cover image Now All We Need is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way

Now All We Need is a Title: Famous Book Titles and How They Got That Way

Andre Bernard. W. W. Norton & Company, $15.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-393-03694-7

This amusing anthology of anecdotes and commentary on the history of illustrious book titles by BOMC editor Bernard (Rotten Rejections) reveals the behind-the-scenes efforts of famous authors and editors to find titles for such classics as Bleak House and Gone with the Wind. Bernard highlights more than 100 books, including those poached from literary sources (The Sound and the Fury from Macbeth); those that arose from disputes between editors and authors (Farewell, My Lovely as a compromise between Alfred Knopf's Sweet Bells Jangle and Chandler's Zounds, He Dies); and those with clunky working titles like Trimalchio in West Egg (The Great Gatsby). Arranged alphabetically by author and interspersed with quaint black-and-white illustrations and lists of thematically related titles, this handy reference work should fuel cocktail party banter. (Jan.)