Dud Books

Mars Bar

Have you ever got a book that was printed incorrectly?

I am (or was) reading King Of Torts by John Grisham and got to page 330 and it's pretty clear that it's the end of a chapter. However, the next page continues as if it's not the beginning of a new chapter. I read the first few lines of the page and think to myself that I've read this line before. Look down to the page number and it's page 299 and continues up to page 330. After that, it picks up again at page 363. I'm missing 33 pages of the story!!

Manach

Once, twas a SciFi book 'Santiago'. Skipped ahead about a dozen pages. Timetravel - no, publishing error.

Coriolanus

Bill Brysons book, a short history of nearly everything, had about ten pages from 50-60 repeated and the pages 60-70 missing. pita

emeraldstar

^^^ Yep, me too. Must have had one from the same print batch as you.

x_Ellie_x

I've never had that happen with a hard/paperback I was reading but I had it happen with a school book back when I was in secondary. It was my maths book. I think it had something like two chapter 16's and no chapter 17. Half the school year had gone by before I noticed it. I didn't want to swap it and get a new one because I'd written load of notes in it and didn't want to lose them. It was a great excuse to get out of doing maths homework for a week though.

Mars Bar

Oh I remember another one I got. The cover of the book was not the book that was inside! It was supposed to be a crime book but turned out to be like a diary of a guy traveling across the world.

LenaClaire

I had a book that just ended. I was never sure if the book ended really abruptly or if they had left off the last chapter.

Either way I was really upset as I was really enjoying the book.

Toby Take a Bow

jujibee wrote: »

I had a book that just ended. I was never sure if the book ended really abruptly or if they had left off the last chapter.

Either way I was really upset as I was really enjoying the book.

There's a book I love that ends abruptly. It causes occasional headaches for booksellers when customers ask for a refund. They have to be persuaded that the author meant for it to end that way. I won't say what the book is as it may ruin the experience for people.

I've never come across proper accidental defects in books, thank god. It would annoy me no end if I was finishing a book and there was some fault preventing me from doing so.

Bodhidharma

I bought 'Watership Down" when I was about seven because I loved the film. I think I read about 50 pages at the time and gave up. About 17 or 18 years later I went back and started reading it again. After 100 pages there were about 50 blank pages in a row. I had never noticed it before.

Blank pages in a book - weird

Malari

I just noticed my copy of the Count of Monte Cristo often has the Roman numerals at the start of each chapter kind of mixed up. So instead of LVIII it was VLIII...no such number

Red Hand

Yep. We need to talk about Kevin had about 70 pages repeated in it and 70 pages missing from it. I went into Waterstones about a year after reading it and read the missing 70 pages (skinflint).

x_Ellie_x

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

There's a book I love that ends abruptly. It causes occasional headaches for booksellers when customers ask for a refund. They have to be persuaded that the author meant for it to end that way. I won't say what the book is as it may ruin the experience for people.

Is that book you're talking about Crow Lake by Mary Lawson? I was reading that recently and it has a really abrupt ending. I googled some book reviews and apparently it is supposed to have that rubbish ending.

Picked up a copy of The Joke's Over by Ralph Steadman, there were three sections of photographs in it but my copy has the first section twice.

Doesn't take away from the book really.

Toby Take a Bow

x_Ellie_x wrote: »

Is that book you're talking about Crow Lake by Mary Lawson? I was reading that recently and it has a really abrupt ending. I googled some book reviews and apparently it is supposed to have that rubbish ending.

Nope, not that one. It's a David Mitchell book, but I won't say which one.

nompere

Did none of the posters here take the book back to the seller? It happened to me once, and I just went back, showed the bookseller the problem, and was handed a replacement with lots of apologies. Obviously the bookseller can't physically check every book, and it's the publisher's mistake, but no normal bookseller will have any problem with an exchange.

I have a book on my shelf right now where the cover has been bound on the wrong way round. It's a bit disconcerting when you pick up the book, but once you start on the text everything is fine. It came from Amazon which is why I didn't spot the problem before buying the book.

Toby Take a Bow

nompere wrote: »

Did none of the posters here take the book back to the seller?

I used to work in a bookshop, and this was definitely the case. Regardless of when you bought it (within reason, and if we had a spare in stock), where you bought it (we used to exchange faulty books that were clearly bought in rival bookshops) we'd exchange it no questions asked. I presume this is the case in most bookshops around town.

Mars Bar

nompere wrote: »

Did none of the posters here take the book back to the seller? It happened to me once, and I just went back, showed the bookseller the problem, and was handed a replacement with lots of apologies. Obviously the bookseller can't physically check every book, and it's the publisher's mistake, but no normal bookseller will have any problem with an exchange.

Both the books I got were given to me by someone else so I couldn't really.

emeraldstar

nompere wrote: »

Did none of the posters here take the book back to the seller? It happened to me once, and I just went back, showed the bookseller the problem, and was handed a replacement with lots of apologies. Obviously the bookseller can't physically check every book, and it's the publisher's mistake, but no normal bookseller will have any problem with an exchange.

It's not the publisher's mistake, it's the printer's mistake.

LenaClaire

nompere wrote: »

Did none of the posters here take the book back to the seller? It happened to me once, and I just went back, showed the bookseller the problem, and was handed a replacement with lots of apologies. Obviously the bookseller can't physically check every book, and it's the publisher's mistake, but no normal bookseller will have any problem with an exchange.

Mine was a library book and it was their only copy so I could not get a new one.

Toby Take a Bow

mars bar wrote: »

Both the books I got were given to me by someone else so I couldn't really.

Just pop into your local bookshop, I'd be very surprised if they refused to give you a replacement copy, regardless of where you bought it (see my post above). Maybe try one of the bigger chains that deal with new books (Hodges/Hughes & Hughes/Dubray).

emeraldstar wrote: »

It's not the publisher's mistake, it's the printer's mistake.

It's the publisher's responsibility, though, hence the booksellers not really caring where you got the book from initially.

emeraldstar

Toby Take a Bow wrote: »

It's the publisher's responsibility, though, hence the booksellers not really caring where you got the book from initially.

Well once the publisher has supplied (correct) files to the printer, then it's out of their hands. The publisher will check a proof initially of course, but if one book in a batch/one batch of a reprint is a bit mixed up, how can the publisher prevent it? They can't physically check every single book. Whatever about responsibility, it's definitely not the "publisher's mistake".

Nody

Manach wrote: »

Once, twas a SciFi book 'Santiago'. Skipped ahead about a dozen pages. Timetravel - no, publishing error.

I thought I was among the few who read Santiago (though the follow up book was horrible )

henryporter

By the name of the thread I thought it was a discussion on Dan Brown 'Novels'!.

Never came across dub books but i find plenty of spelling mistakes in Kindle books...

SheFiend

Haha me too! I thought it was about hyped up novels that are actually pretty average, if even, and I raced in here to say "Da Vinci Code" !!!!
Glad I'm not the only one who couldn't understand the fuss

emeraldstar

Oh dear. I'm currently reading Anne of Green Gables - or at least I was until I got to page 208 - for page 209 is not, in fact, page 209 of Anne of Green Gables, but rather page 177 of a completely different novel. A quick Google search tells me that it is Chapter 49 of W. Somerset Maugham's Moon and Sixpence, which novel continues for the rest of the book (about 50 pages or so). How very odd!

Damn, I was really enjoying it too

x_Ellie_x

emeraldstar wrote: »

Oh dear. I'm currently reading Anne of Green Gables - or at least I was until I got to page 208 - for page 209 is not, in fact, page 209 of Anne of Green Gables, but rather page 177 of a completely different novel. A quick Google search tells me that it is Chapter 49 of W. Somerset Maugham's Moon and Sixpence, which novel continues for the rest of the book (about 50 pages or so). How very odd!

Damn, I was really enjoying it too

Anne of Green Gables is out of copyright so there's lots of free (and legal) ebooks of it floating around on the net. You can download it here and here if you want to finish reading it.

emeraldstar

Lol, I know. That was the first thing I did. All finished.