It’s almost true – I was one of those people who could never be bothered to read back over my exam papers when I’d finished and I find proof-reading the books an absolute pain. Amazingly though, if you open one of your books at random, it always seems to be on the page with the typo, and yes, it’s infuriating.

I used to have a problem with names, too. Wrote a whole feature about a “Rev. Bellows” (which seemed like a great name for a certain kind of preacher). Alas, his name was actually “Bellous.”

And then there was the typesetter that always made booze-related errors, so that a farmer raised “beer” instead of “beef,” and a photo of a young man on a playground said “it’s better than alcohol for a boy” instead of “it’s better than school for a boy”…

Read it backwards, eh? Could be a plan. I’m pretty certain I’d prefer my books that way.

I don’t have a solution, although I have heard of people who read their stuff backwards from the end, one sentence at a time. I’m scared to try it, though; what if I liked my book better that way?