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23 October 2010

Missing 33 Pages??


My week has been busy.  I've been traveling for work and just flew back home from Dallas after a two day meeting.  Not much time to read.  At all.  Tired even on the plane.  I haven't blogged, I've barely been able to catch up on everyone else's blogs...

And I have this really, really good book.  I was planning to finish Asylum, by Patrick McGrath today, so I could post a review and literally moments ago, I came across the most bizarre thing.  Immersed in a specific conversation between two characters, I continued onto the next page, and immediately became confused.  A completely different conversation was transpiring.  Wha??  I looked down at the page numbers and saw this...



WHA??  How could this happen?  It jumped from page 116 to 149??  Could 33 pages be ripped out and I never noticed that??



No.  The pages are not ripped out, but the book has literally skipped over 33 whole pages?  Nooo.....!!  Not at this point in the book, I'm sucked in!!

So I'm off to my local independent bookstore in Neptune Beach, Florida, The BookMark.  I called ahead and they have one copy, and they have assured me that all the pages are there!  (I'd like to also point out that the other chain stores didn't have a copy but the independent bookstore did!)

Happy Reading!
Coffee and a Book Chick

37 comments:

  1. That's really disconcerting. I've never had that happen, although I did have pages reversed in a book once.

    Hope you can find another copy so you can find out what's missing!

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  2. I was wondering where you were! Glad all is well and that you were just ultra busy. Hope you have some down time in your future.

    I would have been some kind of pissed had that happened to me. That's really really odd. Glad you don't have to wait long to remedy it, though.

    P.S. My sis is reading The Historian for the first time, so I hooked her up with your readalong. Now I may just have to give it a re-read...

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  3. I've had that happen a couple of times, just when everything was building up, groan!

    Rest up, get caught up slowly; we're not going anywhere. Just happy you're back!

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  4. Holy cow! Of course that would happen right when you're totally absorbed in the book.

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  5. Wow! That totally sucks! WTF. You should contact the publisher and let them know.

    My copy of one of my favorite books (Battle Royale) actually has pages 113-128 upside down, but at least it has the pages there.

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  6. That is such a bummer!! I would definitely be irritated. I don't think that has ever happened to me before.

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  7. I've somehow managed to have that happen 3 times! It drives me crazy!

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  8. Working in a library, we have seen that happen several times. It's really a shame that there isn't better QC so readers don't get frustrated. Glad u were able to get a another vopy.

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  9. Haha! That happened to my sister when she was reading A Thousand Splendid Suns... except she didn't really notice until she finished the book and decided to flip back to one part where she got a little confused and felt like something was missing heheh.

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  10. Oh goodness! Just when the story is getting good! lol Good thing you we're able to get another copy.

    P.S its been a while since i visited your blog and i was surprised by the change. It looks great. : )

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  11. That is definitely annoying! I used to work for a publishing company, though, and we would always replace misprinted copies when people called us, so it might be worth getting in touch (if you can find the contact for the house).

    We'd also use it to quality check the title - sometimes it's just a one-off mistake from the printer, and sometimes an entire box or two that were wrong. It's rare that it would be a whole print run, though, because (for us at least) they were always spot-checked.

    Good luck!!

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  12. That's truly bizarre, and must have been terrible. I've never heard of that happening before. I'll have to be on the lookout for that now...

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  13. That happened to my sister once, with a school textbook!! Thankfully we are both French majors and were in the same class, so she just used my book!

    I'm glad you could at least find yourself another copy! That is really weird..

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  14. Wow, I have never actually heard that before.
    On a lighter note, Isn't that a shame when work interferes with your blogging?:)

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  15. Well, I'm glad you're back. Hope by now you have the replacement book in hand and you have the time to chase the publisher. It makes me think about what happened at the printing house to have that occur....working out a small mysterious plot with an ulterior motive: the definitive collection of pages 116 - 149 from many books? a book comprised of the pages from many books (wonder what the other ones were)?....

    I'll put my imagination to bed now and head back out to the garden. Happy reading!

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  16. I sympathise with the frustration. I'm not such a big reader that this has happened to me much - but it does happen when I record movies - and dont get the end.... I hate that!

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  17. What a disaster! Someone at the printer's obviously made a mistake or ran out of the missing pages and decided to put the book together anyway? I don't know how it works, but how awful!

    It happened to me three times, but over the last 30 years, so not very often (I read a lot). First time was a book as a child. Every second page spread was blank, so the book didn't make sense. I was so put out!

    Hope you can finish the book soon!

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  18. Yay for indies! That actually happened with one of my Harry Potter books. I'd bought the set from Amazon, so they replaced it. But still! Talk about breaking up your momentum!

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  19. OH, NOOO!!! So glad the indie came through...

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  20. Becca -- I did find another copy! So excited to finish it today!

    Picky Girl -- Yes, super busy, and I miss my blogging friends! And I was so mad about it -- can you imagine if I had been on the plane and came across that? I would have been like that Jet Blue flight attendant!! :) So excited to hear that your sister is reading The Historian for the first time! I envy her! The second time through is still fabulous, but oh how I miss that first time I read it!! Thanks for getting her onto the readalong, I hope she enjoys it!!

    Kittie -- Thanks! I can't wait to get caught back up with everyone!

    bermudaonion -- I know! ARGH!! :)

    Tedious & Brief -- I think I might have to, just to let them know. How funny Battle Royale had the pages upside down! You're right -- good thing they were still there, though!!

    Stephanie -- It was definitely the first time that occurred for me, too!

    Rebecca -- Three times?! OMG! I would be so mad!!

    Bibliophile by the Sea -- It is surprising that it happens like that; I couldn't believe it. So glad, though, that the indie bookseller had a copy!

    Jenny -- I probably wouldn't have noticed it if it was a description of something, or the sadness that was experienced throughout the book. But it was out of one conversation and into another! So confusing and jarring! Good thing your sister was able to still read through her book without noticing it too much until realizing it later!

    Bookventures--Thanks so much! In fact, I'm having a blog makeover in a few days, so it will change again! :)

    Kerry -- That is interesting insight, thanks for sharing that information! I kept wondering how the process worked, and what measures were put in place to prevent that. Hopefully it's just a one-off mistake!!

    Emily Jane -- It's made me want to flip through all of my books now! :)

    Kelly -- A textbook! Argh! Classes can already be tough!

    BookQuoter -- I know! Work interfering with my blogging?! How dare it! :)

    Chat Noir -- Oh, I think you and I might be fellow conspiracy buffs, huh?! :) I am right there with you!

    Tamara -- Yes, movies that are cut off at the end; ARGH!

    leeswammes -- Thankfully I was able to find another copy, so now I can chuckle about it. But you can rest assured I would have been quite the upset party if I had to wait a few days to get my copy!

    Sandy -- Yes, I was so ecstatic that The BookMark had it! And yes, my momentum was all over the place -- it was just right at a part in the book where I was getting even more sucked in!

    JoAnn -- Yes, I know! I was so ecstatic that they had the copy! Indie booksellers are the best!!

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  21. Oh no! I had pages fall out of old books, but never a new one. I hope the ending makes up for the hassle it has caused you :-)

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  22. I'm glad you could find another copy as well! But, nothing more frustrating than getting so deep into a book and then having to stop reading!! ARGGGHHHHH!

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  23. Gah! Frustrating! Sounds like the time I picked up my book and started reading from where my bookmark was only to be totally lost and confused. Turned out my son knocked over the book by accident and the bookmark fell out, so he had to guess where to put it back in. He was off by about 20 pages - lol.

    Aren't independent book stores great?

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  24. That's just criminal!

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  25. How weird! I was reading a book the other day, and the pages were literally coming out as I turned them! I was wondering what the heck was going on with it, and then I just figured it was shoddy binding. It's too bad though, because it would have been a keeper if it had been in better condition, though I might consider buying another copy. This is just too weird, Natalie. I would have been flabbergasted!

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  26. Argh! That happened to me once, and the result was that what was meant to be a cosy rainy afternoon reading at home turned into having to catch the bus into town to go exchange the book. And when I got there, they had no other copies in stock! Definitely not a lucky day for me :P

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  27. Oh no, that's my worst nightmare! I've had that happen to me before where a whole section was left out and the previous 38 pages were repeated (I thought i was going mad until I worked it out!). Hope you enjoy the rest of the book when you get it ;)

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  28. Oh my goodness! That is crazy and so frustrating! I could see that happening in an old borrowed book but in a brand new one? Yikes!

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  29. The crazy thing about this is that there are no pages ripped out at all -- it literally was printed this way with 33 pages missing! You can see in the second picture that there are no pages that have fallen out or ripped out. It was just printed and sent to market this way!

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  30. Heyyy I was at that bookstore before! Fun little place. I hope you can find a copy NOT missing pages. What a letdown!

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  31. What the hell? It's almost like Italo Calvino's If On A Winter's Night... but not quite! At least you got another copy. That's gotta count for something, no?

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  32. I found a book at Border's yesterday that I really wanted to add to my Christmas wish list. So I flipped to the front to get the ISBN. Lo and behold--the book started at pg 29! No cover page, no publisher info, no table of contents...no first 28 pages at all. How does that even happen?

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  33. Oh crap! why did it have to happen when u r so INTO the book, I would have been so angry LOL! :) I hope you get your replacement soon.

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  34. It annoys me when that happens! It's happened to me a couple of times, and sadly each time, like you, I realized it too late when I was reading it. Arg!

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  35. You know, I'm still looking at my "busted" copy and wondering how the heck it coulda happened -- of course, the standard printing errors must have occurred, but sheesh -- I'd do that job of reading books and checking to make sure all of the pages were there...!! Hire me, hire me!! :)

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  36. Wwwhat? That's so weird. What are the chances you could get just the missing pages from the publishers...

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