Help me dedicate my book!

May 28, 2008 5:15 PM

Help me dedicate my book! I am dedicating my upcoming book to my wife and baby daughter, and am searching for inspiration. What are the most memorable dedications that you have seen?

As background, the book (written with a coauthor) will be published later this year by a large business publisher. It is an examination of video games and the influence they have on the business world. My wife and daughter have little or no interest in video games, so it is hard to come up with a topical dedication, and I don't really want to go with something that is too much of an inside joke between my wife and myself. Basically, I am looking for something short and sweet that anyone would understand upon reading it.

After writing tens of thousands of work, I find myself completely stuck on this little detail. Anyone got any inspiration?

posted by blahblahblah to media & arts (10 comments total)

For Mrs. blah and blahblahette,
without whom not.

(or sine quibus non, if you want to get all Latin-y and pretentious.)
posted by dersins at 5:27 PM on May 28, 2008

For ________ & ________.

Really, don't go for injokes or something cheesy that will draw unwarranted attention to the dedication. I guess you could add something like "For being there" or whatever reason after it, but keep it straight, brief and as timeless as possible.
posted by fire&wings at 5:27 PM on May 28, 2008

I saw one once that was something like:

To my two year old daughter Beatrice, without whose loving attention this book would have been finished in half the time.

posted by popechunk at 5:32 PM on May 28, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

This is setting the bar pretty high, IMO, but J.D Salinger's dedication in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction" is beautiful:

If there is an amateur reader still left in the world--or anybody who just reads and runs--I ask him or her, with untellable affection and gratitude, to split the dedication of this book four ways with my wife and children.

posted by jeremias at 5:33 PM on May 28, 2008

Could it reflect a little what the book is talking about too? The best dedication I've ever read was in Sailor Song by Ken Kesey:

On the parked bus one night, the interior warmly lit by a living room lamp, someone complimented Ken on the book's (Sailor Song) dedication:

To Faye -
A deep keel in the raving waves
A polestar in the dark
A shipmate

"That's the best thing I ever wrote", he said.

I say, don't make it standard. Use your craft to make it a worthwhile piece of writing.
posted by eralclare at 5:51 PM on May 28, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This book is dedicated to my brilliant and beautiful wife without whom I would be nothing. She always comforts and consoles, never complains or interferes, asks nothing, and endures all. She also writes my dedications.
-- Albert Malvino
posted by you're a kitty! at 6:10 PM on May 28, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

Dear Momma--Wherever you are, if ever you hear the word 'nigger' again, remember they are advertising my book.

-- Dick Gregory, in Nigger
posted by johngoren at 6:15 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Even if you're not a believer ....

"To God, my father in Heaven and my husband, Calvin, my light on earth."
posted by notjustfoxybrown at 6:17 PM on May 28, 2008

In the vastness of space and the immensity of time,
it is my joy to share
a planet and an epoch with Annie.

(Carl Sagan's dedication of Cosmos to Ann Druyan.)
posted by Mapes at 7:58 PM on May 28, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

"To my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
posted by ottereroticist at 7:49 AM on May 29, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]