I visited a temple of sin (Barnes &amp; Noble) recently while traveling and noticed a peculiar trend. Towards the front was a whole display of new fiction books and almost all of them had "a novel" somewhere on the cover. Is this just the trendy thing, like putting colons in paper titles to make them sound more academic, or are modern B&amp;N shoppers so braindead that they need to be told on the cover of a fiction book that it's fictional? I get that you wouldn't want to put money down on what you think is a book, only to find out it's an anthology or something, but it's not like it's illegal to read the back or open to the table of contents. What's up with this?

Bit of both. Obviously the set phrase "A Novel" (the "a" bothers me more than anything; just "Novel" would be a lot more palatable imo), and how it is incorporated in the cover/title design, are subject to fashion and replicates itself more and more on covers. It isn't necessary, since there are enough examples where it is absent (from the past, or on series like Penguin Classics, NYRB, etc., though here you might argue that the author name and the publisher series tells you enough to know what kind of book it is). But yes, it is also to denote that... this is a novel: while it's easy enough to figure out pretty quickly, when not on a fiction shelf, with a generic and not too creative title, you might encounter a book and not know what you're dealing with - unlikely but possible. And usually the other genre "subtitles" will be: Stories, Poems, A Memoir, etc. It isn't a new or uncommon practice: in other languages you encounter it too, e.g. "Roman" somewhere on the cover (e.g. on Gallimard books, which, without the garish Anglo covers and particular set phrase "a novel", is OK). While for nonfiction, like academic books and articles, it is usually a longish subtitle giving you keywords or a "Why/how x became ...": yes, they're fighting for attention, since most people can't even be bothered to read the blurb or abstract...

I like it. If it were a convention from, say, the 19th-century, and had started to be phased out, then I and, I'm sure, many others would lament its loss. It's a kind of contrivance (as you say, people can identify fiction fairly fast), but there's a pleasure in contrivance. It's the little flower pinned in the buttonhole, hinting with its discreet, superfluous signal that the delights of fictive invention lie within. It's the wax seal, stamped with a quaint sigil, that marks out a lover's letter from the daily bills and business correspondence.

^___^

>>21966273 (OP)

It's because some people misunderstand what fonts, art and title which ought to convey what type of book it is. Just to be sure, they put "a novel" so people who pick it up dont put it down assuming it's not a novel.

>(the "a" bothers me more than anything; just "Novel" would be a lot more palatable imo)

Learn English. "Novel" without an article could be interpreted as an adjective.

"Infinite Jest: Novel" - novel what? a novel book?

Ah yes, we always have to go 110% disambiguation for anglo retards

If you don't like basic English grammar, just stop using English.

>t. never heard of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

> :

See it?

Retard

shut up
