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What's the weirdest typo/error you've seen in a book?
(lemmy.world)
I’m currently reading “The Number of the Beast” by Robert Heinlein. Book is from the 1980s, and there’s a completely doubled up paragraph in the book! It spans two pages but the image shows enough I think.
I had a copy of Fahrenheit 451 as a kid that suddenly had a different book in it for about ten pages or so. I'm like 5 chapters in, and all of the characters change. Same font, same size text, so I was very confused when the next page was talking about some woman cuddling on a couch with a man, and him feeling her shoulders. I figured it out finally by the page numbers being off.
It was part of a romance novel, which probably wasn't explicit, but seemed spicy to a 10-year-old. I'd think it was a fever dream if my mom didn't bring it up every so often ("I wrote to the publisher and gave them an earful!"). Anyway, the publisher apologized and sent us a new copy plus some coupons. I wish we'd kept the book, though.
I thought something like that had happened when I first read Cloud Atlas, but nope - that's just how it's written. I loved it once I understood.
I'm now beset with the vague memory of having a book that was actually two different texts depending on which side you started, and meeting somewhere in the middle or thereabouts. But I can't remember what book it was. (Definitely wasn't in English, though.)
I had a German language "choose your own adventure" book as a kid that was written like that. I think one of the stories was about a boy time-traveling to the time of the dinosaurs.
Oh jeez, makes you curious how something like that is able to happen.
I don’t know when computers took over typewriting for manuscripts and typesetting, but at some point some stuff just shouldn’t happen.