PORTLAND, Maine — The name of Monica Wood’s new book is—we’re not making this up—"How to Read a Book."
Is there a story behind it? You bet.
For a long time, during the roughly two years it took her to write the novel, her working title was "Meanwhile." When the sales and marketing people at her publisher got wind of it, they hated it, really hated it, and those folks have clout. Here's her account of what unfolded.
"We’re not going to sell a book called 'Meanwhile,'" they told her. "It sounds too quiet and literary."
Wood, an award-winning writer who grew up in the Maine mill town of Mexico and has lived for many years in Portland, felt otherwise. "I love titles like that," she told 207.
The sales and marketing people had a suggestion. "It seems these days," they told her, "if something has 'book' in the title, readers are more likely to pick it up."
"You have got to be kidding me," she thought. "This is stupid."
After cooling off a bit, she began thinking about what they'd said, and as she kicked around ideas, came up with "How to Read a Book," which, to her great surprise, actually fit the story she was telling.
"There’s a woman [in the novel] who runs a prison book club. She’s a retired English teacher and she’s teaching these women, in a way, how to read a book, how to think of characters as fellow creatures, how to look at things like structure. I thought, you know, I can live with this. And once I started living with it, I thought this is the perfect title for this book."
Wood laughed as she told the story, acknowledging that money, not art, was what led to the title. "They probably don’t want me to say that," she admitted. "But that's how it happened."
Note: Monica Wood will not be at a book event at the Rumford Public Library on Tuesday as said on air. She will instead be there on Wednesday, May 8.