could you read a book without a title?

[cacian]

Is a title important to a book?
and
do you see a future to books without titles?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Yeah.

[Trask]

That would be cool

[PeterL]

It would have to be called something, and that is all that a title is, In these times of ever more indexing of things I don't see a place for something that can't be indexed.

[G L Wilson]

Does a book without a title even exist?

[Darcy88]

I don't care much about titles. Its the book itself which counts. They could rename the Iliad Twilight vs Harry Potter - The Fabulously Epic Vampire-Wizard Chronicles and I wouldn't give two ****s.

[G L Wilson]

I don't care much about titles. Its the book itself which counts. They could rename the Iliad Twilight vs Harry Potter - The Fabulously Epic Vampire-Wizard Chronicles and I wouldn't give two ****s.

I'd give a sh**.

[billl]

Wittgenstein packaged some lecture notes and passed them on to his students (or something like that happened), and the set of notes were bound in a blue cover, eventually becoming known as "The Blue Book". Another such collection of his also came along, called "The Brown Book".

I haven't read either book, and my brief net research didn't turn up enough about the history of the book's evolution and exactly when it acquired a name, and if/when there was some moment before which it might've not been considered a book, and after which it was a book. Understandably, the focus is generally on the book's content.

But I do think it's, at the very least, tantalizingly close to having been a book with no title. However, if one were to order one now, one would receive a book titled "The Blue Book" (with those words actually printed in/on it somewhere), and perhaps its early existence without a title was in a form that wouldn't properly be regarded as a book.

[G L Wilson]

Aristotle's Ethics was unclassified there for a while as well.

[Paulclem]

It'd be called - "The Book with No Name", and might even have an operatic riff to go with it.

It might get into a three way duel with "The book with no content" and "The Book with no Book".

So long as Morricone does the music.:lol:

[G L Wilson]

"A good name is better than precious ointment..."
Ecclesiastes 7: 1

To ruin such a good joke as I've done here should be a crime.

[Hildegard52]

That would be coolhttp://www.datasea.info/avatar2.jpg

[Calidore]

It'd be called - "The Book with No Name", and might even have an operatic riff to go with it.

It might get into a three way duel with "The book with no content" and "The Book with no Book".

So long as Morricone does the music.:lol:

The Good, the Bland, and the Wordy

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I don't care much about titles. Its the book itself which counts. They could rename the Iliad Twilight vs Harry Potter - The Fabulously Epic Vampire-Wizard Chronicles and I wouldn't give two ****s.


I'd give a sh**.

I tend to side with G L on this one. :lol:

[Dark Muse]

It would not be practical for books not to have titles as it would make trying to purchase them near impossible, as how would one distinguish one book from another? Titles are useful and serve a purpose. Without book titles book discussions would also be laborious, as we would be reduced to saying "That book by so and so, no not that one, but that other one"

[Desolation]

"I really enjoyed that writer's third novel...Or, wait, was it his second...Maybe the fourth? Alright, let me check Wikipedia real quick...****, which book is it? Alright, well...It's the one with 328 pages. Ok, so he has three books with that many pages...The main character? He didn't actually have a name. None of the characters did. The author apparently finds it limiting to put a label on anything."

[Dark Muse]

"I really enjoyed that writer's third novel...Or, wait, was it his second...Maybe the fourth? Alright, let me check Wikipedia real quick...****, which book is it? Alright, well...It's the one with 328 pages. Ok, so he has three books with that many pages...The main character? He didn't actually have a name. None of the characters did. The author apparently finds it limiting to put a label on anything."

Priceless! :lol:

[Darcy88]

I tend to side with G L on this one. :lol:

I still don't give a **** about titles. Rename Crime and Punishment Barney and Friends Visit Sea-World and maybe I stick Goethe or Sophocles in front of it on the shelf, for the sake of others, but as far as actually reading the book, I would not care.

I like the ring of that Barney book. It can end on a cliff-hanger and the sequel can be titled Barney VS Jaws:The Final Confrontation. The first can be recommended for children, the second for young adults.

Hey if my career as a mime doesn't pan out I can always try my hand at writing new episodes when they revamp the Barney series, sans the bloody mortal combat featuring much collatoral loss of innocent life between the fuzzy purple protagonist and fictional giant sharks of course.

[cacian]

Does a book without a title even exist?

not sure but there is an idea.


I don't care much about titles. Its the book itself which counts. They could rename the Iliad Twilight vs Harry Potter - The Fabulously Epic Vampire-Wizard Chronicles and I wouldn't give two ****s.

LOL Isee
so how would you go about chosing which to buy when at a bookstore for example?...even harder online I guess...


Wittgenstein packaged some lecture notes and passed them on to his students (or something like that happened), and the set of notes were bound in a blue cover, eventually becoming known as "The Blue Book". Another such collection of his also came along, called "The Brown Book".

I haven't read either book, and my brief net research didn't turn up enough about the history of the book's evolution and exactly when it acquired a name, and if/when there was some moment before which it might've not been considered a book, and after which it was a book. Understandably, the focus is generally on the book's content.

But I do think it's, at the very least, tantalizingly close to having been a book with no title. However, if one were to order one now, one would receive a book titled "The Blue Book" (with those words actually printed in/on it somewhere), and perhaps its early existence without a title was in a form that wouldn't properly be regarded as a book.

the 'blue or pink book' still stands as a title.
without a title means there is no literature written on the front cover and no colour coding either.
an untitled book would have a blank cover and maybe a kind of a picture/a painting to illustrate it.
Actually I would love to be able to go to a bookshop where book covers had original painting on them to illustrate a story by the writer themselvese.
That would be my kind of booskhop or maybe a poem by the same writer of course and not someone else.
Either of the two will do...


[QUOTE=G L Wilson;1124154]"A good name is better than precious ointment..."
Ecclesiastes 7: 1
what does this actually mean?

To ruin such a good joke as I've done here should be a crime.
That's abit harsh isn't it?


It would not be practical for books not to have titles as it would make trying to purchase them near impossible, as how would one distinguish one book from another? Titles are useful and serve a purpose. Without book titles book discussions would also be laborious, as we would be reduced to saying "That book by so and so, no not that one, but that other one"

good question but I am thinking it would make for an excellent interesting conversation to try and describe a book without relying on a title.
something different I guess.

[G L Wilson]

LOL Isee
so how would you go about chosing which to buy when at a bookstore for example?...even harder online I guess...

I reckon that Darcy88 goes by the axiom: You can't judge a book by its cover. He is just not explaining himself right.


[QUOTE]That's abit harsh isn't it?

The joke was the preacher's, and not mine to ruin. I was merely interested in victory.

[Kingbob]

For readers，title can be a name of the book itself，but cannot be helpful to the whole reading. So I think it is needed on the whole，but not so important.

[Paulclem]

For readers，title can be a name of the book itself，but cannot be helpful to the whole reading. So I think it is needed on the whole，but not so important.

It's important for marketing too.

[kasie]

A book without a title would be a little like having a friend without a name: Do you know him, the man from accounts, no, not him, the tall one with ginger hair, you know, the one who went to Spain last year..... quicker to say Bob or Frank.

All books have a unique ISBN number but referring to 9780099548409 is rather more cumbersome than talking about The Troubled Man, though I suppose I could say 'Henning Mankell's last Wallander book'.

I do think titles are important (and this cross-refers to another thread). They can set up a resonance before the reader even opens the book: For Whom the Bell Tolls? Ah, here's an author with a measure of education, he knows Donne, he's going to be writing about the brevity of life, the universality of death. They set up expectations: The Amazing Adventures of Chevalier and Klay points the reader in the direction of Comic Books/Visual novels. They can catch the attention: I might never have read The Crying of Lot 49, Have the Men Had Enough?, The Earth Spins in B Flat, if I hadn't thought 'Eh? What on earth is that one about!' Or they can just rouse curiosity: The Troubled Man? Why is he troubled, what's bothering him, does he resolve his problem?

Also, when I'm writing, the story doesn't seem to crystalise until I have a title - do other writers have the same experience?

[stlukesguild]

I have read hundreds of poems that are untitled. I don't see why I wouldn't read an untitled book.

[cacian]

I have read hundreds of poems that are untitled. I don't see why I wouldn't read an untitled book.

It is interesting that poetry speaks for itself for it does not need a title.
A book should do so too and rightly so.

[Judith57]

That would be coolhttp://www.infoocean.info/avatar2.jpg

[Snowqueen]

I don't remember reading a book without knowing it's title, can't say anything about a poem.

[stlukesguild]

I would assume that a good many literary works... books... were never given a proper title by their authors, and were only later titled. Collections such as the Bible, the Arabian Nights, the Mahabharata, Canterbury Tales (?)... were often given titles after the fact by others beyond the author. Some titles are based upon the literary form rather like classical music (sonata no. 14, symphony no. 5). I wonder how many books entitled "The Lay of...", "The Romance of...", "The Tales of...", "The Edda of..." were given proper formal titles by their author? Was "Beowulf" the formal title of this text... or was this title added later... based upon the main character? What of "Job"? Or "The Revelations of St. John of Patmos"?

[Paulclem]

There were a lot fewer books then though.

As for untitled poems, they can be given a number as in the sonnets, or the first line is quoted.

I don't disagree in principle that a book might not have a title, but it would probably end up with one - perhaps the first line again.

[AlysonofBathe]

From a bibliographic standpoint, titles are required. Libraries and archives could not function without titles of some kind.

Cheers,
Alyson

[hellsapoppin]

Poems such as those of Emily Dickinson don't have titles. Perhaps someone will come up with a book that doesn't have one as well.

[GermanFan93]

A title is supposed to say something about the content of the book, and usually it's the title that makes the first impression on people. I would say a book without a title would perhaps make the book even more interesting, one could make up an own title to it. But when you already are making up a story, why not just give it a title as well?

[CarpeNixta]

I also have a book with "No Name" from Gustavo Adolfo Becker, who didn't put a title to his poems the title came after being published like "Rhymes".

But I like my books to have title so I know what book I'm talking about.

[martunia99]

I think a title is important because it gives you an idea what the book might be about but if the blur was still on the book I guess I could read it aspecially that some great books have bad titles.

[Italian83]

Is a title important to a book?
and
do you see a future to books without titles?

Hi! Really interesting...

Let's start from this basic consideration: to the publisher the title is even more important than the book itself... Here in Italy, which market I know pretty well, the definitive title of a new book is not the one suggested by the author himself: the editor or the publisher himself carefully choose the title, essentially based on the appeal on the market. (In the U.S. the title may be discussed with the "agent" I suppose, a figure that still doesn't quite exist here).

Having said that, I do really think that this question is very important because it makes us think of this other one: "why do we need a title so much?"
I guess I know that... because a title is something defining...
If you think about it, we spend all our life sticking labels to every sort of things, because it makes us feel more comfortable with them, because we're afraid of things we don't know...
I think I may compare a book with no title to a girl I date for the first time: there's nothing defined yet, I don't know who she really is, but I feel like I really want to "leaf her pages", and discover her universe page after page... that's challenging and exciting at the same time...

A book with no title is exactly the same thing as our lives... what title would you give to your life? None I suppose, as our lives are too complex and dynamic to stick to a title... Every possible title would just explain a part of it...

Also, I would suggest an experiment: we may all read the same book, then everyone has to assign it a title... I bet there would be many different titles, because everyone has their own sense and sensibility...

Manuel from Italy :wave:

[dfloyd]

I've never been knighted.

[Delta40]

I've never been knighted.

:smilielol5: you deserve a nomination straight away!

[hawthorns]

Yeppp

[Insane4Twain]

Sooner or later, even an unnamed work will get a title. Someone will recommend a work that starts with the line ___. As it turns out, papal encyclicals are named in such a manner. And for what it's worth, the Beatles' album with the white cover? The White album. Yeah, that's what everybody called it, although it ostensibly bore no name.

[susancollins]

I didn't seen the book without title. I think while reading a book the title is not matter, if the story was good then we can give our own title.