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.

HOW did that make it into print?!

Oh, you would be surprised! (Have you not seem Elf? )

I've found my people!

I've just read a Jane Fallon book where the protagonist makes a big thing of meeting her friend outside the school she works in at home itme - lots of descriptions of the kids being collected etc...before making her way to intercept her husband in his lunch hour prior to his 2 pm meeting. It has really, really annoyed me!

Also read a Jenny Colgan (I think) book where she describes 2 types of mist on a loch - 1 is morning and 1 evening or something and then on the very next page swaps them around.

In Me Before You she wants to invite the guy round for dinner with her family but her Mum is reluctant because he is disabled and they don't have a downstairs loo. This is quite an issue, not just a throwaway line.

A couple of chapters later and she's talking about when her dad tiled the downstairs loo.

I forget the book but a main character studied English at an impressive university- that’s sciences only.

I once read a book in which fistula was used throughout instead of cannula.
Another had a supposedly modern day British man visit an inn for a glass of ale, very jarring among the rest of the language used.

@Bamaluz

I once read a book in which fistula was used throughout instead of cannula. Another had a supposedly modern day British man visit an inn for a glass of ale, very jarring among the rest of the language used.

😂

Just popping down to the inn for a cheeky pint of ale before Corrie comes on.

It’s like some people get all their information about Britain from Benedict cumberbatch productions and the first episode of Game of Thrones.

Putting pound notes in her purse on one page. Ordering from Amazon a few pages on....

I live near Edinburgh and have read a couple of books set there recently where mistakes really annoyed me. In one the characters talked about being at school in S7, when the last school year in Scotland is S6. There was also a scene set at Waverley where the descriptions of the station were completely wrong compared to real life. Little things most people wouldn’t notice, but they annoyed me!

That's reminded me of a Sara Sheridan book where the character thinks that the New Town in Edinburgh is built of granite (it's sandstone). I was surprised to discover that Sara Sheridan actually lives in Edinburgh.

I have probably ranted about this before, but a while back I read a book where the two main characters meet in St Pancras, where one of them is getting a train to Scotland to go to Mull. Why he was in St Pancras was a mystery, as he should have been in Euston to go to Glasgow, or at the very least over the road in Kings Cross for the Edinburgh train. When he got to Mull, the friend that picked him up was concerned about it getting dark soon - it was meant to be about 8pm and it was mid-summer! The friend then later decided to take August to go touring with a band as it was school holidays - Scottish school holidays aren't in August. The author clearly knew next to nothing about Scotland, so why she decided to set a book there is a mystery to me. (The other main character was a deeply annoying wet dishrag of a woman, I only finished the book because I was reviewing it)

@PlanktonsComputerWife

Was the Father's Day mistake book set in the UK? If so, I'd email. But the day is celebrated on different dates in different countries. In Australia and NZ, it's September.

@curioushorse amazing work by that copyeditor. I bet she really loved the book, btw.

I have just noticed this spine on one of DD's Egyptian books.

Yes, the book was set in the UK. I'll dig the book out and email the publisher. Unfortunately, a sub plot in this book involves the protaganist's single mother trying to trace the father of her son - the decision to search is triggered by the protaganist saying something along the lines of "if only I had a father to eat with on Father's Day" - so part of that plotline might need to be rewritten.

I’m reading a book to the DC at bedtime which contains SO MANY grammatical errors - mostly typos I assume (missing words eg “most all” instead of “most of all”) but some glaring ones like someone carrying a “sack of flower”. Even worse, the author is an English teacher! We’re enjoying the book but it’s putting me off buying another from the same publisher - they have lovely covers but clearly terrible editing.

@AtomicBlondeRose

I’m reading a book to the DC at bedtime which contains SO MANY grammatical errors - mostly typos I assume (missing words eg “most all” instead of “most of all”) but some glaring ones like someone carrying a “sack of flower”. Even worse, the author is an English teacher! We’re enjoying the book but it’s putting me off buying another from the same publisher - they have lovely covers but clearly terrible editing.

Spill! (I’m nosey )

@hopelessatthinkingupusernames & @PenCreed - yes yes and yes

Have read full thread to complain about books set in Scotland by folk who don't seem to know Scotland

I recently read a Ruth Jones book where one of the main characters was a teacher or headteacher of an Edinburgh school.

He taught year x their GCSE. Scotland doesn't have GCSE, and uses S1 - S6. There were so many mistakes in the book, but these glared as they weren't important to the story. So to crowbar in inaccuracies seemed odd. As odd as to write about a place without really knowing the culture.

I think she also moved Waverly Station, or rechristened it.

He taught year x their GCSE. Scotland doesn't have GCSE, and uses S1 - S6. There were so many mistakes in the book, but these glared as they weren't important to the story. So to crowbar in inaccuracies seemed odd. As odd as to write about a place without really knowing the culture.

Things like this annoy me because they’re so so easy to fix. You simply need to speak to one Scottish person and say does this sound good? Or just look up ‘Scottish high school exams.’ It’s really simple to catch them and I totally lose faith in an author writing about something they’ve obviously not done even the base amount of research in. It feels lazy.

Shame though as I’m Scottish and there aren’t enough good modern Scottish books in my opinion!

Has anyone read the original Chalet School books? They are full of mistakes like in one book Carola goes for a walk with the prefects & gets shown which house is Jo Maynard's but in the chapter before has been at the house visiting her father.

Students in books are ALWAYS in the wrong class for their age or even the wrong school! 12 year olds are either languishing in primary school or living a racy precocious life in year 9. Or they’ll be choosing their options in y10 or a teacher will be racing to teach “second years”. That’s when they’re not walking through the gates with the students every morning (and in one novel I read meeting a friend for a leisurely cafe breakfast on a school day - but had to hurry at the end to be in school for 9…)

I mean there are so many kids and teachers out there, this is hardly difficult to check.

in one novel I read meeting a friend for a leisurely cafe breakfast on a school day - but had to hurry at the end to be in school for 9…
Reminds me of the current TV ad with a guy getting up, going to a gym for a boxing session, then it's revealed he's a teacher as he strolls into class at 9am.
My dad's a teacher and it just makes me laugh, albeit hollowly.

I know it's not books, but the school comment above reminded me... Even the more-accurate-than-most 'Grange Hill' used to have the teachers simply stopping the lesson when the bell went and shouting the homework over the kids noisily packing away! Nobody ever said, 'Er, sit DOWN! The bell is for ME, not YOU!' as they would in a real school. I remember some of the later (90s) episodes were good at showing teachers leaving late (jn the dark) with piles of marking, though.

I mentioned over on the 50 books thread a few days ago that a memoir I've just read thought it was 'Cheney' Walk in Chelsea, rather than Cheyne. Also that Thackeray wrote a book with a hero called Henry 'Edmond'.

I suspect it may be an urban myth but I once read about an author who wrote a novel with a lead character called David, then decided at the very last minute to change it to Geoffrey, so did a Find + Replace All. Which was fine....except they'd forgotten the scene set in Florence in front of Michelangelo's David. Or, er, Geoffrey

@Kanaloa

He taught year x their GCSE. Scotland doesn't have GCSE, and uses S1 - S6. There were so many mistakes in the book, but these glared as they weren't important to the story. So to crowbar in inaccuracies seemed odd. As odd as to write about a place without really knowing the culture.

Things like this annoy me because they’re so so easy to fix. You simply need to speak to one Scottish person and say does this sound good? Or just look up ‘Scottish high school exams.’ It’s really simple to catch them and I totally lose faith in an author writing about something they’ve obviously not done even the base amount of research in. It feels lazy.

Shame though as I’m Scottish and there aren’t enough good modern Scottish books in my opinion!

I agree! So easy these days to google if you’re unsure. I once (just an informal thing) reviewed a draft where the author was insisting on brownstone buildings and policemen’s nightsticks in 1920s London. There were also wind-down car windows, which I was dubious about, but it took less than a minute to check that some cars did have them in the 20s.

Poor grammar and incorrect terminology annoys me. I've been reading Agatha Christie today and three times I have come across the expression "try and..". Its try to. As in attempt (in the examples I encountered in the text someone was being encouraged to do something, so they should "try to").
Also, "seagull". There is no such bird. There are many species of gull, none called seagull. If in doubt, "gull" is correct.

Are you my DH weatherwax?! People saying ‘seagull’ really irritates him (so I say it just to annoy him).

Chessie, if he works in academia, I might have met him.

@WeatherwaxOn

Poor grammar and incorrect terminology annoys me. I've been reading Agatha Christie today and three times I have come across the expression "try and..". Its try to. As in attempt (in the examples I encountered in the text someone was being encouraged to do something, so they should "try to"). Also, "seagull". There is no such bird. There are many species of gull, none called seagull. If in doubt, "gull" is correct.

Is it someone speaking? If so these might not really be ‘incorrect’ in the way errors like having a train station in the wrong town are.

People don’t speak in perfect grammar and of course lots of people use the word seagull. So if it’s in dialogue I wouldn’t really consider those author errors.

I have never seen Chekhov's play translated as anything other than The Seagull. Surely it's been sanctified by usage? I appreciate that birdwatchers have their own terminology, but most of us aren't ornithologists, though we have ALL had chips nicked by a seagull!

I am reading an absolutely dire modern teen grrl diary (written by someone aged 94 apparently) which is DD's diary. When was the last time you heard a 13-year-old gush "totally rad" and "cool beans!!" and bemoan the fact that a coke float is the closest thing you can get to an old-fashioned icecream sundae when you dine out these days?🤔