A Book By Any Other Name

I think it should be abundantly obvious by now that I read. A lot. When I go into a bookstore or browse online, sometimes I'm looking for a specific book, but sometimes I'm also just looking. I'll wander by the paperbacks table or through the discount section, looking for anything that jumps out at me. There are several books I've bought and read because I thought the title was intriguing.

A book's title is one of the first things the public sees. A good, captivating title will hook you right away and compel you to read the book, even if you don't know anything else about it. I remember bloggers and fans alike dissecting every letter and meaning when the Harry Potter titles were released before the book itself. Who was the Half-Blood Prince? What were the Deathly Hallows? Did the Goblet of Fire really contain fire or was it a metaphor? Or a simile?

For all of the attention some book titles get, most people don't usually consider where the title comes from. I think most people assume they'll figure it out once they read the book. But titles aren't always as obvious as we think they are. And one intrepid blogger set out to prove this.

Gary Dexter explores the history and story behind some of the best-known book titles on his blog, the appropriately-named "How Books Got Their Titles." His rules are simple: each post, one per book, gives the story behind a famous and/or well-known title of literature from around the world. The titles are not obviously understandable by reading the book itself and no books with quotes in the title are included. The amount of detail and research in these posts is incredible, as is the project itself. Gary has posted 80 titles in just three months, having started in March (whereas I've been writing in this blog since October and am only 12 posts ahead of him).

I highly recommend you take the time to read through all of Gary's posts, but if you want a quick introduction, here are the posts I like best: learn why Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 doesn't actually refer to the temperature at which paper spontaneously burns; find out about Joseph Heller's Catch-22 and why it was almost a Catch-18; discover why George Orwell thought 1984 was the year the world would go to hell; and find the history behind literature's best-loved silly-willy little ol' bear, Winnie-the Pooh (A.A. Milne).

Thanks to Readerville for highlighting this blog.

[Image from Getty Images]