I read an interesting article in this morning’s Washington Post. It was titled, “The end of everything,” and discussed the fact that there is a trend in the publishing world to title books that proclaim “the end…” such as The End of History, The End of Nature, The End of Education, The End of the Free Market, The End of Courtship, The End of Power, The End of Money… anyhow you get the idea.
Well, that got me to thinking — I have nothing against education, the free market, courtship, money or any of the other book titles listed in the article, but there are a few thing I wouldn’t mind seeing the “end of.”
So, in no particular order, here’s my list: How about the End of Salesmen, The End of North Korea, The End of Divas, The End of On Location Storm Reporters, The End of Texting While Driving, The End of Trash on the Highways, The End of Baseball Caps Worn Backwards, The End of Red Mulch, The End of Mosquitos, The End of “irregardless,” The End of Stupid People, The End of Hangovers…
The list could go on and on, but I have other things to do today. I thought the newspaper article was interesting because i hadn’t noticed so many “end of” books being available but also the fact that so many authors chose to include “end of” in the title. The fact is, most of these books acknowledge right away that the “end of” doesn’t really mean the end of… the End of Education discusses bad education, good education, changes in education, some history of education, views on eduction, questions about education, levels of education, continuing education — but never gets around to saying that there is an end to education or even suggesting why such a title was chosen.
Now if I sat down to write an “end of” book, I’d be sure that the reader had no doubt that it was the end, or at least something that I wanted to end. For instance, if I wrote a book titled The End of Free Ads, I’d at least make a case for ending the promotion of “Free!” Pretty much free anything is never really free — it’s always only free if you buy something else. I’ve never heard anyone advertise free air to breath or free sunsets to watch. Even things that contain the word ‘free’ — for instance, the ‘free market’ are not free… but I digress. The subject of this blog was things that are ending — so guess what we’ve come to?
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