Sarah Gold

What's in a Title?

I think Peter Ackroyd started it in 2001 with London: The Biography: that is, the idea that places and things have biographies rather than histories or, more simply, stories.

American publishers, as is their wont, have latched on to the formula. In recent months I’ve had Philip Ball’s Universe of Stone: A Biography of Chartres Cathedral (FSG, July); The Building: A Biography of the Pentagon (Zenith, Oct.); Versailles: A Biography of a Palace, by Tony Spawforth (St. Martin's, Oct.) has just landed on my sehlf; and Mr. Ackroyd’s return in November with Thames: The Biography (Doubleday/Talese). And those are just the ones I remember.

It’s particularly illuminating to note how differently these books can be subtitled in the UK. Ackroyd’s new book was called Thames: Sacred River by its British publisher. And Philip Ball’s book is titled Universe of Stone: Chartres Cathedral and the Triumph of the Medieval Mind, which perhaps was feared to be too intimidating for American audiences. In fact, the British subtitle more acurately represents Ball’s tbook, which exolores how the cathedral embodies the medievalworldview. While millions of people may love the Chartres cathedral, far fewer will want to pore through Ball’s elaborations on medieval philosophy or the details of the master builder’s job, no matter how well Ball discusses them (and he does it quite brilliantly). Why not let buyers know what they’re getting? Isn’t that the job of a book title?

But back to the “biography”: Most baffling to me is Tom Gjelten’s upcoming Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause (Viking, Sept.). Can something as abstract as a cause have a biography?

Well, perhaps. Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary does seem to be accommodating: the third definition says a biography is “an account of the life of something (an animal, a coin, or a building).”

I guess it’s an occupational hazard of book review editors to become wearied by titles that quickly turn into clichés, whether it’s The X that Changed the World (X being anything from bananas to gunpowder).

Another is the dual “biography,” whicih also goeso back a few years: The Lady and the Panda or The Linguist and the Emperor. These are still coming, though in less profusion. The King and the Cowboy—about Theodore Roosevelt and Esward VII—is due out in September.

Are you a title trend-spotter? What are you noticing? Anything in the East, Pray, Love—Animal, Vegetable, Miracle mode for instance?

Posted by Sarah Gold on June 27, 2008 | Comments (8)