Monday, August 13, 2007

Musical Title Talk

A while back on this blog, I reviewed a historical novel by Juliet Waldron called Mozart's Wife. Not terribly long after that, I reviewed a novel for the Historical Novels Review by Nancy Moser called Mozart's Sister. And on my pile of books to be reviewed is another for the HNR, again called Mozart's Sister, this one by Rita Charbonnier.

So if you're writing a novel called Mozart's Mother, Mozart's Aunt, Mozart's Niece, or Mozart's Mother-in-Law, you may want to have your publicist send me a copy, as I'm clearly on a roll.

Speaking of titles, are there titles that, through no fault of the poor author or publisher, just repel you? I'm that way with titles with the word "Song" in them, as in Susan's Song or Song of Apex. I have a book to review with such a title. It looks like a perfectly good book, and the title makes sense in the context of the story, but it's not one I would pick up in a bookstore if I were browsing because I've always found such titles irritating for some inexplicable reason. Maybe it's because when I was a teenager it seemed as if every other tearjerker made-for-TV-movie had such a title. Pure prejudice on my part, I know. Are there titles that just rub you the wrong way?

5 comments:

Sarah Johnson said...

You might want to put this book on your TBR pile too.

For titles, I just got a pile of Hilda Lewis reprints for review, and the ones with "Wife to (So-and-so)" in the title are just unappealing to me. As in, Wife to Charles II, Wife to the Bastard. I know they're old-fashioned, but...

Carla said...

Good question. 'Druid' is a pretty reliable turn-off.

Susan Higginbotham said...

Sarah, duly added! I think "Wife" titles only work if they're preceded by "The" and a possessive noun.

Carla, I think "Druid" would indeed make me turn the other way.

Alison said...

That's hilarious! Who knew Mozart had such a large family ;-)

Sarah Johnson said...

Agreed with you on the "Wife" thing. I can even think of an example or two.