(Photo credit: Frances Lincoln)
(Image above shows the front cover of a book sitting on a book shelf surrounded by other books. The title and author of the book, Why not catch-21? The stories behind the title. Gary Dexter, are shown)
Most book titles simply describe the contents of the book they are attached to. Crime and Punishment is about crime and punishment, and Brideshead Revisited is about revisiting Brideshead. But a small number of book titles have a rather odd, separate existence. The stories behind the titles are quite different from the stories behind the books themselves.
In his fascinating book, Gary Dexter looks at 50 such titles, from ancient Greece to the 1990s. The book grew out of a weekly newspaper column and Dexter’s short engaging essays, arranged chronologically, make it easy to dip in and out of the book.
You can find further details of Why not Catch-21? on the main catalogue, available in ‘Catalogues’ on the Library’s website.