I’ve never found it easy coming up with titles. Almost two hundred thousand books are published in the UK every year and although some of them will have the advantage of a well-known author attached, the vast majority have just two or three words on a surface measuring no more than six by nine inches to sell themselves. Titles have to be short, smart and meaningful, easy to read, easy to remember and original. That’s asking a lot. Many of the best titles are simply borrowed from elsewhere. Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Vanity Fair . . . all of these were drawn from
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