A Novel - 

I subscribe to many Amazon newsletters and lately I’ve noticed a trend in novel titles.  So many seem to have the words "A Novel" in the title.  What’s that all about?  One recent email from Amazon listed 28 books and 22 of them had “A Novel” in the title.  From their recent Spring Reading list:

At Last: A Novel

Norumbega Park: A Novel

Half Blood Blues: A Novel

The Cove: A Novel

Five Bells: A Novel

Iago: A Novel

22 Britannia Road: A Novel

In Search of Lucy: A Novel

By Blood: A Novel

And from an email today --

Delicacy: A Novel

I’ve Got Your Number: A Novel

The Violets of March: A Novel

 Have editors and authors have run out titles?  I’m trying to figure out what the point is – perhaps in the case of In Search of Lucy, someone might think it was a non-fiction account of the American/French archaeological expedition that found Lucy (fossil find AL288-1), so to let the reader know that it is fiction, the description   “: A Novel” serves a real purpose. Otherwise, why?  

I suggest a new rule for fiction titles:  You can’t use the words A Novel in the title if it actually is a novel.

Speaking of novels, I recently breezed through a young adult trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer: Life As We Knew It, The Dead and The Gone, and The World We Live In.  They were entertaining, if slightly stereotypical, disaster/survival stories (heavy on teen angst and soft on earth science) about a meteorite that knocks the moon out of its orbit bringing it so close to Earth that tsunamis, erupting volcanoes, ash-caused winters without sun, disease, and other bad things happen.   Without a doubt the best scene of all three books was in the first novel, a day after the moon gets close.  The protagonist and her little brother are in school, (Dad has a second wife and lives elsewhere) big brother Matt is at Cornell and trying to make his way home to Pennsylvania (spotty electricity, no cell reception, gas prices sky rocketing, planes grounded, etc.).  Mom and an old but dear neighbor go to the school, take the two kids out, and drive to the nearest supermarket.  Mom unloads a wad of cash that she took out of the bank (so fortuitous to have a wad of cash in your bank account), drives to the supermarket where they are charging $100 a cart.  “Tiger Mom” points to son – You get cat food and kitty litter, fill up the cart, put it in the van, and go back and get more. She gives similar assignments to the neighbor and her daughter: food, water, and so on – and thus the survivalist mentality begins. 

As I read this, I began to get a little worried about how I would react to such a scenario.  Would I have the presence of mind to get to the bank for cash, load up on food, over-the-counter medicines, batteries, water?  What else would matter in a disaster?  I began to search the web for survival sites and I found that for only $4,625 I could have 50 cases of tactical rations.  Each case contains 12 meals.  I guess that’s 50 weeks at almost two meals a day.  It has a shelf-life of 5 years, with a few exceptions like "cracker spread" – whatever that may be.  I would need one set for each member of my family, right?  We'd need more than a small wad of cash for that. Some sites sold self-heating meals, some warned that selling real military MREs is not legal and they might be spoiled or outdated, some talked about caloric values, some had payment plans of $150 a month, some had 50 cases of 12 for only $2,900 – but didn’t include dessert or side dishes.

So, as I said in my last blog… I guess I am what I read – but I have not ordered any MREs………….yet.