Mismatched Titles

 Happy Top 5 Wednesday Everyone and also happy April as this is the first T5W post of the month which is great. My third month doing the T5W challenge and I still seem to be going strong which is great. They say to never judge a book by its cover as covers are not always accurate to describe the book. However, titles normally are reliable and we are often ok to judge books by their titles. Not always! This week's Top 5 Wednesday Challenge is about that don't describe the book at all. So in no particular order, let's get straight to it with the first T5W post of the month.

1. Of Mice and Men

The first book on this list is Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck which is a great classical book. This is one of the first books belonging to the American Literature genre that I read and it was great fun reading it. However, the cover tells the story just a little better than the title does although both the title or cover do not tell the whole story. When I first heard about this book and saw the cover, I did not even guess that it was about two ranch workers and I came up with ideas from it being about men and mice to the two men on the cover being prisoners who had escaped from prison. I now know however that the title comes from one of Robert Burns' poems as it links into some of the contexts of Steinbeck's novella.

2. Bi the Way: The Bisexual Guide to Life

This next book is actually the book I am currently reading at the time of writing and I think the title of this book is the most mismatched out of all the books on this list. Obviously, I will also go into the details of this book in my book review but I will briefly go over it here also. This book sounds like it would introduce newly out Bi people or people who are unsure about their sexuality. Furthermore, I would have thought this book would answer questions about bisexuality and spoke about things on a basic level. This book however just seems to be a bit of a rant on all things Bi and Bisexual people blaming Lesbian, Gay and Straight people for all their problems. Anyway, I will go into more detail about this in my book review. I do think that a better title for this book could be 'An In-depth insight into Bisexuality' or even 'An analysis into Bisexuality' to name just a couple of suggestions.

3. Stone Cold

This book is has a semi mismatched title. This is because although it does describe some parts of the book it does not give us much of an idea of what the book is about. However, when you see the cover along with the title it becomes much more apparent. The title on its own could suggest many story plots such as maybe a mountaineering story like the text 'Touching the Void' but it is actually about Homelessness particularly in London as well as the United Kingdom in general. Although this book does have the story element, it is still a very educational book that is trying to portray certain messages. When given the context of the book, the title just helps the reader think about how terrible it must be being homeless and how cold these poor people must be particularly in the winter.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird

This is another book which is a semi mismatched title and can be interpreted in many ways. On a basic level, the title may not mean anything to the book and may not hint at what the book is about at all. It is, however, a good bit of advice that Atticus gives to his children in the novel. Therefore, it could be used as a symbol to try and stop people from killing 'Mockingbirds'. Another interpretation is that Tom Robinson may be the Mockingbird in this tale and everyone knows that the punishment for his alleged crime is Death Penalty. Therefore, Harper Lee may use this title as a message to American society questioning whether it is right to have the Death Penalty and treat people differently because of their skin colour. However, going back to the subject of this post; at first, it is not entirely obvious what the book is about from looking at the title.

5. The Divine Comedy

Finally, on this list, I have Dante's Divine Comedy. This title in the modern day is very mismatched as for starters it does not hint at all what the poem is about. We know from reading the book that the Divine Comedy is about Dante's journey through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory but this is not at all obvious from the title. In the modern-day, the noun 'Comedy' is entertainment consisting of jokes and sketches to make the audience laugh whereas in Dante's time, 'Comedy' is indicative of moving from a state of misery (hell) to a state of happiness (Heaven or Paradise). Therefore, even in Dante's Day, the title of the poem is not 100% helpful to give us an idea of what the text is about. The titles of the three individual poems; Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso, are much more obvious what the poems are about.

Anyway, that is all for this week and I hope you enjoyed reading the post. Have you got any books where you feel the title does not accurately describe the book? Please do let me know in the comments section below as I would love to hear from you. Also, please do share this blog post around to your followers and friends to get the word out there and help the blog grow. Are you new to this blog? If so please have a look around at my other blog posts. Thank you for reading and I look forward to next weeks blog post.

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