Paul Whybrow
Full Member
Much as I love books, there are some things that drive me nuts!
1) Novels that are part of a series, but the 'Also By' information fails to say what order they were published in. The situation gets more confusing when the novel was originally published abroad, meaning there are two dates to consider.
I've written a series of crime novels about my Cornish Detective, and I'm of a mind to add a subtitle that tells the reader what number book it is. I prefer to read series in the sequence they were written, not wanting to learn of spoilers about what happens to the protagonist.
2) Glaring errors that should have been caught by the editors and the author. I recently read a crime novel set in Cornwall in which a troubled child was said to attend private school in Sennen (close by Land's End). Thirty pages later his mother drove him to his private school in Penzance—which is 10 miles away from Sennen on the other side of the Penwith peninsula.
I once read a thriller about a vigilante biker, in which he stole a motorcycle that he kickstarted. This model only ever had an electric starter. It was the equivalent of using a starting handle to get a car engine going. The author of this one-off novel was given as Anonymous—and so he should be! It was strange that a story which would appeal to motorcyclists, as much as crime fans, contained such a wild inaccuracy. It proved to me that Mr Anonymous had never ridden a bike in his life, but surely he could have done some basic research?
3) I've previously moaned about the trope of having a back profile of a figure walking away from the viewer on the cover of a book. If you want to drive your local bookshop staff mad, try arranging such paperbacks together. It won't take long, as there are hundreds of them, and it creates an unsettling feeling that everyone is leaving you!
Recently, I've noticed a lazy trend for book cover designers to create an image using several stock photographic images. I enjoyed reading another of Linda Castillo's excellent crime novels set in the Amish community. Among The Wicked was an intriguing tale, and though the cover design looked slick, there was something wrong about it. The picture credits showed that four different photographers had taken images of the sky, a field, the tall grass in the foreground and an Amish woman in traditional dress, including apron and bonnet.
To make her look a part of the scenery, the designer had removed her feet, inserting her into the grass—which had the disconcerting effect of a double amputee hovering on the spot!
Is there anything that drives you bonkers about books?
1) Novels that are part of a series, but the 'Also By' information fails to say what order they were published in. The situation gets more confusing when the novel was originally published abroad, meaning there are two dates to consider.
I've written a series of crime novels about my Cornish Detective, and I'm of a mind to add a subtitle that tells the reader what number book it is. I prefer to read series in the sequence they were written, not wanting to learn of spoilers about what happens to the protagonist.
2) Glaring errors that should have been caught by the editors and the author. I recently read a crime novel set in Cornwall in which a troubled child was said to attend private school in Sennen (close by Land's End). Thirty pages later his mother drove him to his private school in Penzance—which is 10 miles away from Sennen on the other side of the Penwith peninsula.
I once read a thriller about a vigilante biker, in which he stole a motorcycle that he kickstarted. This model only ever had an electric starter. It was the equivalent of using a starting handle to get a car engine going. The author of this one-off novel was given as Anonymous—and so he should be! It was strange that a story which would appeal to motorcyclists, as much as crime fans, contained such a wild inaccuracy. It proved to me that Mr Anonymous had never ridden a bike in his life, but surely he could have done some basic research?
3) I've previously moaned about the trope of having a back profile of a figure walking away from the viewer on the cover of a book. If you want to drive your local bookshop staff mad, try arranging such paperbacks together. It won't take long, as there are hundreds of them, and it creates an unsettling feeling that everyone is leaving you!
Recently, I've noticed a lazy trend for book cover designers to create an image using several stock photographic images. I enjoyed reading another of Linda Castillo's excellent crime novels set in the Amish community. Among The Wicked was an intriguing tale, and though the cover design looked slick, there was something wrong about it. The picture credits showed that four different photographers had taken images of the sky, a field, the tall grass in the foreground and an Amish woman in traditional dress, including apron and bonnet.
To make her look a part of the scenery, the designer had removed her feet, inserting her into the grass—which had the disconcerting effect of a double amputee hovering on the spot!
Is there anything that drives you bonkers about books?
This book is a fan favorite of my Tortured Love series. 
