The most recent addition to the complete review is my review of Gerbrand Bakker's The Detour, now out in the US as Ten White Geese.
A couple of days ago I noted on Twitter both my annoyance at yet another book that is published under different titles in the US and the UK (the Dutch title, De omweg, is obviously a lot closer to the UK choice) as well as my confusion why there were only five geese on the front cover of the US edition (add in two on the back and you have seven -- and while it makes a bit more sense once you've read the novel, it surely is still unwise to enumerate a specific number of geese in a title and then not have the cover picture -- if you're going with geese -- reflect that; adding to the confusion the UK cover pictures a whole gaggle (in excess of any number mentioned in the story).)
This being the Internet-age, I soon received a response from none other than author Bakker himself, and while he couldn't exactly reassure me about the cover picture it was good to hear that he felt about the changed US title:
A couple of days ago I noted on Twitter both my annoyance at yet another book that is published under different titles in the US and the UK (the Dutch title, De omweg, is obviously a lot closer to the UK choice) as well as my confusion why there were only five geese on the front cover of the US edition (add in two on the back and you have seven -- and while it makes a bit more sense once you've read the novel, it surely is still unwise to enumerate a specific number of geese in a title and then not have the cover picture -- if you're going with geese -- reflect that; adding to the confusion the UK cover pictures a whole gaggle (in excess of any number mentioned in the story).)
This being the Internet-age, I soon received a response from none other than author Bakker himself, and while he couldn't exactly reassure me about the cover picture it was good to hear that he felt about the changed US title:
Yes I like it, or better put: I don't mind too much. It's like the nursery rhyme and it fits.(Of course, what writer hoping to break into the American market would be willing to admit that he thought his publishers were nuts with their decision ?)