They catch my eye, the repetition of a word in titles across various books. The word “animal,” for example, for books not necessarily about the animal kingdom.
- The Lives of Animals, by J.M. Coetzee (1999).
- Her Body Among Animals, by Paola Ferrante (2023).
- The Memory of Animals, by Claire Fuller (2024).
- Mammals, I Think We Are Called, by Giselle Leeb (2022).
- All the Animals on Earth, by Mark Sampson (2020).
- Animal, by Lisa Taddeo (2021).
- We the Animals, by Justin Torres (2011).
- National Animal, by Derek Webster (2024) (check out Mark Sampson’s review here).
Others?
And then there are the wives. What is that all about? The Winemaker’s Wife, The German Wife, The Pirate Lord’s Wife, The Third Wife, The Silent Wife, The Secret Lives of the Four Wives, The Wives — none of which I’ve read. Tapping into the zeitgeist, but what does it say about us now?
DEBRA MARTENS 