Continuity Errors and Typos in books

Raeily · August 2013

I just finished Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey. It's a Booker Prize winner. I decided to give it one star and that might not be fair of me, I probably should have given it two... I think that I gave it one star because I had such high hopes for it and it let me down, not so much in the actual story, but that it was a pain to read because of the enormous amount of typos and even continuity errors. I have never seen so many problems with a book before. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with it being a certain edition of the book. For all that I love books, I don't know that much about the process of publishing. I don't think it would be a big deal to have a typo here or there, but a typo on just about every page is a bit ridiculous.

It just really bothered me and I was wondering if any of you could shed some light on it for me.

GilliC · August 2013

Was it an e-book? A lot of digital editions are converted from text automatically and end up with a lot of typos.

No excuse for continuity issues, though. That's weird. I don't run into many serious continuity errors.especially not in award-winning works. What kind of issues were they?

Raeily · August 2013

It wasn't an e-book. It's a regular hardcover.

The errors were mostly to do with age and years. Character decides to move somewhere, author specifically mentions that he is twenty-two years old. After the character moves, it is mentioned he is twenty-one years old. Things like that. Not really HUGE things, just annoying to me. The book was a bit dull to start and I think that the errors just made it harder to get into.

GilliC · August 2013

Isn't the book supposed to have some kind of non-linear timeline? Maybe the changing ages has something to do with that?

booknerd226 · August 2013

I've had issues with books like that too. Recently I read a book where the car someone was driving was white on one page and blue on the next. I had to go back and see if maybe I misread, then I tried to figure out if maybe they were talking about someone else's car. Definitely took me out of the book for a while.

sassypants527 · August 2013

Is it self-published? I've had some GR giveaways that were self pub that had typos.

Confession: If I see a typo in a book, I fix it...even if it's a library book...
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Raeily · August 2013

GilliC said:

Isn't the book supposed to have some kind of non-linear timeline? Maybe the changing ages has something to do with that?

It is, but the errors in age weren't because of that. I spent an hour double checking. haha It bothered me so much.

sassypants527 said:

Is it self-published? I've had some GR giveaways that were self pub that had typos.

Confession: If I see a typo in a book, I fix it...even if it's a library book...
$:\$ ">

It wasn't self-published. I feel like I need to take a red pen to the whole thing.

Skeezon · August 2013

I put down an ebook last night after the second use of your instead of you're. I CAN'T DEAL.

Continuity Errors and Typos in books

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