APPENDIX A — FINDING THE QUOTES IN SOFTBACK EDITIONS
To assist the reader in locating a particular quoted text,
the page number and line number from the Random House
hardback edition is included with each quote, represented as
"page-dot-line". For example, the first line of the book is
(3.1), meaning page 3, line 1, while the last line of the book
is (1168.40), meaning page 1168, line 40.
From this notation, it's also possible to mathematically
derive the location of the same quotes in other editions of
the book. To glean an approximate page number, divide the
number of pages in the hardback version, 1168, by the
number of pages in any other edition, then multiply the result
by the desired page number. In general, the formula
appears as follows:
For example, the line, "Get the hell out of my way!"
appears at 1125.24 in the hardback edition. To find it in the
Penguin 35th anniversary edition, which has 1074 pages,
calculate 1168/1074 X 1125 = 1034. While the quote
actually resides at (1035.6), the formula at least indicates the
near neighborhood of the quote. In a thousand-page-plus
book, this can be a true Godsend.
Be warned that this formula only gives a general answer,
and in some cases the result may vary significantly from the
actual location of the quote, especially for references toward
the front of the book. That's because different versions have
differing amounts of blank pages between the parts, and
they tend to begin on pages other than Page One, such as
page 3 for the hardback and page 11 for the 35th
anniversary softback. As an example of this drift, the
nationalization of the San Sebastian mines is reported at
(72.10) in the hardback edition. Calculating 1168/1074 X 72
yields 78, but the same event in the softback edition is
actually at (73.34). It's close, but not close enough.
Fortunately, a more-precise formula can be derived by
taking the variations of various editions into account.
First, normalize the number of pages to make the
references based upon page 1. For the hardback edition
(which begins on page 3), that means subtracting 2 from the
number of hardback pages ( 3 - 2 = 1). Similarly, subtract
10 from the number of pages in the softback edition (which
begins on page 11, so 11 - 10 = 1). To keep the page
numbers consistent with each other, a similar normalization
should also be performed with all page
number references in the hardback edition.
That means subtracting two from all page references before
performing any calculations, and
similarly, the
final figure must then be de-normalized on the back end by
adding back the ten originally subtracted.
Using this modified formula, the results for the two
examples come very close to the actual location of the
quote:
[ (1168-2) / (1074-10) X (1125 - 2) ] + 10 = 1034
[ (1168-2) / (1074-10) X (72 - 2) ] + 10 = 74
To gain even more accuracy, the line number can be
incorporated into the calculations. Since there are 46 lines
per page in the hardback edition, an approximate fractional
location of the line on the page can be derived merely by
multiplying the line number by 2, and including it with the
page number as an actual decimal. Further, to account for
the difference of white space between part 1 and part 2,
subtract 1 from all results for page numbers less than 339.
Using this more-precise formula, the results for the two
examples come even closer:
[ (1168-2) / (1074-10) X (1125.48 - 2) ] + 10 = 1035.22
...with the .22 indicating line 11. Similarly...
[ (1168-2) / (1074-10) X (72.20 - 2) ] + 10 - 1 = 73.06
...with the .06 indicating line 3. In both cases, the result
is very close to the actual location of each quote at (1035.6)
and (73.34), respectively.
To sum up, the general formula is:
{ [ (HT-HN) / (ST-SN) ] X [HP-HN+(2 X HL) ] }+SN-1 = SP
where:
- HT is the total number of pages in the hardback
edition
- HN is the positive difference between 1 and the first
page number of the hardback edition
- ST is the total number of pages in the softback edition
- SN is the positive difference between 1 and the first
page number of the softback edition
- HP is the page number of a quote in the hardback edition
- HL is the line number of a quote in the hardback edition
- SP is the page number of a quote in the softback edition
- Note that the final "- 1" is only subtracted for HP less
than 339.
In general, the formula will bring you within a page of
your intended destination - and that sure beats thumbing
through a thousand pages! Happy hunting.
