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Title Deeds: How 50 Books Got Their Name

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LoveReading Says

LoveReading Says

Presented in chronological order, 50 short chapters each ruminating on the back story to famous – and some less famous - books and their titles. Over the book you gain insight into the authors and their lives and work. There’s a great deal of “I didn’t know that” to the stories Gary Dexter recounts and there’s much real pleasure to be had from his literary detective work that will add immeasurably to anyone’s reading pleasure.

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Why Not Catch-21?: The Stories behind the Titles, Gary Dexter
Curiosities of Literature: A Book Lover’s Anthology of Literary Erudition, John Sutherland

Reviewed by Sue Baker
Sue Baker has for many years been a regular non-fiction reviewer to the book trade and is one of Lovereading's founder book experts.
More reviews by Sue Baker
Non-Fiction Books of the Month

About Title Deeds: How 50 Books Got Their Name

Here we learn the real reasons for such unusual pieces of nomenclature as Douglas Coupland’s Generation X, Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger, Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. (This last was originally titled Alice’s Adventures Underground, but changed due to the publisher’s worry that potential buyers would think it was about child labour in the mines.)

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