The final furlong

So, the book is finally in and on the presses. Our last task, following several rounds of proof-reading, correcting, re-checking, re-correcting and so on, was to compile an index. For some reason (I forget now what it was) I volunteered for this task myself, despite having no particular expertise or experience in the area, but simply figuring that I knew the book better than anyone else. I may have been influenced by Douglas Hofstadter's similar machismo.

It was in the end a fairly tedious process. Interested readers, assuming they have nothing better to do, may care to study it and see if they can identify the moment at which boredom got the better of me and I started putting in silly jokes.

It was also a process completed very much at the eleventh hour, and I would have liked the chance to go back over it carefully having set it aside for a week, as I think there are probably some discrepencies and other little infelicitudes. That said, I don't remember ever poring over anyone else's index for those kinds of things, so I imagine I'm safe.

What it certainly is is comprehensive. Nearly 600 headwords and around 1500 page citations for a 420 page book. If it isn't in the index, it isn't there.

A final wrangle between me and Deborah over our treatment of the Chicago book Truth in Comedy and it was all done. Publication date is now early June in the States, July here. How exciting!