Talk:Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, An American Nightmare

Bestest-sellingest-ness

Here is an edit by somebody who seems to assume sanity in book publishing.

I question this assumption. Thousands of right-thinking folk are apt to give their credit card details for ghostwritten vaporware, if not constituting a purchase then at least indicating their intention to buy. Indeed, if you "preorder" a book from Amazon (just to name one retailer) I don't think that later, after reading a bad review or remeasuring your shelf space, you can "deorder" before they extract your money.

Moreover, to judge from the percentage of cheesy-looking books that are labeled "bestseller" or "bestselling", the terms can hardly mean more than "sold fairly well". There's even the occasional worthwhile "bestseller". -- Hoary (talk) 08:16, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The Grotesque Capitalization That Even U.S. Newspapers Don't Use Any More

"Nation Editors Mock Palin With Book Of Their Own"

In a word, ugh.

I don't know of any style guide that either (a) recommends this kind of capitalization or (b) urges slavish adoption of the particular capitalization, however wacky, used by the publisher of what's being cited.

Putting aside the question of whether "Nation" should be italicized or otherwise set off from the rest, there are three possibilities:

• "Nation editors mock Palin with book of their own": the "down" style
• "Nation Editors Mock Palin with Book of Their Own": the "up" style
• "Nation Editors Mock Palin With Book Of Their Own": the "ugh" style

So what's it going to be? -- Hoary (talk) 02:47, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd favor the "up" style.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 02:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

So would it be OK to use the "up" style consistently in the article? (Me, I prefer "down"; but I'm happy with the consistent use of "up".) -- Hoary (talk) 02:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Sure, that would work.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Shall do. -- Hoary (talk) 03:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Done, I think. If I missed any, do please complete the work. -- Hoary (talk) 03:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Hyperlinking

Here's what Dunn writes:

One thing is certain: You will read far more about the real Sarah Palin in Going Rouge than you ever will in her own memoirs, being published by (who else?) Rupert Murdoch. If there is a single consistency in the Palin canon it is that she is an inveterate liar and motivated by a reckless ambition that has left a trail of collateral damage from Wasilla to Washington, D.C. Going Rouge is full of golden nuggets about Sarah Palin. Judging from her past performances, her own book will most certainly be riddled with deceit.

No hyperlinks in that. Somewhere in the MoS is I believe an instruction not to add hyperlinks to quoted text. -- Hoary (talk) 02:53, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

If MOS does indeed include that policy, then please feel free to remove them accordingly.   Redthoreau -- (talk) 02:58, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't be bothered to look in MoS, but one of the bulleted points here agrees with me. So I'm about to delink. Incidentally, I suggest deleting the whole passage: it says next to nothing about this book and for the most part merely guesses (however convincingly) about the nature of a different book. -- Hoary (talk) 03:16, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

ISBNs

The paperback is ISBN 978-0-9842950-0-5 and the ebook is ISBN 978-0-9842950-1-2 but I'm not entirely sure how best to add the pair to the article. I've added the former to the infobox at the top right. -- Hoary (talk) 05:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Sabotage with the stars

We read:

[[Star Jones]] has labeled the book "sabotage to the Nth degree."<ref>[[Entertainment Tonight]]. ''The Insider''. October 26, 2009.</ref>

I'd never heard of Star Jones, Entertainment Tonight, or The Insider. WP (not a reliable source, of course) describes Jones as an American lawyer (which sounds mildly interesting) and television personality (which is I suppose of great interest to many), but calls "Entertainment Tonight" "a daily tabloid-like television entertainment news show", which makes it sound trivial. Is "The Insider" The Insider (newspaper)? Anyway, I don't see how this is worth quoting, unless it's developed. For example, "Arguing that the book blah blah blah, Star Jones labeled it 'sabotage to the Nth degree', also pointing out that blah blah blah." As it is, all we see as that some teevee personality mentioned (as written up in a source that remains obscure) that she doesn't like it -- which seems very trivial to me.

Incidentally, I'd also suppose that N (in "Nth degree") is a rather low number, as no matter how bad your spelling/dyslexia might be, you cannot mistakenly buy this book from any online or real-world retailer. Unless of course Ms Jones has something else in mind. If so, let's hear it. -- Hoary (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Punctuation

I'm not quite sure how to punctuate the title of this book, but "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin An American Nightmare" is almost certainly not the right way to do it. My guess is "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin, an American Nightmare". Can anyone provide some authoritative references about how to deal with this situation? —Bkell (talk) 02:58, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Lacking any responses, I've moved the article to the title with a comma. —Bkell (talk) 16:19, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The title page of the book, as well as its half-title (is this the right name? the simplified title page preceding the real one) says:

Going Rouge:

Sarah Palin—

An American Nightmare

so perhaps best would have been "Going Rouge: Sarah Palin—An American Nightmare". However, I'm very reluctant to suggest a dash as dashes tend to draw rival factions of orthography fetishists out from under their rocks: there'd be arguments over whether it should be an em or an en dash, whether it should be spaced or not, etc etc (yawn). So it's fine as is, I think. -- Hoary (talk) 16:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)