character, and one can point to many successes such as David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Daniel Deronda, Nana, Mrs. Dalloway, Lolita, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Rebecca, Tom Jones, Clarissa, Robinson Crusoe and the most enduring of all, Don Quixote.

Some authors have chosen place names, countries, houses, streets, neighborhoods, destinations, bars, modes of transportation and myriad other categories as titles, too numerous to mention; Wuthering Heights and Tales of the South Pacific are typical.

Many of these, obviously, are classic novels that have stood the test of time but there are many character named titles that have passed on to obscurity.

Then there are the titles that are lifted from lines of poetry that the author believes are an apt choice to illustrate a theme of the novel, some of recent vintage like The Lovely Bones. Among the better known are A Handful of Dust, Of Mice and Men, Far From the Madding Crowd, Remembrance of Things Past, Endless Night and many others.

One title that always intrigued me was Catcher in the Rye, which takes its inspiration from Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet whose "Comin' Thro' The Rye" was a poem with obvious sexual overtones, a subject  much on the mind of the main character in the book. Another is To Kill A Mockingbird, which takes its title from a snippet of dialogue from its main character declaring that to kill a mockingbird is a sin. That title truly encapsulates the theme of that novel.

Believe me, I have had many sleepless nights trying to come up with titles that accurately nailed the content of my work. I've taken them from snippets of poetry and quotations from Shakespeare whose work is a gold mine of fantastic possibilities. Indeed, I found the title of my latest work, The Serpent's Bite, in that famous quote by Lear, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!" It hits the mark about the content of this novel with deadly accuracy.

I've always admired the titles of Hemingway, masterpieces of accuracy, nuance and subtlety. Few are better than A Farewell to Arms and For Whom The Bells Toll, and an all-time favorite of mine is Gone With the Wind, which is beautifully said and chillingly accurate. Another all-time favorite of mine is The Red and the Black, by Stendahl, subtly delineating the central focus of the main character's ambitions, the red of the Army and the black of the clergy.

Thomas Hardy was a master of titles: Jude the Obscure and The Return of the Native to mention just two of many. Some wonderful titles stick in my craw, not because they are not brilliant but, for some reason, I could never fully master their content. They are One Hundred Years of Solitude and Under the Volcano.

But then, by and large, a great title is an art form unto itself. Indeed, a great title does not necessarily signify a great book and vice versa.

It has always been a source of great curiosity to me to understand the psychology of "titling." Do titles really help in making reading choices or are they merely identifying pointers? I'd like to hear what you think.

Treadmill by Warren Adler 

Published: September 15th 2014 by Stonehouse Productions

Jack Cooper is an unhappy man; mind, body, and spirit. In the blink of an eye, he lost his job to the bad economy, his mother to a fatal illness, and his wife to her secret lover. Beaten, broken, and crippled by tragedy, he withdraws into total isolation, maintaining the simplest of routines in order to block out his pain. Cooper’s day begins with a strenuous workout at the Bethesda Health Club—his personal oasis where his mind and body are free—and ends inside his bare apartment, where Cooper escapes into his library of novels until he finally loses himself in sleep. Nothing more, nothing less. That is, until he meets the enigmatic Mike Parrish. 

Stolen from the hospital as a newborn, and passed around from household to household, Parrish has no official identification. To the government and the world at large, he

does not exist. He is an anonymous drifter, but also the first person who breaks through Cooper’s emotional confinement. Cooper finds solace in his friendship with Parrish, a man who understands his plight and is sympathetic to his pain. 

But then Parrish suddenly disappears, leaving Cooper to search for a virtually invisible man. As he looks for clues as intangible as ghosts, and chases leads as fleeting as shadows, his search leads him back to the one place he called his refuge: the Bethesda Health Club.

How much can be taken from a man before he has nothing to lose?

The book is available at Amazon. 

TREADMILL Giveaway 

Stolen from the hospital as a newborn, and passed around from household to household, Parrish has no official identification. To the government and the world at large, he does not exist. He is an anonymous drifter, but also the first person who breaks through Cooper’s emotional confinement. Cooper finds solace in his friendship with Parrish, a man who understands his plight and is sympathetic to his pain.

Win Treadmill by Warren Adler

 AMERICAN QUARTET Giveaway

AMERICAN QUARTET is the first book in the Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series. soon to be made into the new TV Series CAPITOL CRIMES.

When a string of inexplicable murders rocks the hallowed streets of central D.C., Fiona finds herself charging through shadows of a mysterious conspiracy. Faced with an investigation with no leads and a rising body count, Fiona's reputation as top investigator of the Miami Division is called into question.

Win American Quartet by Warren Adler  

  view all book on Warren Adler's author page