Do Books Ever Start on the Same Page Number?

Book Questions: Who decides on what page number books start?

Have you noticed that books often start on random-seeming page numbers?

My favorite historical fiction author is Julian Stockwin. In Victory, he begins chapter 1 on page 9, which is nine printed pages in from the front of the book. Chapter 1 of Pasha, his most recent age-of-sail book, begins on page 15, which again is fifteen pages from the front of the book. His paperback version of Seaflower begins chapter 1 on page 1, even though there are printed pages beforehand. In the uncorrected advanced proof of Stockwin's Tyger, to be released in October, chapter 1 starts out on page 1, even though there are printed pages beforehand - I have no idea how the final printed version of the book will paginate.

It's not without precedent. My paperback version of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird begins the story in chapter 1 on page 3, with man printed pages beforehand. Mitch Album's best seller Tuesdays with Morrie (1997) begins the story on page 1. Yann Martel's Life of Pi begins on page 3.

My favorite humor author, Christopher Moore, begins such stories as Lamb, Fluke, and The Stupedist Angel on page 1, as would I expect him to do in his new novel out August 25, Secondhand Souls. "I always start with 1. It's how I roll," he says.

However, there are book style guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, that recommend that the first page of text be page 1 (except for excessive front matter like forewards, which they prefer lower case roman numbers).

So who gets to make the decision about which page number starts the book? "Book layout is down to the designer chosen by the publisher," says Stockwin, whose books publish around the world. "Generally the meat of a book will begin on page 1 but this can vary, depending on house style of a particular publisher."

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

How Do You Mark Your Place in a Book?

Book Care: Marking Your Place Without Spoiling Your Book

I don't revere books, but I do respect and enjoy them and I take care to preserve mine. So when I read books I do as little as possible that might despoil them.

When I read a book, I use a paper bookmark - either an actual bookmark from a bookstore or a thin piece of clean paper. Note that if the paper isn't clean, whatever is on the paper can soak into the paper, despoiling it. And if any non-standard bookmark is too thick, it can warp or bend the paper. Metal bookmarks may look fun, but clips will deform the paper. (See my Gift Ideas on the sidebar for bookmark ideas.)

Someone once brought me a gift from Hawaii, a miniature surfboard that is meant to be a bookmark. It was made of wood and it was stained. But it hadn't been varnished and the wood smelled of the stain. The bookmark also wasn't flat, so while it was a thoughtful gift I couldn't use it because it wasn't flat enough and the residual smell of the stain would have transferred to the papers.

I definitely don't use paper clips, which will deform the paper, and as you work your way through the book it will leave an ugly mess out of the pages. I never bend the corners, a technique which has a similar effect.

To remember where on the page I left off, I position the bookmark over the paragraph where I will begin reading again. That means the bookmark may dangle out of the top of the book, the side, or the bottom. Most bookmarks have printing on them, and I pick a side that represents the side of the book where I left off. It's very easy picking up where I left off reading that way.

And the way I treat a book is the same whether it's my book or one I've borrowed from a friend, or a book from the library. The better we all treat books the longer they will last for everyone. A Facebook friend built a small box outside her home that serves as a lending library into which she places her own books, a great way to share her love of books with her neighbors or anyone else who passes by her home.

(Photo: Roberta King.)

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

One Book You've Read More Than Once

Book Questions*: One Book You've Read More Than Once

I've never been one to re-read books much. I keep a collection of books that I most love from having read them, and a few of them I have re-read.

• Certain Sherlock Holmes books and the Holmes doppelganger Solar Pons, for instance. 
• A book or two that I had a hard time getting through the first time or few, like Isaac Asimov's Foundation.
• Some science fiction by Larry Niven before I outgrew him.

But the books that I can earnestly say that I have re-read several times because they are beautiful and imaginative and soulful and breathtaking are the books by J.R.R. Tolkein, in particular, The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I've re-read The Hobbit a couple of times, but I don't find it as thrilling as The Lord of the Rings, even though it was the precursor and the build up to The Lord of the Rings.

The late actor Christopher Lee, who played the white sorcerer Sauroman in the Peter Jackson film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, re-read the trilogy yearly.

There are books that I am considering re-reading one day soon. I have a hard time re-reading because I don't like to revisit territory I have already covered, unless they are considerably well written. These are what I am thinking of devoting my fall and winter to re-reading this year:

• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The Life of Pi
• Thomas Kydd series (all 16 books!)
• Horatio Hornblower series (all 11 books!}

But then, I also want to leave some room in my free time for new books.

*Inspired by "Ten Questions About Books."

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

The Story of Kullervo: Tolkein Book Rediscovered!

Book News: The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkein
Rediscovered Book to Be Published

Exciting news for Tolkein fans: A newly rediscovered book by J.R.R. Tolkein will be published soon called The Story of Kullervo.  According to The Reading Room, the international version will be released in October 2015 but the U.S. version won't be released until next spring. When I looked it up on Amazon's UK website, it said the laydown date is August 27.

Among the details given by The Reading Room, it says, "The new story takes place in the same universe as The Silmarillion and, therefore, the entire Lord of the Rings saga."

Amazon.co.uk lists the hard cover book at £11.89, with shipping and handling to the U.S. at just under £7.00. At today's conversion rate, that comes out to just under $29.00.

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

My Favorite Childhood Book

Book Questions*: Favorite Childhood Book

I didn't read much as a child - most books were read to me: by my mother or by teachers at a very young age. I remember going to the town library and seeing books that I thought might interest me, but I don't remember actually taking out any.

It wasn't until I was in junior high school that I started a membership in a science fiction book club and ordered books, but even then I didn't finish reading any of them. Several times I tried to get through Foundation by Isaac Asimov, but I didn't make it through a full read-through until adulthood.

Then in high school, in my junior year, I finally made a breakthrough. At the high school library I found The Bedford Incident by Mark Rascovich, a speculative-fiction thriller so exciting that I couldn't put it down, and I finished reading my first book. In it, a reporter is allowed aboard a U.S. submarine hunter during a training exercise at sea that is drawn into an increasingly dangerous nuclear showdown with a Soviet submarine, and there is no escape for the reporter and no turning back for the crew of the destroyer or the submarine.

That remains my favorite childhood book, although it arrived late in my "childhood." I will forever remember it for awakening my love for books and reading.

When did you first start reading, and what was your favorite childhood book?

*Inspired by "55 questions about reading"

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

Go Set a Watchman: Begs to Be Read

Book Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

I have read all kinds of missives from people on social media and news site comment sections at how horrified they were that one of the main characters from Harper Lee’s beloved To Kill a Mockingbird had changed so drastically in Go Set a Watchman. Many were refusing to read the new novel published this summer. A few who had bought it were returning it to bookstores.

Let me set the record straight, having just finished reading it: Atticus Finch hasn’t changed. Scout has grown up and her world view has changed. So have we grown up and so have our world views.

Go Set a Watchman takes place several years after the close of To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout - her real name is Jean Louise Finch - has grown up, gone to college, and moved from Maycomb, Alabama, to New York City. As Go Set a Watchman opens, Jean Louise is returning to Maycomb to visit her ailing father, Atticus.

In growing up and moving to New York City, Jean Louis has outgrown her Southern roots. She’s really no longer Scout. And so, she rarely revisits her former home town. When she does visit she finds herself traipsing through old familiar territory with misty memory only to be disappointed at how much the town has changed in her absence.

What she seeks in comfort are the parts of Maycomb that always seemed stable to her: Her wise and god-like father Atticus, her stubborn and change-resistant aunt Alexandra, her strange but comforting uncle Jake, and the boy across the street who was her best friend and became her constant pursuer Hank. Yet in the end Jean Louise discovers even they aren’t who she thought they were.

Recoiled by what she thought she knew growing up, Jean Louise rebels on one hot summer afternoon. She confronts and condemns them all and is ready to leave Maycomb and all its residents forever.

Yet it’s those on whom she relied most in her life who come to her rescue and she finally finds solace and grace.

Many have condemned this book - many without ever having opened a page or read a single word - for being racist. They express dismay at Harper Lee for using language they deem deeply disturbing. But before you accept their condemnation, consider this: Go Set a Watchman was written before To Kill a Mockingbird. Both were written before the Civil Rights Movement made its strides in the 1960s but as troubles were brewing in the Deep South and resentment against Blacks and Civil Rights groups was high.

The character Atticus Finch would have been about the age of my grandfather, who was born around 1900. Jean Louise and Hank would have been about the age of my parents, who were born around 1925. My grandparents and my mother lived in South Carolina for a time, and there it was common to call Blacks negroes and colored and other terms that most of us today wouldn’t consider calling anyone. That’s what my grandparents often called Blacks, stunned that it was considered the wrong thing. This book reflects that culture.

Moreover, I can recall during my youth my grandparents and my parents saying many of the things I read in Go Set a Watchman, even living here in Michigan. Until the urban legends of those misconceptions about Blacks were cleared up, people continued to believe them. Today, those misconceptions are dispelled among most but not all Americans, and they explain a lot about the cultural wars we are experiencing today.

The fact that Go Set a Watchmen sat for decades unpublished means it is a cultural artifact that doesn’t necessarily reflect on Harper Lee today nor necessarily on the South as a whole today. But publishing the book now exposes us to it and allows us to read it and breath it and address it. And it educates a new generation to a point of view many of us may have missed over the intervening years.

But let me get back to a central truth I think many will have missed by not reading this book. And that is that Atticus Finch is not a changed man. He is the same character from To Kill a Mockingbird, but he is being seen through the prism of a grown child who is finally coming of age. And maybe this is really the point of the novel. This book is about the coming of age of Scout.

And if you loved Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, I think you will also love Jean Louise in Go Set a Watchmen. In the same way, if you loved Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, you will by the end of the novel love him just as much in Go Set a Watchman. 

For all these reasons, it begs to be read.

© 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.

Tyger: Much to Treasure in the 16th Novel in the Kydd Series

Book Review: Tyger by Julian Stockwin

an uncorrected advance proof copy

We are at sea again. Transported back to 1807 European waters under the command of Sir Thomas Kydd, captain of the captured-French frigate L’Aurore, we return to the comradeship of friends with names like Bowden, Stirk, and Dowd. All memorable characters that weave like threads through past Kydd novels.

But L’Aurore is no longer seaworthy and we have to give her up to the dry docks, and all our friends are set adrift.

There is hope of command of a new heavy frigate being freshly built, but instead Captain Kydd is given command of another frigate, Tyger, sequestered offshore because she has recently been the victim of a mutiny. It’s Kydd’s duty to bring this dangerous crew back into fighting shape under service of king and country, and thus is set the conflict underlying our keen adventures in this high-seas age-of-sail tale. We are at sea again at Kydd's side, his only comrades.

In this well researched, excellently detailed new novel, we wrestle with a restless crew, board sneaky merchant ships for prize money, battle enemy frigates that out number and out gun us, explore uncertain Arctic waters as winter sets in, and then there is the ambitious Napoleon to consider.

Impeded by England’s naval triumph at Trafalgar, Napoleon has moved east on land to conquer most of Europe. The crew of Tyger is sent to the Baltic to aid Prussia in its desperate final hours under siege by the French and their allies. Oh, that bastard Napoleon and his unrelenting French forces! 

Can Kydd trust his crew and officers in battle and in crisis? We voyage vicariously through Kydd’s mind as he fights doubts and imagines daring solutions. We experience life at sea and death in battle. A few friends even re-emerge. Tyger becomes the Thomas Kydd tale that we have all come to admire through fifteen novels, and now in a sixteenth. There are twists and turns, failures and successes, and as always, the triumph at his darkest hour of our favorite English naval hero.

There’s no hiding that I am a huge fan of Julian Stockwin’s Thomas Kydd series. If you like heroic tales, great sea adventures, the romance of the age of the sail, and the details of historical fiction, then you will find much to treasure in Tyger, the next wonderful addition to this series.

Tyger reaches bookstores in October. Prepare to board for adventure!

(c) 2015. Alan Eggleston. All Rights Reserved.