Sacramento Public Library discussion

I've always had problems remembering names when the book introduces a lot of characters. I remember when I was in a Tom Clancy phase that I would use a 3x5 card as a bookmark and jot down each name that was brought up. My bookmark would soon be full of names and I later realized that a lot of the names were just used once.

The problem is even worse when there are foreign names like those in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy.

Does anybody have any tricks they use to remember names in books?

Honestly, I read fast enough that I don't have problems keeping track most of the time. But there have been occasions where I have had problems, most recently with On Gold Mountain by Lisa See and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

In the case of On Gold Mountain the family relationships were often convoluted and separated geographically. When combined with the fact that names could be similar, it could be puzzling at times. In the case of Wolf Hall it was the fact that every woman seemed to be named Mary and half the men were named Thomas. There is even a joke made about it at one point. In both cases these were historical figures so what is an author to do? Include a chart or list of names at the front! It helped immensely. If they didn't have this handy dandy tool, I probably would have made my own chart or set of notes to refer to.

I had the same problem with Millennium Trilogy. I found myself going back through the book to previous references and then repeating names and jobs out loud. For long running series I have often joked about an Excel spreadsheet. But honestly, that is my answer to most problems. I do like your bookmark idea!

Before smartphones, I used an Excel spreadsheet to track which books of a long series (e.g. Piers Anthony Xanth series) that I have and which ones I need to still need to get. I also did it for comic books but that's a topic for another forum.

Eric wrote: "Before smartphones, I used an Excel spreadsheet to track which books of a long series (e.g. Piers Anthony Xanth series) that I have and which ones I need to still need to get."

I still do that! I just keep a copy of the spreadsheet on my phone!

I started Girl in the Spider's Web last night. Chuckled and thought of this thread when I turned the page and saw a list of recurring characters from the previous books. But of course in the first 50 pages they have introduced 10 new characters!

I have a rule: Characters' names must all start with a different letter of the alphabet. (Which implies the corollary that a book can have a maximum of 26 characters.)

Eric mentioned "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." I mean, Bjurman, Blomkvist, Berger, Birger, (seriously?); Hans-Erik, Harriet, Henrik, Holger; Malm, Martin, Mikael. I don't speak Swedish, but I get the impression they don't have enough letters. (And does everyone eat coffee and sandwiches at any time of the day or night... when they aren't having sex with their co-workers?) I don't care if Steig Larsson died before it was published - that book needed some serious editing. I'd start by renaming a bunch of characters and condensing the first 100 pages into about 15 or 20. Okay, he got in trouble, got sued, got fired. Let's move on, people.

And don't get me started on "War and Peace"! I was about 600 pages into the book before I realized that Nikolai, Nikolushka, Rostov, and Ilyavich were all the same person. Jeez!

Phew - glad I got that out of my system...

I used to write character's names in the back of a book in pencil. (Though not in a library book, of course.) Now on my ereader, if a character shows up and I can't remember who they are, I highlight the name and use "Find." I'm not sure which method I like better.

Life would be so much simpler if writers would just obey the Rule of 26.