Colonoscopy: Why Titular Colons are More Prevalent in Modern Literature and How it Might Affect Classic Novels

Quick commiserations to Ed Hawkins, who this week just missed out on the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year (see earlier blog) - but the purpose of this posting is to pick up on something else I noticed in this year's longlist.

It struck me that it's remarkable how modern books, and modern sports books in particular, rely on the use of a titular colon. In fact, five of the six books on the shortlist contain further explanation within their titles, and the same is true of 14 of the 17 on the longlist.

From what would ultimately be crowned the winner, Doped: The Real Life Story of the 1960s Racehorse Doping Gang by Jamie Reid, to Hawkins' own Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket’s Underworld (which contains a colon but omits any other form of punctuation!), it seems that using a colon has become the norm.

Although it's by no means a new phenomenon - look no further than Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character - what has been labelled by some as 'colin-isation' or 'title-rrhea' would certainly seem to be a growing trend.

Perhaps it's in part due to a greater acceptance of academic works, where the colon has long been more prevalent, or the greater competition for book sales and the resulting honed marketing efforts and use of terms that will more readily appear in search engines. Perhaps it's merely that the words that appear after the colon tend to be forgotten as time passes, as is the case with The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Whatever, the increasing use of titular colons has prompted some pretty witty reworkings of classic novels using the new format. Among my favourites I've found are The Grapes of Wrath, which becomes California Dreamin': Traveling Cheap in the Middle of an Economic Downturn, and Romeo and Juliet, which becomes The Teen Sex and Suicide Epidemic: What You Need to Know to Protect Yourself and Your Family. You can find more here if interested.

Is it something to get worked up about? Probably not. But I wonder if, subconsciously at least, there is anything in the fact that the vast majority of the 100 books I selected for my challenge were lacking in colons?

A review of progress

It's time to get back on the review horse, as no cowboy ever said in The Wild West.

Considering the fundamental reason for this blog's existence, to chronicle my efforts to read as much as I can, I've always found the reviews a bit of a struggle. When I was initially attempting to read 100 books in a year, the reviews got in the way of the actual reading, and then, since the end of 2010, I have proceeded with my life in the knowledge that some reviews from way back remain outstanding.

That said, in complete contrast to the sentiments above, finding unexpected literary links and writing the occasional non-review-based blog was among the most enjoyable aspects of the year, perhaps in part because it broke up those reviews. And thankfully, having re-read many of my reviews when I resumed this blog in August, I was pleased to discover that absence had indeed made the heart grow fonder and that I enjoyed going back to peruse my verdicts.

So, coming soon will be a veritable feast of literary assessment, analysis and opinion, including, at last, the final five books I've neglected for almost three years.
Those five books were: Road Dogs, by Elmore Leonard; Four-iron in the Soul, by Lawrence Donegan; Fevre Dream, by George RR Martin; Bush Falls, By Jonathan Tropper; and Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger.

What's more, because I've not given up reading over the past 30 months, here's a heads up of just some of the other reviews that will be coming your way in the foreseeable future: Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen; Bring Me Sunshine, by Charlie Connelly; Bounce, by Matthew Syed; How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran; The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstein; Trautmann's Journey, by Catrine Clay; Soccernomics, by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski; Just My Type, by Simon Garfield; and Eleven, by Mark Watson.

So, let's get to it...

A sporting chance of success

It's just turned November and in the sports book industry that means only one thing: the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award.

I love a sports book. If that fact wasn't reflected fully during my initial year-long challenge, it's probably because I was deliberately trying to broaden my literary tastes and select books more diverse than what I might normally have chosen. In fact, the few I did read (Simple Goalkeeping Made Spectacular, Lennie, Mankind, The Best After-Dinner Sports Tales, Penguins Stopped Play, The Beautiful Game, Jelleyman's Thrown a Wobbly and Wodehouse at The Wicket) were generally among my lowest rated.

Actually, looking back, the likes of Netherland, Even Money, Sex, Bowls & Rock & Roll, Crossfire and Outliers all contained strong sporting themes, so perhaps I didn't stray as far from the path as I thought I had. Regardless, there is less than a month to go until the winner of this year's award is announced, and I've just realised that I haven't read any of them.

I'm not just talking about the six shortlisted books either. There were 17 titles on the longlist, and I'm struggling to reconcile how none of them have thus far made it into my bookcase.

It's a bookcase that already contains 95 sports books (it didn't take me that long to count), excluding reference books. Even taking into account that 15 to 20 are related to Charlton that were mostly accumulated during my time at the club, it's a lot more than I thought I owned and, having just checked, contains almost 50 per cent of the previous 25 winners of the Sports Book of the Year award since 1989.

Unfortunately, going back to review them all would take forever and require thousands of words. I might go into detail about those I'm particular passionate at a later date if the mood strikes me, but while I'm on the subject, it's probably worth a few recommendations.

Going on the contents of my bookcase alone, if you haven't read Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby; A Season on the Brink, by John Feinstein; Provided You Don't Kiss Me, by Duncan Hamilton, My Father and other Working-Class Heroes, by Gary Imlach; The Miracle of Castel Di Sangro, by Joe McGinniss (provided you can stomach the Americanisms); and Friday Night Lights, by HG Bissinger, then you're missing out.

The first chapter of Hurricane, by Bill Borrows, is also absolutely brilliant (the rest of it is perfectly fine but struggles to match the opening), while the personal nature of this blog means I should also mention Stamping Grounds, by Charlie Connelly, for which I was chief photographer and in the pages of which I feature, and Many Miles... , by the same author, which I helped to edit and lay out.

At this point, I should also probably declare a personal interest in the 2013 William Hill Sports Book of the Year award, in that I know one of the shortlisted authors - Ed Hawkins, who has been nominated for Bookie Gambler Fixer Spy: A Journey to the Heart of Cricket’s Underworld (Bloomsbury). That I haven't read it already reflects poorly on me, although it's understandably taking me a while to get past the startling omission of any punctuation whatsoever in the title.

Anyway, the winner will be announced on November 27th, so good luck Ed. Until then, if you're keen to read some more recommendations about sporting books, look no further than this list (and the knowledgeable comments underneath) of the best 10 sports books you've never heard of.