Lisa wrote a blog post asking if people ever confuse authors with similar names. This gave me an idea for a discussion post. At one time, I could not remember if it was Elizabeth Gilbert or Elizabeth Berg who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. It was Elizabeth Gilbert. I've read books by both, the most recent book from Elizabeth Berg being A Year of Pleasures in April this year.
I don't recall if I ever confused any other authors with similar names, but I am aware that there is an author named Steve Martini (I've never read any of his stuff) and know not to confuse him with Steve Martin (Yes, that Steve Martin. He has written some books).
Lisa's post reminded me of a post I'd done on the blog years ago (I wasn't participating in the Book Discussion at that time, BTW). I've seen others confuse similar titles more often than similarly named authors. Linked in that post is how people confused a book called Girl on a Train with The Girl on the Train. The second book is better known, but the first one received little to no attention when it was first published. Here is the original article.
Also in my original post, I pointed out how my now-defunct book club had chosen a book called The Silent Wife. They did not say the author's name, and when a member looked for the book on Amazon, she found two different books with that title. When we met to discuss the book, some members realized that they had read the "wrong" book. Many had found this one, but the one selected was this. A search on Amazon produced even more books with this title, including one from the Will Trent series. And as you may have seen one the books titled The Silent Wife was written by a Kerry Fisher, whose name is similar to that of Carrie Fisher, who though primarily an actress, also wrote books. The spelling of each one's first name, however, is different. I did not know about Kerry Fisher until this book.
Some of you may have heard how the YA novel Between Shades of Gray was mistaken for a certain popular erotic romance. Do I even have to say what the erotic novel is?
Which do you find more confusing--similar Author names or similar titles?
5 comments:
For a while I thought Steve Martin, the comedian, was writing books, too. I finally figured out it was Steve Martini.
It's probably good that I don't try to retain titles anymore. If I pick up a book I love, I might try to read more by that author. There are just so many similar sounding book titles. It's hard to keep track.
I had seen books with similiar titles and yes they are confusing. There are so many books with the same title that people don't even know about. I suppose this is why knowing the author is important.
What I really dislike is when a single books has more than one title - like US and UK books are almost always have different titles. I suppose people responds differently to titles.
I suppose some publishers prefer to use similiar titles on purpose to sell more books. I doubt anyone mind the confusion as long as it sells books.
Have a lovely day.
I was working at Barnes & Noble during the whole 50 Shades deal and had a mom come in with her daughter looking for the shades of gray book and I didn't know about the YA one, so I was like, um, that's not for teens. lol. I soon found the other one and now I love that author so much! Fun post!
I was one of the ones that originally made that mistake:) I'd heard of the YA but not the erotic romance. Though soon after it was all I heard about:)
Before I title a book, I do a search on Amazon. There's times, I think I have the perfect title to find out there's already a gazillion books with that title out there.
Post a Comment