Mistakes in books

[VictoryLap]

Almost every book I've read over the past few years has mistakes in it and it really annoys me! Anyone else?
I could understand if it was someone self publishing an ebook or something but these are Sunday Times Bestsellers etc. And not just one error, but multiple ones throughout.
I don't remember this happening so much several years ago or perhaps I am just more tuned in to it.

Food is another one. People in Britain in medieval times drinking coffee and tea and eating potatoes.

It was indeed a joke @NoSquirrels, but the good people of Royal Tunbridge Wells are also disgusted that there is no Waitrose. The author obviously thought that it was beyond anyone's imagination that there wouldn't be one.
😂

I don't think many writers have a good enough ear for dialogue that they can write a foreign character convincingly, tbh.

I was reading one of those Jennifer Wiener books, possibly Good in Bed. There was a British character who described her agent thus: "She may look like a Girl Scout, but she's plenty tough!"

I don't think many writers have a good enough ear for dialogue that they can write a foreign character convincingly, tbh.

And from the sound of it the proofreaders, editors etc aren’t going to pick it up either.

You could condense that to ‘I don’t think many writers have a good enough ear for dialogue to write a character convincingly.’

I think just because I read so much nowadays I inevitably come across some not so good stuff in between the good stuff, but stilted or unconvincing dialogue is a thing I’ve noticed in newer novels, along with very in depth description of stuff that doesn’t matter, making the book very long and bogged down in description that adds little.

@EmpressaurusWitchDoesntBurn

I don't think many writers have a good enough ear for dialogue that they can write a foreign character convincingly, tbh.

And from the sound of it the proofreaders, editors etc aren’t going to pick it up either.

It’s not their job to, in fact.

It’s the commissioning editor’s job to recognise good or bad writing…

Writers saying ‘slither’ when they mean ‘sliver’. Also, writing about people lying prone when they mean supine. Prone means lying face down and usually it’s obvious this isn’t what’s meant (e.g. there will be references to looking at the ceiling).

There are ways to address the language use issues, though. I was on a thread on MN once where a writer was asking about the nuances of how Americans describe bathrooms, restrooms, etc. I was happy to oblige.

I have a friend who reads an author's work to help the author ensure that the occasional Spanish phrases a character uses are accurate for the locale.

@SenecaFallsRedux

There are ways to address the language use issues, though. I was on a thread on MN once where a writer was asking about the nuances of how Americans describe bathrooms, restrooms, etc. I was happy to oblige.

I have a friend who reads an author's work to help the author ensure that the occasional Spanish phrases a character uses are accurate for the locale.

That was a really interesting thread, I remember it well. 'Toilet' only ever used to refer to the actual porcelain utensil, not the room it's in. Differences in English usage are so fascinasting.

Worst was a biography of The Queen for her diamond jubilee by a well-known British author & TV presenter (& a fairly "highbrow" one at that). I was astonished when it referred to a portrait of The Queen's father "painted when he was Prince of Wales". Er, no....... that was the whole point of what happened in her childhood!

I found several anatomical errors in an anatomy book. I emailed the author. Apparently they knew about it & said it was good to have a few mistakes as it kept the brain alert. Bloody ridiculous!

There are ways to address the language use issues, though.

There are internet communities dedicated to assisting writers with questions relating to British English, British life and culture etc. Mostly aimed at and used by fanficwriters - all those Americans writing Harry Potter fic.

I was astonished when it referred to a portrait of The Queen's father "painted when he was Prince of Wales".

In a non-fiction book, that sort of error makes me lose faith in the author. I once waded through a highly recommended book about the lead-up to the outbreak of the First World War. In the last chapter the author referred to Churchill as 'First Sea Lord'. If he could get a well known fact like that wrong (and his editor not pick it up), I wondered what other mistakes there might be that I wouldn't have spotted.

This is why I have given up watching locally-produced documentaries on any subject I happen to know about- there is always one head-slappingly stupid error in the first five minutes, it seems.

I was discussing this thread with my husband, and he mentioned a Thomas Harris book, probably Hannibal, in which a Sardinian is watching his beloved Cagliari were playing hated Juventus in Rome, and even American readers were going, hang on, Juventus are based in Turin. There was no possibility of such a fixture taking place in Rome, either. When he wrote it, the Coppa Italia was still a two-legged affair and the final wouldn't be held in Rome for another eight years.

Thomas Harris made a bit of a song and dance about how meticulously-researched his books were, which makes it funnier.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis!

Using the Jubilee line in 1940 is a particular highlight!

Connie Willie's book about a pandemic, Doomsday Book, was pretty good, though. At least she predicted that toilet paper would become a precious commodity. Margaret Atwood's Year of the Flood got that completely wrong- she said there was toilet paper readily available everywhere and it was the one thing nobody looted.😁

@FindMeInTheSunshine

One of the many things I love about my kindle is that I can report every single content error. I find it greatly satisfying. I've no idea if anyone ever reads them, but at least I feel I've done what I can.

Completely agree with PPs: the wrong names for the period and the jarring Americanisms from English/Scottish people. If you are an American who writes a book set in the UK, surely you should ask a British person to at least scan the dialogue.

How do you report an error?

@HilaryThorpe

I am enjoying The Thursday Murder Club, but am unreasonaby annoyed that it starts in Waitrose in Tunbridge Wells. It doesn't have one. I am disgusted.

Doesn’t it also refer to an ice rink in Maidstone? The ice rink is in Gillingham.

I read a book recently where the main character's husband, called sonething like Jonathan was randomly called 'justin', once, near the end. I thought 'wtf is Justin?' and searched as I was on my ipad. No other mentions, and from the context I worked out it was her husband. Infuriating!

I gave The Thursday Murder Club back to the charity shop as the punctuation was too irritating. Too many sentences unnecessarily ended with question marks? As if the narrator were a character on Neighbours? It was irritating?

I’ve just started reeding ‘A Winter Solstice’ by Rosemary Pilcher. It mentions about going to ‘the ocean’. That instantly grated to me - we wouldn’t say that. We would say ‘going to the sea.’

I’ve worked in books for about 15 years ( am now a freelance editor and proofreader) and, at the risk of sounding ancient and tweedy, standards are slipping —this were all fields—
It starts with in-house ‘editorial’ staff who don’t know the rudiments of editing/grammar/spelling etc. They send work to editorial freelancers who also don’t seem to know these basics, and when the freelancers send them back shoddy work they don’t recognise it and let it pass.
When I worked in-house, by contrast, there were frequent emails from one or other editor to all of us saying we shouldn’t use this freelancer again due to how many mistakes they’d made.
I proofread a lot of things that have purportedly been edited and copy-edited but I don’t know who by.

@Chickydoo

I found several anatomical errors in an anatomy book. I emailed the author. Apparently they knew about it & said it was good to have a few mistakes as it kept the brain alert. Bloody ridiculous!

I've heard it all now 😂

There's a wonderfully sentimental piece of discontinuity in Dana Stabenow's Kate Shugak series. A character who has always been described as short suddenly becomes tall. In the author's introduction she apologises and explains how she'd recently lost her father and, without thinking, projected him onto the character. The character remained tall after that.

@SenecaFallsRedux

There are ways to address the language use issues, though. I was on a thread on MN once where a writer was asking about the nuances of how Americans describe bathrooms, restrooms, etc. I was happy to oblige.

I have a friend who reads an author's work to help the author ensure that the occasional Spanish phrases a character uses are accurate for the locale.

I would say it’s an absolute must if you’re writing a character speaking a language you don’t natively speak. You have to speak to somebody who does.

Otherwise you end up with something like Enid Blyton’s French teachers who have to say ‘oh la la’ and ‘la petite sally’ and sound generally like an English person sending up a French person.

@DameAlyson

There are ways to address the language use issues, though.

There are internet communities dedicated to assisting writers with questions relating to British English, British life and culture etc. Mostly aimed at and used by fanficwriters - all those Americans writing Harry Potter fic.

I was astonished when it referred to a portrait of The Queen's father "painted when he was Prince of Wales".

In a non-fiction book, that sort of error makes me lose faith in the author. I once waded through a highly recommended book about the lead-up to the outbreak of the First World War. In the last chapter the author referred to Churchill as 'First Sea Lord'. If he could get a well known fact like that wrong (and his editor not pick it up), I wondered what other mistakes there might be that I wouldn't have spotted.

You’d think all those Americans would pick something up from the actual books? There’s very little you wouldn’t know from there if that makes sense. But you still see people online referring to Harry’s ‘pants’ or ‘sneakers.’ The book itself calls them trousers and trainers! It annoys me ridiculously because if I was writing about an American I’d know they lived in an apartment not a flat etc.