Title Ambiguity

One of my bookish pet peeves is title ambiguity. What I mean by this, is when the author of a book dwarfs the title, or the latter is a character’s name. The image above is a prime example of both. Sometimes magnifying the name of the author is a choice, done to attract attention to a famous person’s books regardless of their quality. Other times it is done accidentally, through careless planning. No matter the reason, it is ANNOYING. I much prefer the title to be larger.

In particular instances like Silas Marner by George Eliot or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, even if one has read the book, it is easy to mix up the author and title. On more than one occasion, I have seen books like these shelved incorrectly at bookstores or libraries. Rather reasonably, in my opinion, the staff accidentally alphabetizes them by title rather than author, making it difficult to locate them when needed. Plus, you really can’t get a good idea of what a story is about if it is only a character’s name. Especially with the HarperCollins edition of Silas Marner, even the photo on the cover does not provide much of a hint towards the content. Neither name is female, so the little girl couldn’t be the titular character. Even if the title is larger, naming books this way can just be plain ambiguous. It’s just hard to tell which name means what.

I suppose my message here is to keep titles large, and to stop naming books so blandly.

This is the image source: https://www.harpercollins.com/9781443417662/silas-marner/