Don’t judge this book by its cover

OK, here’s our vote for worst book title so far this year: The Historian. Every time we saw that it was climbing the bestseller lists, our eyes glazed over from lack of curiosity. Some random Web surfing led us to this revelation. A show of hands, please—how many of you knew this book was about Dracula? How many wonder why, with such a sexy topic, the publishers chose this title? Why, after nearly a decade of painstaking research and writing, did the author allow this? We think the book could at least have been called Vlad in the Countryside, or The Secret Life of Count Dracula, or even something blunt like Bloodlust. But The Historian?  Please. School’s still out for summer, baby.

—Posted by Kathleen Sampey

July 26, 2005 | Permalink