I picked up a fiction book from our collection titled Is This What Other Women Feel Too? and was instantly intrigued. Perhaps by posing a question, regardless rhetorical or not, an answer is expected. That opens possibilities and expectations about the book. Of course, the question need not be answered at all (though I may feel a little cheated from that). Another title that instantly comes to mind is Philip K Dick’s seminal Sci-Fi work Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. I also fondly remember Judy Blume’s Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. How often do you get a book title that is made up of two sentences? So, I was curious and hence trawled the collection for adult fiction books with similar device for titles and found the following:
Remember me?
Author: Sophie Kinsella
Call No.: English KIN
N or M?
Author: Agatha Christie
Call No.: English CHR – [MY]
Note: The dame also title another book in question – Why didn’t they ask Evans?.
Will you please be quiet, please?
Author: Raymond Carver
Call No.: English CAR
When will there be good news?
Author: Kate Atkinson
Call No.: English ATK -[MY]
What are you like?
Author: Anne Enright
Call No.: English ENR
How far can you go?
Author: David Lodge
Call No.: English LOD
I also came across the following pair of books that made me chuckle (even though the subject matter is somber and somewhat disturbing).
Do you know the monkey man?
Author: Dori Hillestad Butler
Call No.: J English BUT
The sequel goes by
Yes I know the monkey man.
All featured book covers are copyright of their respective publishing companies.
Contributed by Lo Wan Ni, Associate Librarian, Public Libraries Singapore