Memorable but cryptic

Have you ever heard of these 14 alternative book titles that never were?

Image: Pixabay

Titles are our first introduction to books. From what we gather on the cover, we expect to get a glimpse of the journey the writer will take us on. But have you ever finished reading a book and still not known why it was titled that way? While some authors include passages that explain their chosen titles, others prefer to preserve the mystery or leave room for interpretation. Let’s decode some catchy yet enigmatic book titles!

Image: Natasha Arefyeva

Scottish poet and lyricist Robert Burns penned Comin’ Thro’ the Rye, the text that Holden Caulfield misquotes in the book written by J.D. Salinger, and which gives the novel its title.

In a fantasy, Holden imagines himself standing in a field of rye, catching children who are playing near the edge of a cliff before they fall into the abyss—just as he longs to protect them from the hardships of growing up. Previous short stories by the author featuring Holden had been named Slight Rebellion off Madison and I’m Crazy.

Image: AXP Photography

Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises is known by an alternative title in some countries: **Fiesta**—a clear nod to the novel’s Spanish setting and the celebratory atmosphere of the bull runs.

However, on second thought, the author decided to change the title to shine the spotlight on the novel’s exploration of morality. He ultimately chose The Sun Also Rises, drawing inspiration from the Bible—specifically, a passage from Ecclesiastes: "The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose."

Image: Camila Melo

A captivating title that sets us up for a nostalgic—and lengthy—book. Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece almost had a far less poetic title: The House. Thankfully, he reconsidered and chose One Hundred Years of Solitude.

This multigenerational family saga is marked by characters who experience isolation—both from the world and each other. Fun fact: Márquez reportedly struggled with the title until the phrase came to him in a moment of inspiration while driving.

Image: Joshua J. Cotten

Robert Burns did it again! This time Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse was the inspiration for Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men which includes the famous line: "The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry."

Since the novel explores themes of shattered dreams and fragile plans, Steinbeck’s choice was both poignant and literary. Interestingly, he almost titled it **Something That Happened**—a name so vague it could apply to nearly any book!

Image: Leyre

This title is one of the most intriguing on the list—reminiscent of a modern essay or a TED Talk. Philip K. Dick’s sci-fi classic is thought-provoking from the very start. Published in the late ’60s, it was ahead of its time in exploring artificial intelligence and what it means to be human versus machine.

The Electric Toad was one alternative title the author considered. And in case you didn’t know, this book was indeed adapted for the big screen—under a much sleeker name: Blade Runner.

Image: Wonderlane

Cormac McCarthy didn’t originally plan to write a novel at all—it started as a screenplay! But the title was set from the beginning.

The story, centered on Sheriff Bell and his sense of displacement in a violent world, takes its name from the opening line of W.B. Yeats’s poem Sailing to Byzantium: "That is no country for old men."

Image: MICHAEL CHIARA

Did you know that Faulkner’s famous work could have easily been mistaken for a vampire fantasy romance novel? He originally considered naming it Twilight instead of The Sound and the Fury.

Thankfully, he opted for a line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: "Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The title reflects the chaotic narrative of the Compson family’s decline, as well as the futility of their struggles.

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It was going to be called **The Harvest Gypsies**—not quite grand enough for what would become John Steinbeck’s celebrated novel, The Grapes of Wrath.

It was his wife, Carol, who suggested the final title, inspired by Julia Ward Howe’s Battle Hymn of the Republic, which includes the line, "He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." The phrase perfectly encapsulated the novel’s themes of suffering, resilience, and the fight for dignity during the Great Depression.

Image: Pierre Bamin

Offred was the original title Margaret Atwood had for her novel—a fitting choice, as it’s the name of the narrator and protagonist. However, she ultimately changed it in a nod to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, where each story is told from a different character’s perspective.

In this dystopian novel, it is Offred, a repressed woman forced into childbearing, who tells the story.

Image: Jan Huber

Toni Morrison’s Beloved almost had a completely different title: The Six-Minute Gap. This referred to the time it took for the schoolteacher to arrive and stop Sethe from killing her children—a pivotal moment in the novel.

Morrison cleverly shifted to Beloved, the name of an important character, but also a haunting and mocking title to tell the story of a mother tortured by her past decisions.

Image: Yulia Gadalina

Gravity's Rainbow and **Mindless Pleasures**—neither title reveals much about the story, yet both were considered by Thomas Pynchon for his novel.

The final title may sound poetic or philosophical, which could be intentional. But, strictly speaking, it has a concrete meaning: it refers to the arc of a V-2 rocket’s flight—a parabola shaped like a rainbow, the consequence of gravity. This trajectory serves as a central symbol in the book.

Image: Immo Wegmann

Joseph Heller coined the term Catch-22 to describe a nonsensical bureaucratic rule that torments the main character in his novel. The phrase resonated so strongly with readers that it became synonymous with paradoxical dilemmas.

Originally, Heller planned to title his book Catch-18, but editors urged him to change it to avoid confusion with Mila 18, another novel. He briefly considered Catch-11 and Catch-14 before finally settling on _Catch-22_—a choice that would make literary history.

Image: Shot by Cerqueira

Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children originally had a slightly different working title: Children of Midnight. The term refers to children born at the precise moment of India’s independence, who, in this magical realism novel, possess extraordinary powers.

Rushdie has said the title came to him early and stuck—fortunately so, as Children of Midnight sounds more like a spooky bedtime story than a sweeping epic about identity and destiny.

SERENDIPITOUS SCIENCE

10 Amazing Scientific Discoveries Made by Accident

Image: Hal Gatewood

Most of the time, science is a painstakingly slow process where hypotheses are tested again and again through experiments, often without conclusive results. Yet, some of the most groundbreaking discoveries have come about not through careful planning, but by sheer serendipity.

Here are 10 instances where accidental findings changed the course of science and history.

Image: CDC

In 1928, Alexander Fleming returned to his laboratory after a long holiday, only to find a strange mold contaminating his Petri dishes of Staphylococcus bacteria. Surprised, he noticed that the mold was somehow preventing the bacteria from growing around it, as if it produced some kind of chemical that killed the bacteria. This chance encounter led to the discovery of penicillin, the world's first antibiotic, revolutionizing medicine and saving millions of lives.

Image: Vlad Zaytsev

During World War II, engineer Percy Spencer noticed a chocolate bar melting in his pocket while working with radar equipment. Known for being a curious individual, he tried the same thing with other foods, discovering that the electromagnetic waves were quickly cooking anything that was put too close to the source. Soon, his colleagues were sampling the first microwave-cooked meals, and this eventually led to the development of the microwave oven.

Image: Jonathan Borba

In 1895, Wilhelm Roentgen was experimenting with cathode rays when he noticed that a platinocyanide screen (a material that happens to glow fluorescent in the presence of gamma and x-rays) almost nine feet away from the source started glowing. His curiosity was sparked, and after a few more experiments, he concluded that this type of radiation could pass through most substances, including soft body tissues. The unexpected phenomenon, later dubbed X-rays by Roentgen himself, eventually revolutionized medical imaging and diagnostics.

Image: Rob Wicks

In 1938, chemist Roy Plunkett accidentally discovered Teflon while working on refrigerants, when a batch of coolant gas polymerized overnight into a mysterious slippery substance. After a few tests, he discovered that the new material was non-reactive to most chemicals, leading to the creation of the most versatile non-stick material.

Image: Goh Rhy Yan

In 1839, Charles Goodyear accidentally dropped a mixture of rubber and sulfur onto a hot stove. The resulting hardened material, known as vulcanized rubber, revolutionized industries from transportation to footwear. Although the world-shaking discovery was accidental, Goodyear had spent many years trying to create a stable form of rubber, a finding that changed his life and the lives of millions forever.

Image: Dan Meyers

While the term was coined by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, it was Henri Becquerel who actually discovered radioactivity. In 1896, he was researching the properties of the recently discovered X-rays, when he found out that a sample of uranium could emit energy without an external source. His momentous discovery eventually led to our modern understanding of atomic physics and the development of nuclear energy.

Image: Danielle-Claude Bélanger

While taking his dog out for walks in the woods in 1941, Swiss engineer George de Mestral noticed how burrs would easily stick to the fur of the animal and his clothes. Intrigued, he examined them under a microscope, giving him the idea of creating a simple fastener with a similar principle. He patented his idea in 1955, and gave it a name: Velcro, a portmanteau of the French words for velvet and hook.

Image: Daria Nepriakhina

In 1968, a 3M scientist called Spencer Silver was attempting to develop a strong adhesive but "failed," instead creating a weak one. He still tried to put it to some use, but no one could think of any practical application for it. Years later, Art Fry - one of his colleagues at 3M - found it was very useful to keep bookmarks in place, and this eventually led to the manufacturing of the ubiquitous Post-it Notes.

Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya

In 1879, Russian chemist Constantin Fahlberg was working with a coal tar derivative when he noticed it left a sweet taste in his hand. Realizing this particular compound was the culprit, he named it saccharin and began commercializing it as a food additive. The product was almost banned right away by concerned chemists, but after a few hiccups, the first artificial sweetener was born.

Image: Guillermo Ferla

In 1965, radio engineers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled upon cosmic microwave background radiation while testing a sensitive antenna. At first, they thought the strange heat being picked up was the fault of a family of pigeons that settled inside their antenna, but after removing them, the anomaly persisted. This accidental discovery provided compelling evidence for the Big Bang theory -predicted almost 20 years before by theoretical physicists- and shaped our modern understanding of the universe's origins.