Is anyone keeping a master list....

.. of identically-named authors who need to be separated, when (SOON??) LT gets this feature up and running?

I've run across several and now wish I'd jotted down their names. Often I'm thinking of writing to the author for a photo permission, and chicken out when I imagine him clicking through to his author page and being unimpressed with LT when he sees not only his poetry books listed, but also that he wrote a textbook on maritime law.

Anyway.. if there isn't such a list, perhaps this can serve as one. John Gardner irritates me most, and there's Robin Robertson, who I'm fairly sure is not a poet, a vegan chef, and a Jungian psychologist, and Michael Byers.

I'd like to add Jeff Smith to the list. The Frugal Gourmet and the artist/creator of Bone.

Is there any reason not to sticky this thread and just keep a list here?

Scott Adams

Is there any reason not to sticky this thread and just keep a list here? None, except that there is no universal 'sticky' here, just a personal 'star' marker.

John Chamberlain of The letters of John Chamberlain is not the political journalist

Jack Harvey author of Herbs is not Jack Harvey aka Ian Rankin.

Thomas Moore ( a real mess )

Btw, there are two Thomas J. Moore's too, the LC authority name for the second, Thomas J. Moore, M.D., is in the LT system and there is no book mixing at the moment. Most book copies in LT by these two authors are with Thomas Moore.

John Gray of "Near Eastern Mythology" differs from the one shown.

Michael Marshall Smith will need a bit of work. It doesn't help that there are entries which spell his name Michael Marshal Smith and Michael M. Smith and Michael Marsh Smith

Ronald Syme is really two authors:

Sir Ronald Syme (1903-1989), author of The Roman Revolution
Ronald Syme (1910-), author of Magellan: First Around the World

There are at least two Peter Robinsons.

Joel Rosenberg -- SF and Fantasy author and mystery author is one person, rabinical scholar is a different one.

There's Ann Douglas - someone already posted a note on that page.

Jane Fletcher
Alan Rabinowitz
David Hill

Stephen White. There are at least two - the one who has written the Alan Gregory series of thrillers, and the one who writes the Barney books. There might also be a third, who has written about Russia.

Dan Brown - the one who wrote the poetry book Matter is not the Da Vinci Code author.

There are at least four John Fishers, including the admiral and the saint.

There are two or more authors with the name John Robbins.

One writes debugging books. Another is a nutrition/health author. The last three books on the author page are probably not from either of those two.

Paul Chadwick the pulp author

and

Paul Chadwick the comics guy

Paul Chadwick Just for the touchstone

I am fairly certain that listings for both Robert Wilson and Robert Harris embody more than writer.

Also:

Richard Price
David Mitchell
Bill James
John Harvey
Mary Stewart

John Markoff 1. NY Times reporter 2. Soc professor at Pittsburgh

James Campbell, 1. Anglo-Saxon scholar 2. author of Talking at the gates : a life of James Baldwin. Maybe more!

and Michael Moore.. that's a mess.

Susan Fletcher is another.

Susan Fletcher, 1979- wrote Eve Green.

Susan Fletcher, 1951- is a YA fantasy writer who wrote the rest of the titles under this name.

Robert Newman contains at least two writers (one of them also known as Rob Newman, but you can't combine the two, obviously).

I'm fairly sure that not all the titles by Ian Stewart are the work of the mathematics professor - prolific and multi-talented though he is.

Ian Stewart, the guy who co-authored Wheelers for one, is a mathematician, so it is quite possible.

However, Ian Stewart isn't a very uncommon name either.

James Barr appears to be two authors:

James Barr (1922 - 1995), gay novelist (PDF biography)
Professor James Barr (1924 - 2006), Biblical scholar (Wikipedia)

Christopher Priest is two writers.

The well known British SF writer and the comics book writer Jim Owlsley who changed his name to Christopher Priest in the 90s (much to the former's ire).

John Berger and Thomas Berger seem to have been combined. I'm sorry to say I don't know how to fix this.

Actually Berger with no first name was combined with John Berger, some of Thomas Berger's books are with the Berger without a first name.

Nigel Calder

One is a US diesel mechanic, tother a UK scientist. Both are sailors and write about sailboats, which don't complicate it much.

Michael King
One is a NZ historian and the other writes books on Pilates, body sculpting and possibly gardening.

Richard J. Foster page lists books by him, the author of Celebration of Discipline, and other titles that were not written by Richard J.

There are at least two authors named Jon Stewart.

One of course is the comedian on the 'Daily Show' who authored Naked Pictures of Famous People but there is also the scholar who has authored and edited several tomes, such as:

Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered
and
The Debate Between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty.

I want to add Walter Raleigh to the list.

Of course there is the Elizabethan courtier, explorer, poet and historian; but there is also a nineteenth century (?) literary critic (?) who wrote books like Shakespeare's England: An Account of the Life and Manners of His Age.

Another name, Michael Davis that represents more than one author:

There is the one who writes on philosophy:
The poetry of philosophy : on Aristotle's Poetics
The Politics of Philosophy
The Autobiography of Philosophy: Rousseau's Reveries

then there are (currently) two books (here at LT) that seem to belong to a literary critic
William Blake: A New Kind of Man
and a historian
The image of Lincoln in the South.

There are at least three authors named Robert Boyle - the scientist (currently labelled Robert Boyle), the anthology editor Robert H. Boyle (editor of The phoenix tree : an anthology of myth fantasy), and the Fanpro/FASA writer who is mostly credited as Rob Boyle to avoid the problems that arise for the books where he's credited using the longer form of his name.

There also seem to be at least two authors named John Muir, unless the wilderness discovery author cared a lot about Volkswagens.

There seem to be two authors named Robert Adams - the author of the Horseclans books, and someone who writes about photography. (At least, I think they're different people.)

Owen West is one of Dean R. Koontz's many pen names, but it's also the name of another author.

Lawrence Friedman looks like a mixture of multiple people - it asks to merge with Lawrence M. Friedman (law) and sometimes Lawrence J. Friedman (psychotherapy). There's at least one Lawrence M. Friedman who writes in the field of medicine as well.

Robinson and Friedman sometimes wind up merged with specific authors, but each has multiple authors entangled with it.

There are two authors named Rachel Simon - one wrote a book about Jewish women in Libya, and one who wrote short stories, a couple of novels, riding the bus with my sister and a guide to writing.

There are also two writers named Donald S. Lopez. They are father and son. Donald Lopez the senior is an ex-fighter pilot who worked for the (US) National Air and Space Museum, while Junior (ironically?) is a Buddhism scholar.

Ben Cohen is at least two authors: the bridge player and the Ben & Jerry's co-founder.

Could be two Jim Wilson I think. One writes a bunch of Executioner stuff like Phoenix Force and there is another that seems to have some christian books. Could be the same guy, but not likely?

Stephen Schwartz, the composer /lyricist, Wickedand the journalist, The Two Faces of Islam

Steve Miller

I somehow doubt the same guy is writing Christian living books and Dungeons & Dragons Ravenloft modules. :)

The Jeffrey Lord that wrote this : The Borking Rebellion: The Never-Before-Told Story of How a Group of Pennsylvania Women Attorneys took on the Entire U.

is pretty likely not a house pseudonym that the Richard Blade series was written under

45> fix your touchstone Please

Roger Sessions includes:

1. Roger Huntington Sessions (1896-1985), American composer

2. Roger Sessions, author of books on object-oriented programming.

#47, in this case if the people who own books by Roger Huntington Sessions changed the name of the author from Roger Sessions to Roger Huntington Sessions, the problem would be solved. As it seems that there are only 1 or 2 LTers who own each of his works, a nicely worded comment to each of them might do the trick.

No way. I am sorry, I have to completely disagree with you here rebeccanyc.

Roger sessions on music : Collected essays, for example, is by Roger Sessions. See the MARC record on the work page. If numbers count, one LT user has 12 music scores entered with the composer Roger Sessions as author.

Best to wait until the LT system can sort out authors with the same name rather than asking individual LT users to go in and edit library author entries. Have you seen how many typos have been made in manual/edited entries?

Manual editing is the answer on occasion. The error rate is far less than for manual entry. But It is not alwaysthe answer There are plenty of not contactable users for a start. and occasions when we would just be setting up another competing standard.

Well, I bow to the experts, but I must say there are many occasions on which I need to manually correct incorrect entries that are automatically generated. I would also say that I ensure greater accuracy for my copy when I enter the book completely manually, although I only do this when I can't add it from one of the LT sources, since I pay attention to every field I can, and I may miss some incorrect fields when I check an automatic entry against my copy.

The only experts are the LT users who have the book in hand imo, which is why I don't like sending comments to other users suggesting their interpretation is not correct.

Not to say I haven't sent these comments myself when I notice an obvious error. The manually entered book In the Name of Salome is NOT by Gail Anderson-Dargatz for example, it is by Julia Alvarez. Someone skipped a line on their book list. This copy conked out on Tim's first author/title combining system last February, but it sits quietly now without really disturbing anyone.

I've made changes to some of my entries too, though if I don't like the author I will usually find another source or enter the book manually rather than fiddling with the entry that I have. How can I tell that my solution will be any better in the long run?

I notice that you have a copy of the The Oxford desk dictionary and thesaurus edited by Frank R. Abate in your library. (I just entered a copy of this as a test). Your copy isn't reached with the touchstone though. It was entered before LT started to pick up, so called, 'author' names from some of the MARC records, another examples of changes not backdated. Your edited copy is stuck to the copies with no author. Do you think it would be better to go and try and combine all new and older entries together or to delete and start again?

How do these copies of books by editors get combined with copies without authors anyway? I've asked this before. It is impossible for LT users to do this.

kathrynnd, thanks for the tip about The Oxford Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus. I tried deleting it and adding it again, but the problem is really that I put (ed.) after Abate's name. I tried to figure out how to combine all the (ed.) and other copies, but couldn't find a way (maybe my ignorance).

I went back and forth for a while but then made a conscious decision to add (ed.) for editors even though it messes up the social data because it will make it easier for me to move info to the new author/contributor fields Tim is promising us. Every now and then, one of my "authors" with (ed.) after his name gets combined with the author without (ed.), but usually not. I have no idea how this happens, and am really just waiting for the expanded fields.

I don't remember seeing this for a while but there was an earlier discussion about (ed) following which I adopted the style 'Abate, Frank R., (ed.)'. Using the second comma still worked well but separated the '(ed.)' from the lastname.

OK, I experimented with this. It will show the name as Frank R. Abate (ed.) in my library view if I show names as first name/last name, but if I show them the way I usually show them as last name/first name, it appears as Abate, Frank R., (ed.). More to the point, however, it doesn't combine with Frank R. Abate without the (ed.).

I appreciate the tip but I think I'll wait for multiple fields so I don't have to change them all twice. Or maybe I'll wait until I finish (ha!) entering my library into LT and have time (ha again!) on my hands.

55 -

to combine an author with author (ed) do the following:
on the search page search for author - Abate,
from the list select Frank R. Abate,
on the author page at the bottom of the right hand column you will see
Q: Can I combine with an author not sugested above?
Click the Yes you can below this,
type in Abate again,
finde the version with (ed) in and click the combine link by that name.

56 -- I tried doing this before and it didn't work. I tried it again just to make sure. No Abate (ed.) shows up. However, I have now successfully combined the books from the work page, so thanks to all for spurring me to do this.

Before your copy was hidden with the copies without an author, and that is why you were not able to find your Abate (ed.). I separated your copy from no author, and meant to write and let you know that I had done so, but got caught up a similar exchange on another group.

Bug Collectors, Topic: Why is my copy of book not grouped together with other peoples'? (msg 4)

I'd already separated your example so had to go scrambling for another.

Benjamin R. Foster (editor) no touchstone possible, cannot be combined with Benjamin R. Foster to bring the all copies of The epic of Gilgamesh entered with this editor as author together. That is because at the moment Benjamin R. Foster (editor) is hidden in with the copies of The epic by no author.

It would be great if you could write more than one touchstone for a title in a message -- here's the work for the Epic of Gilgarmesh with no author.

http://www.librarything.com/work/59544

In this particular case I would not separate the Editor copy out from the others, that might not make someone very happy, especially as there is no way to put them back together again.

{It would also be great to be able to edit a message without losing touchstones too}

more multiple writers with but a single name:

James Baldwin
William Cooper
Charles Williams (3+)
John Harvey
Norman Lewis
Jane Adams
David Williams
Elizabeth Dean
Robert Harris
James Jones
Robert Stone
Richard Price

Robert Irwin

The wonderful contemporary British novelist and historian is definitely not the same author as the American real estate guru.

The Robert Howard who wrote Brave New Workplace definitely did not write Conan, et. al.

James Robinson the comic book and screen writer needs to be split from James M. Robinson the religious scholar

Richard Friedman appears to be at least two people - Richard Elliott Friedman who writes about the Bible and someone else who writes about homosexuality.

John Long is currently a mixture of at least two people - John A. Long and Edward John Long.

Teresa of Avila seems to be entangled with Mother Teresa, thanks to the entry for "Teresa" (which isn't as much of a mess as I would have thought, frankly).

Elizabeth George

There's the Christian living author and the mystery/historical fiction novelist.

Somehow I don't think that the Joseph Owens who is the author of Dread: The Rastafarians of Jamaica is the same guy who wrote Doctrine of Being in the Aristotelian Metaphysics and Aristotle, the Collected Papers of Joseph Owens - call it a hunch.

AndJoseph R. Owens is someone completely else again. Why no touchstone? See http://www.librarything.com/author/owenjosephr for the author of Colder than Hell Hmm, no touchstone for that either. Perhaps someone's been separating. ; )

Lee Martin is at least 2 separate authors, one writing general ficioin and one writing a mystery series.

Joseph O'Connor includes both the NLP author and the Irish storyteller.

I don't think Alex Ross the comic artist and writer is Alex Ross the Harlequin romance writer.

Terry Jones the sportswriter from Edmonton, Alberta, who wrote The Great Gretzky is not the same person as the Monty Python Terry Jones (Terence Graham Parry Jones).

I'm fairly certain that Canadian journalist Stephen Cole who wrote The Canadian Hockey Atlas and The Last Hurrah (as well as a book about the CBC) is not the same person as the Stephen Cole who writes Dr. Who books.

Michael Alexander appears to be multiple people - a translator named (I think) Michael J. Alexander, and at least one person who writes about computer-related topics.

In fact, anything in the vicinity of a translation of Beowulf is apt to be a mess.

Sara Wood (not to be confused with Sara Woods) looks like at least two (possibly three) people at the moment. The Harlequin writer dominates the list of works, but there's also a Christian writer and someone who writes about business in there.

74 > Take a look at Sara Wood now, after the Wood books have been separated. This won't make some Harlequin book owners happy though, so probably won't last.

Lisa Williams, "Family Bites" is by one Lisa, and the other two titles are by another (or others).

As I brought up on another thread, I have a tendency to drop an extra 'C' into the surname of Susan Shwartz (author of Hecate's Cauldron) and apparently other people do too - Susan Schwartz appears to be a different person but Hecate's Cauldron is the same book.

Dare I mention the horrors that are Anonymous, No Author, and Unknown? They overlap that well-known horror Various.

Lisa Williams who wrote "Family Bites" is different from the one who wrote about Virginia Woolf and Grant's Register.
Ian Stewart (name spotted with queries earlier in thread) who wrote "Wheelers" is the same one who wrote "Science of Discworld" and "From Here to Infinity" - he's a professor at Warwick University. If it is co-written with Jack Cohen, it's the same guy, too. There is a geologist called Ian Stewart floating around as well, but I don't think he's written anything but academic papers - he is a different person though.

Huh.

LibraryThing doesn't distinguish between Robert A. Wilson and Roberta Wilson - she's gotten mixed in with Wilson, Robert A., since both would derive pages as wilsonroberta...

>79 DisassemblyOfReason: Oh good catch! At least this is something that LT should be able to fix.

According to the bibliography on the Avi webpage both of these titles are by Avi, the pen name used by Michael Avi-Yonah.

So, Michael Avi-Yonah is the author name we need to add to the master list, Michael Avi-Yonah, PhD, (1904-1974), the scholar who wrote books about Palestine, and Michael Avi-Yonah who writes children's books under the pen name Avi.

Sorry, I forgot the URL

http://www.avi-writer.com/booklist.html

Ah, thanks! That makes it more clear. I never knew that, good correction. And good thing I didn't do any damage then... I was just sorting out obvious titles on that page since I figured the authors couldnt be sorted out yet....

John Grant - probably hard to be an Australian convict and write a Judge Dredd book.

Peter Evans - common name, combination of Peter J. Evans, again a Dredd writer, and probably more than one other by the looks.

David Bishop the writer of Cursed Earth Asylum,Operation Vampyr etc. isn't the David Bishop harlequin romance writer, as far as I am aware.

James Grant looks to be a mixture of James L. Grant and James Douglas Grant (at least). I just separated James Douglas Grant out but I'll be surprised if he stays out.

I may have forgotten to mention Robert Myers (a name that may be dodgy even when given a middle initial, especially 'M').

None of the three books by Judith Stewart look like they’re by the same person.

Copied frorm someone at book talk:
We need to separate our two Gregory Clarks: one the Canadian journalist, veteran, and sportsman who is author of several books of humourous essays; and another writer about international, psychological, political, and perhaps economic topics.

Overloading this thread....

Peter Taylor's page looks like at least three different authors, maybe four or five.

Ross King 1. Professor of Korean at the University of British Columbia 2. Author of Brunelleschi's Dome.

Paul Brown. I wouldn't know where to start.

John Green: 1. Canadian author b. 1927 2. current YA author. Not sure about the Dover coloring books!

update from John Green, author of An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska:
I didn't write the bigfoot books (that guy is known as one of the "four horsemen of Sasquatchery," though, which is my all-time favorite nickname for anyone). Nor did I write any of those other books.

Just providing touchstones for the authors previously mentioned. Now we have a nice list on the right of the screen, which pleases my semi-anal brain.

Robin Robertson
Michael Byers
Jack Harvey
John Gray
Joel Rosenberg
Nigel Calder
Jim Wilson
Robert Howard
David Bishop

msg 89 > John Green

Just to get in the spirit of LT I entered my (1968 1st edition) copy of On the track of the Sasquatch using the University of British Columbia. The author name is John Green, by the title page and the library source, and not John Willison Green, as some other copies have been entered.

I hope the MARC record will eventually help separate the John Green authors.

kathrynnd aka edandkathy

peter brown is at least two different people, probably more like three, or even four.

Bruce Sterling writes knitting books and harlequin romances as well as the usual stuff, which I think is unlikely.

More stuff for the list:

There are two authors Richard J. Bernstein and Richard Bernstein that currently have two books (Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question, and Habermas and Modernity that appear on both author pages. I believe that both these books belong on the Richard J. Bernstein page. Although, I have to admit that since I don't own the Arendt book I couldn't swear to it...

Also there is a Catholic Theologian Anton Charles Pegis who has written several original works of his own, but he has also edited an edition of the works of Aquinas called Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas. In the past (but not today) I have seen the works of Aquinas and also the original works of Pegis appear on the same author (Aquinas) page. And since this is still a live possibility - the Saint Thomas Aquinas author page still offers Pegis as an option to combine with! - I think these two (Aquinas, Pegis) should also appear on this list.

David C. Smith,Dave Smith,David Smith - can't tell how many of these there are!

That last touchstone you made for David Smith took me to a work by Knud Haakonssen. Looks like I better take a closer look at these Smith authors.

Re Robert Wilson-yes,in some cases, Robert Charles Wilson -f/sf, and Robert Wilson mystery/thriller were confused-i may not have found all of it-and of courseRobert Anton Wilson-though I think those are ok

Nancy Collins

George R R Martin and George Martin are different people.

I'm not certain that this is the same problem, but I suspect the solution will be similar. Dorothy L Sayers sometimes comes up (correctly) and sometimes becomes 'Dorothy L. Fleming formerly Sayers'.

With all respect to Mr Fleming and his significance in her life, I cannot conceive that anyone would ask for one of his wife's books by using his name. It's particularly confusing when it is sometimes one thing and sometimes the other.

Have I got it wrong? and how do I change entries that are already in place?

100>

I'm not sure what the problem with this is. I just checked the Dorothy L. Sayers author page and it seems she has been combined (correctly) with Dorothy L. Fleming formerly Sayers. If these represent the same woman, then they are combined as they should be - this thread is actually about authors who have the exact same name but are two different people.

So I'm not sure what you mean it sometimes "comes up" as one or the other, do you mean when you add books? Do you mean in someone else's library? It's entirely possible that someone else would want to enter her name that way in his own records, though I'm not sure what the motivation would be. In that case, you would just ignore it and leave them combined. You can change "entries that are already in place" if they belong to another user. If you mean that some of your entries say this, you can of course just edit your own book data. Did that answer your question?

100 >/ 102 >

I think I understand the question now. A copy of The five red herrings, (1931), entered from the National Library of Scotland has Fleming (formerly Sayers) as author.

The MARC record says this is an unconverted catalog record, so though this does not quite fit in with the rest of the master list, it does show that old data can be a source of some of the problems for names on the list.

autolycus, yes, you can edit your own book data, and/or, yes you can combine the two forms of the author name. Charlotte Nicholls, formerly Brontë. is combined with Charlotte Bronte, as an example.

Samuel Butler, the noted english satirist and Samuel Butler, the noted english satirist. Well you can't expect miracles but Hudibras was 17thC and Erewhon was 19thC and they were grouped with Homer sexuality one of them doubted.

John Saul ~thrillers
John Ralston Saul~philosophy

Robert Adams - Horseclans etc., and at least one other it would seem

jjlong must have better luck with touchstones than me, think I get 60:40 or something :)

To add a few touchstones -
Nancy Collins
Peter Evans
Bruce Sterling

And one pair of authors who aren't currently mixed up only by the grace of God are J. F. Cherry (the J = John) the classicist and John F. Cherry the medievalist, who appear to be different people judging from the former author's web page listing his publications.

Leaving aside the mess that is the collection of Dragonlance books co-authored by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (thanks to the many creative ways their names have been combined into a single author), there is...

Margaret Weiss. All but one of the books under that name are obvious import errors / typographical errors for Margaret Weis, but one book is buried in there about attention-deficit disorder.

Margaret Atwood includes the Canadian author, and also someone publishing hymnbooks in the UK early last century.

attention-deficit disorder apropriate.

Miriam Kahn includes the anthropologist as well as a librarian. The librarian is actually Miriam B. Kahn, and the anthropologist does not seem to have a middle initial as far as I can tell.

And now we have

• translator Eberhard Nestle, who (not surprisingly) has a few books specified with Nestle...
  


• Brian Jones, who seems to be more than just Brian W. Jones...
  
• and did I mention the nasty mess that was Norton (at least, the last time I looked at it)?
  

There are also two Michael Hogans inadvertently combined -- one is Michael J., the other Michael F.X., both born 1943.

Yet another "can't derive a unique name" mix-up:

Jim Stewart is embedded in J. I. M. Stewart (a.k.a. Michael Innes).

By the way, I know that "Norton" all by itself may look innocent, depending on the combination state of the individual works attributed with just a surname. However, it alternates between being combined with Andre Norton and Mary Norton, despite the Norton Anthology books in there.

Alexandre Dumas pere (father) and Alexandre Dumas fils (son) are both mixed up in Alexandre Dumas

John Hudson - history of English law, chemistry and meditation?
Alan Watts - zen, pop music and sailing?
Carl Koch - catholic church and photography?

More examples for this list:

John A. Scott, John Scott and John P. Scott are all mixed on the John Scott page. Two of these different names also show as the author of the same books, for instance, The Architect, Social Network Analysis and What I have Written: A Novel.

The author David Johnston probably includes several authors - some books on this author page are: Federico García Lorca, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation, and RECORDS FOR REPORTERS: A BRIEF GUIDE.

Ditto David Owen. This author page includes: The Complete Office Golf, Hidden Evidence: Forty true crimes and how forensic science helped solve them, and Nietzsche, politics, and modernity : a critique of liberal reason.

David J. Weber has some works appearing on David Weber's page.

Did I mention we need a trash colection on authors pages? meantime I will see what a descrete comment can do.

Simon

Nancy Bush

Knitwear designer:
Folk Knitting in Estonia
Folk Socks
Knitting on the Road
Knitting Vintage Socks

Young Adult author:
Bittersweet Sixteen
Electric Blue
Candy Apple Red
Dare to Love

Posted on behalf of mujahid7ia who has an orphan post here . "

"Muhammad Ali of the Lahore Ahmadiyyah movement and the famous boxer, also named Muhammad Ali, are being confused. Believe me, the boxer was not a scholar of hadith nor was he an Ahmadi."

edited to add touchstone

Michael Mann includes the author of social histories on the nature of power and the movie director.

James Adams: Currently combined with James L. Adams.

msg 122 > Separated.

Now, for the list, James Adams includes at least four different people:

James Adams 1950- , James Adams 1951- , James L. Adams, James Truslow Adams

Elizabeth Chadwick is also a combination of two authours. One for historical fiction and the other for romantic bodice ripper fiction.

Bob Woodward includes a book about autism by Bob Woodward, M.Ed.

My friend, the David Chilton who authored Productive Christians in an age of guilt-manipulators and Paradise restored and other titles is not the same David Chilton who wrote The wealthy barber. Just to be pedantic, Bruce David Chilton is not David Chilton, although also writing in Christian or biblical-related topics.

Susan Mitchell the american poet wrote the poetry collections Erotikon & Rapture.
She's not Susan Mitchell, the Australian author who wrote Tall Poppies, Icons, Saints & Divas.

Susan Mitchell the american poet wrote the poetry collections Erotikon & Rapture.
She's not Susan Mitchell, the Australian author who wrote Tall Poppies, Icons, Saints & Divas, and other books.

Split up as of 10th Feb 2009 (new splitting feature.)

Going by volume of works entered on LT:
-The poet is #1 , with her three books as of wikipedia.
- The australian author is #2 with as many titles as I could recognise added to her.

- The rest are lumped in as number #3. There's diet books, cook books and plant books there. Don't know enough to separate further but I suspect there's many Susans still merged.

Phillip J. Barker (sometimes Phillip Barker or Phil Barker ) is a Scottish Mental Health Nurse

Philip Barker (sometimes Phil) writes about historical wargaming.

Philip Barker writes about child psychiatry

and just to confuse things Amazon.co.uk offers a book called Basic Family Therapy by Phillip Barker and Phillip Barker! I'm not sure who those authors are.

Greene (sorry about the do-it-myself touchstone) is a mixture of
- Graham Greene
- Jennifer Greene, the Harlequin writer
- Brian Greene, writing about superstrings

This has led to an amusing few minutes or so of separating these works out from Graham Greene, especially the Harlequin stuff...

Also, I don't think Gerald Greene and Graham Greene should be mixed, despite the fact that S-M: the last taboo is attributed to both. (My, the talk program has an interesting idea of touchstone suggestion...)

Speaking of Green(e)s...

James Green covers 3-4 authors:
1. social movement history author (Death in the Haymarket)
2. the herbalist
3. Zen scholar

I'm not sure about the Portuguese title.

John Powers is a mixture of at least two people: C. John Powers (who doesn't seem to use his first initial on his books) from Wright (?) University, who writes about Tibetan Buddhism, and John R. Powers.

An even messier case is Michael Casey, who has attributed to him (them, I suppose I should say) a number of Michael Casey OCSO's books.

John Walsh looks like a mixture of at least 3 people - apart from the gentleman from America's Most Wanted, there are books on art history and various books about 19th century American history.

David Schwartz is a mix of David Joseph Schwartz and David M. Schwartz, to name two.

There do appear to be two Terry Joneses. I know the Monty Python, fairy tales, and history titles look odd together but they're right; there are however some fashion titles in there that I'm pretty sure aren't the work of the same man.

And then there is the Terry Jones (sports writer from Edmonton, Alberta) that wrote about Wayne Gretzky.

David Miller, I don't know all of them but I do know that the David Miller book I have was my College Professor who wrote a couple VAXX related textbooks NOT fiction novels.

James A. Moore appears to be another one.

Also Jim Moore and perhaps James Moore, neither of which should therefore be combined with James A Moore or with each other.

Michael Craft, mystery author.
vs.
Michael Craft, alien conspiracy theorist.

H. Gold (the correct touchstone is H. Gold, not that linked to) is a mixture of Hal Gold writing about war crimes and Horace Leonard Gold the SF editor.

David Walker the abolitionist (Walker's appeal)
vs.
David Harry Walker the SF writer (The Lord's Pink Ocean)

They were mixed together this morning due to some books for which the SF writer's middle name has been omitted.

Elizabeth Chadwick American and British

Even after spending my afternoon separating out Christine Green, Martin Green, Oliver Green, R. Green Roland Green, and just plain Green, either Michael Green is more than one author or he has a severe multiple personality disorder.

Note: It is not beyond the realm of possibility that one variation of Michael Green is indeed the same author as Roland Green, but given the clearly multiple Michaels, I thought I better to separate Roland.

There are 3 Tom Hollands:

the movie director
the British author
the author of The Truth About How to Get in Shape

William Temple (Readings in St. John's Gospel)
vs.
William F. Temple (The Three Suns of Amara / Battle on Venus)

After fun with Greene, I'm not surprised that Green also had problems.

John Wilson is a mixture of John Harold Wilson and others.

John H. Wilson looks like a mixture of John Harold Wilson and somebody else.

SPRINGER contains works by different people, among them Nancy Springer.

Page seems to be mostly, but not entirely, a romance writer in terms of number of works, but was combined with yet another person with that surname.

Something tells me that John Butler isn't both a children's author (While You Were Sleeping, one of my daughter's bedtime books) and an erotica author (Barely Legal).

I just noticed that Stephen Jay Gould is listed as authouring a management textbook, which I think is unlikely. When I checked it out the author of the textbook is just "Gould" which has been combined with "Stephen Jay Gould". But when I checked out "Gould" I find that there are some legitimate SJG books who have an author of just "Gould" so I can't just uncombine them. I think this is anothe case where there needs to be a way to distinguish between more than one "Gould".

Re 149 and 151

At this point most "authors" identified only a by a surname are in fact an amalgam of a number of authors with that surname. They should not, repeat should not, be combined with any of the individual authors that make up that amalgam. It makes a mess of the other author pages.

You can ask those who have only a surname listed as author to correct their data to include the full name via a private message and that's about as much as can be done to bring the orphans home.

Michael Katz is a mixture of Michael B. Katz on economics and Michael Katz, Rabbi on the Talmud.

And to make sure we have the touchstone for a few earlier messages:
Gould
Powers
Roberts
Robinson

No, surname-only author data is not very nice...

I've separated Gould from Stepen Jay Gould.

Virginia Hamilton is . . .

a children's book author
-and-
Harlequin romance writer

There are a couple of Stephen Adams by the looks

Andersen (Andersen) is a mixture of the writer of fairy tales (Hans Christian Andersen) and someone who writes about UNIX (Paul K. Andersen), and possibly others.

Anderson is not only a misspelling for the writer of fairy tales, but the surname of Poul Anderson the SF writer.

Hamilton is a mixture of the Federalist and a few other people, as suggested above. I just had to uncombine it from Alexander Hamilton.

And to put in a touchstone or two:
Adams
Stephen Adams
Andersen (I'd edit the previous post, but the touchstone won't load decently)

Paul Anderson includes books on C++ programming, British politics and Missouri snakes, and so cannot be treated just as a misspelling for Poul Anderson.

I highly doubt comics author Chris Ware wrote The Bomb Vessel: Shore Bombardment Ships of the Age of Sail

Also, actor Bruce Campbell didn't write the Ken Holt mysteries.

That reminds me - there appear to be multiple authors named Joseph Campbell, although at least the famous one dominates the list of works therein.

I came across a mention elsewhere that American Heart Association tends to accumulate other American XXX Association books (true; they can't be separated out). As far as I can see, that's probably due to a 20 character cutoff on the name of an author as used to generate a unique author page. Hans Christian Andersen, for example, truncates to a 20 character name instead of 21 characters, despite how the name is displayed at the top of his page.

So there are probably more authors like that with longish names that overlap enough to cause problems, even though they're unique from a human reader's perspective.

And adding touchstones for:
Andersen (yay! finally loaded)
Chris Ware
David Weber

I think the problem is compounded by the American Heart Association being changed to Association, American Heart under the assumption that it is actually a first, middle, and last name. If there is a 20 character cutoff its then going to be only "Association, America" so no wonder all the American x Association entries get lumped together.

Oh, the American Heart Association reminds me of a situation that's been bothering me for months, almost a year really. The American Psychological Association is hopelessly linked to the American Psychiatric Association. I mean, what's the deal with that? They're like locked together. I completely don't get it. I did the author separation, and I tried to do the manual works separation for about the fiftieth time, and it just doesn't work. Does anyone else have any idea what's going on here? I'm really sick of seeing the DSM IV with the APA style guides...

> 163

Looks like the same kind of problem as that mentioned in 161 and 162 above. Look at the page name the touchstone links to - "associationamericanp". They derive the same name, so they go to the same place even if separated.

The length cutoff on page name would have to be raised from 20 to 25+ for those two to have distinct page names.

In addition to the information about Koontz in 39 (Owen West both a pen name of Dean Koontz, and a separate author):

David Axton is a pen name Koontz used for Icebound/PRISON OF ICE (Fawcett Crest Book), but someone else wrote Stolen Thunder under the David Axton name (according to a website that tracks the work of Dean Koontz).

Anthony North is another pen name of Koontz, for which he put out 1 novel (Strike Deep), but did not write the other Anthony North books.

The goth singer/writer Voltaire needs to be seperated from the French Enlightenment author.

msg 160 ... and Bruce Campbell, a British writer on birds and natural history generally, is someone else again.

Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh, for goodness knows what reason, is entangled with Nina Kiriki Hoffman and won't separate.

I suspect there are at least 3 authors by the name of John Young (Japanese college textbooks, Christian living, hiking, etc.).

T. H. White is a nasty mess. It's mostly Terence Hanbury White (The Once and Future King), but has a number of copies of Theodore Harold White's books as well (e.g. Breach of Faith : the fall of Richard Nixon).

White (sorry about the do-it-myself touchstone) is an even worse mess, and seems to have been alternating between Terence Hanbury White and E. B. White, judging from the traces left on both authors' works.

I wish there were a way to get Terence Hanbury White's books together without involving Theodore Harold White and without making my own author data more ambiguous about the initials.

Ah, well.

Jean Andrews is either a very versatile person, or a mixture of Jean Andrews PhD and someone who writes about cooking.

I still can't get the touchstone for White, which also contains Secret of the Marauder Satellite by Ted White.

David Kirby is...

1. a poet and professor
2. a journalist

James Hall is at least five different people:

1. James (A.) Hall, art historian
2. James (Norman) Hall, novelist
3. James W. Hall, novelist
4. James Hall, mathematician
5. James Hall, poet/literary critic

Michael Murray includes two authors one of whom is also Michael T. Murray.

Appears to be multiple David Roberts

Patrick White, the Australian author, did not compile Spanish-English dictionaries.

168> The Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh problem looks like a hashing table clash.

P W Atkins appears to have written a Vampire novel in addition to all the classic physical chemistry textbooks.

William Carr (German history) doesn't appear to be the same person as William H. A. Carr (different flavour of history).

Joe Carr doesn't appear to be just Joseph J. Carr.

Carr at first glance *looks* as though it should be combined with John Dickson Carr, but there are other books in the list that aren't his (and more than are currently showing up there).

David Webster looks to be a mess; under the entry there are books on bodybuilding, children's seasonal activities, history, archaeology, and colon health.

Stephen Woodworth is an SF author and has a series with Through Violet Eyes etc.

there also appears to be a civil war geek Steven Woodworth too

Sorry about the touchstones where I've used plain URLs - the list seems to top out at 250 suggestions, and in those cases the desired name wasn't among the top 250.

Richards

Roberts

Thompson

W. W. Norton is currently a catchall for Norton anthologies and such, when they aren't attributed to the much more evil entry for Norton.

Just a few more I happened upon this week:

John Hart: novelist, The king of lies and environmentalist, Walking softly in the wilderness

Peter Temple: Australian crime writer, The broken shore and British finance writer, Magic Numbers

Andrew Miller: novelist, Ingenious pain and religion writer, Miller's Church history

Sarah Hall: novelist, The electric Michelangelo and stained glass artist, The Color of Light

Can someone please tell me how I can separate jjlong from jjwilson61 as they repeatedly keep combining on this thread? :(

>90 jjlong:

... which pleases my semi-anal brain.

I don't mean to pry, jj, but what happened to your other buttock?

Lafferty
John White
White
Ambrose (thanks to the one entry for Ambrose Bierce in there)

>183 Rule42:

What do you mean by "keep combining on this thread"?

Jean Genet author of a maths textbook, is not Jean Genet, a famous and very controversial French writer and convict who was championed by Sartre among others.

I think that there are two different authors named Barbara Walker - one writes books about women and myth, while the other charts knititng patterns.

killearnan, no, those Barbara Walker books are all by the same woman, if you mean Crone etc, so you can cross that one off. :)

Looks like there is more than one Duncan Anderson - a cookbook author and a military writer.

There are two Eva Hoffmans -- the novelist/historian and the children's learning author.

Michael Gold -- the early 20th century journalist, a rabbi, and maybe others

Susan Isaacs -- probably -- the novelist and the organizer

Bruce Alexander the mystery writer and the author of a wireless networking book

Henry Adams the 19th century writer, an historian of WWII, a writer about 10 centuries of American art, and a writer about glass

There are at least four authors called John Ray,
- the naturalist who wrote a.o. The wisdom of God manifested in the works of the creation
- the military historian: The Battle of Britain: Dowding and the First Victory, 1940 (Cassell Military Paperbacks S.)
- the computer specialist: MAC OS X unleashed
- the egyptologist: Reflections of Osiris: Lives from Ancient Egypt

Bob Anderson -- the fitness author and writer(s) about history and garbage

Fred Anderson -- the historian, the musician, the aviation writer, and the "chunk to hunk" guy

Anthony Bailey, the author of Vermeer: A View of Delft and probably other works of art history may not also be the travel writer or the sailing writer and almost certainly isn't the author of a book about North Carolina's Outer Banks

James Baldwin -- the noted African-American author, a writer/editor of school readers, a collector of stories for children, and an environmental writer

>183 Rule42: & >186 jjwilson61:

Just my sense of humor, jj ... this thread about authors with the same or similar names being indistinguishable is also the first thread that I have noticed BOTH of you "jj's" posting on! :)

re Anthony Bailey: the author of books on Rembrandt, Vermeer, Turner and Constable is indeed the travel writer & sailing writer and author of The Outer Banks. AB!

#196 and #194, I am happy to be corrected and, indeed, am embarrassed, as a quick check inside my copy of Vermeer: A View of Delft would have revealed the truth.

Oops, I think I should have posted this note on this thread:

I again apologize if this is not the correct thread for this. This author page Patrick Coby now is combined with 'J. Patrick Coby'. THIS IS CORRECT. The author of Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment and Machiavelli's Romans is one and the same person. I own both books and the backcover of the paperback version of the Machiavelli book confirms this. Please leave 'Patrick Coby' & 'J. Patrick Coby' together. - I mean, at least until some other Patrick Coby shows up... Most people, myself included, are bringing our book records from one of the Amazon sites or the various libraries and we are at the mercy of their data entry process, which isn't always perfect. But that is not the problem here. The earlier book (1987), "Socrates and the Sophistic Enlightenment" has 'Patrick Coby' as the author on the Title Page. But the later book (1999), "Machiavelli's Romans", has 'J. Patrick Coby' as the author on the Title Page. (It is this later book that lists Mr. Coby as the author of these two books on the back cover.) This tells me that there may be another Patrick Coby somewhere publishing something. In other words, in the future, we may well need to split 'Patrick' and 'J. Patrick' apart. ...Hopefully, one day we will be able to handle two (or more) different authors with the exact same name.

Another addition to the list, William Mcneill and William H. McNeill are not the same person. William H. McNeill, who is the same (I believe) as William Hardy McNeill is the famous historian. William Mcneill writes books about philosophical subjects such as The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Ends of Theory, and he has edited books like Continental philosophy : an anthology and also some books by Heidegger. I did not separate this author page because it looks like, however rarely, there are a couple of instances (Plagues and Peoples, e.g.) where the books by the historian (William H./William Hardy) McNeill have come into LT as just 'William McNeill'. Eventually this will have to be addressed. I am just noting it here...

I separated Richard J. Bernstein, a philosopher, from Richard Bernstein but there may still be more than one Richard Bernstein: the author about China also wrote the book about France, but there seems to also be a business author and maybe others.

There also seem to be more than one Edwin Black -- in addition to the writer of exposes on various subjects, there seems to be a science fiction writer and a writer on rhetorical criticism.

I'm quite surprised that no one has reported this one here yet.

There are three or more authors called Joseph Heller. In addition to the author that wrote Catch 22 there is also a well-respected Jewish American writer, Dr. Joseph Heller, who predates the much more popular American satirist, that was a noted historian and essayist on such Judaic topics as Zionism and the new state of Israel. I have books by both authors that I am postponing cataloguing until this fundamental problem is resolved. Most of the titles listed on the Joseph Heller author page belong to the popular novelist, but The Birth of Israel, 1945-1949: Ben-Gurion and His Critics title listed there was, I'm assuming, written by the older Dr. Heller.

There is also a title Bodywise listed there which is about how to keep your body healthy - this doesn't sound much like a book written by either of the other two esteemed Joseph Hellers, but who knows! Finally, there is the title 'The New Plot' listed there that is attributed to Joseph L. Heller. I have never seen this title listed in bibliographies of either of the two main Joseph Hellers' works so I am assuming that this is yet a different person again.

On a related note, there are two 'Joseph Heller' author pages - the other is called: Joseph Heller, Schriftsteller and it is blank (i.e., there are no works associated with it). Therefore this page probably should be deleted. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how to do that.

Andrew Martin
Thomas Wright
Jennifer Taylor
Peter Smith
Peter Young
John Miller
Carol Smith

William Boyd -- the novelist/short story writer and authors of books about education, hockey, medicine, and possibly philosophy

Kevin Boyle -- one writes about labor and racial issues in the US, the other about Ireland

David Bradley --the novelist, a linguist, and possibly others

George Bradley (probably) a poet and a mathematician

There are also at least two Nicholas Blakes
One is the author of
Steering to Glory: A Day in the Life of a Ship of the Line
and
The Illustrated Companion to Nelson's Navy
The other is the pseudonym of Cecil Day Lewis.

Wilhelm Busch: one is the author of Max und Moritz, the other a pastor with books about Jesus.

Frederick Brown the literary critic/biographer and the theologist

Janet Browne, aka E. Janet Browne the biographer of Darwin and writer about biology, and -- probably -- a gardening author.

Christopher Buckley, the humorist, a poet, and possibly an art critic

John Bull probably -- the birder and the dramatist

Robert Burton -- the author of The Anatomy of Melancholy and the prolific nature writer

Roberto Calasso -- the intellectual historian and a psychologist of erotic anger

Peter Cameron the fiction writer and the writer about fundamentalism

James Carey a home maintenance writer, a software writer, and a biologist (probably not all the same person)

Tom Carter not clear whether this is one or more people, writing about hiking, singing, gardens, and wills

Some more:

Alan Armstrong -- at least two here. One is a social and economic historian.
David Baker-- ?? one astronomer, one writing on terrorism?
John Benson -- another social economic historian and a baseball writer
John Burnett -- social and economic historian and ?novelist? John S. Burnett
Peter Gurney -- labour historian and guinea pig expert
Alfred Marshall -- economist and biblical specialist. The economist died in 1924.
Richard Wall -- historical demographer and writer on philosophy

Robert Service one poet, one expert on modern Russia

mAYBE BY BIRTH YEAR, AS A SECOND ID

Sylvia Woods (the one who writes African-American cookbooks)
Sylvia Woods (the composer/musician)

They are combined

Michael Collier -- a geologist, a science fiction writer, and a poet -- probably not all the same person

Roger Conant -- the herpetologist, an engineer, and a reporter

Just discovered this thread. Steve Jackson is two people.

Steve Jackson (UK), author of many of the "Fighting Fantasy" fantasy gamebooks.

Steve Jackson (US), creator of the "GURPS" role-playing game and other games.

I'm pretty sure there are at least two Robin Cooks, the medical suspense author and someone else who appears to be an English historian.

The Robin Cook who wrote Point of Departure is not an English historian but a Scottish politician - he was the Foreign Secretary in Tony Blair's government but was demoted and later resigned because of his opposition to President Bush and the Iraq War. The book is a memoir of his time in government. He died shortly after it was published.

Francois Mathey appears to be an art historian and a chemist.... they could be the same person, but probably aren't.

John Newton appears to be a reverend as well as a food writer.

Charles Duff -- the linguist, an expert on hanging, and an Irish historian (unless he's also the expert on hanging)

Andrew Murray -- a reverend, a Tolkien fan, a biologist, a railways expert...

Stephen Beale - who wrote a beautifully illustrated little book on Profitable Poultry Keeping back in 1895 (what can I say - I have a lot of weird stuff!), and has now turned his hand to scanners and website design.

Books listed under G. Brennan (true touchstone not working at the moment) belong to Geoffrey Brennan and Georgeanne Brennan.

>Charles Duff -- the linguist, an expert on hanging, and an Irish historian (unless he's also the expert on hanging)

Haven't looked at works in question (I've only read the hanging book), but I think this actually IS one person--or easily could be.

From Granta:

Charles Duff (1894-1966) served as an officer in the British Merchant Navy during World War I and then in the intelligence division of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. After retiring, he taught linguistics and languages in London and Singapore while writing travel guides, histories, satires, and a series of text books.

#223 Thanks for the info. I think you are probably right, because the Spanish book I have by him was published in 1944 (it belonged to my mother). For some reason, when I was looking at the author page, I thought the hanging book (which actually looks very interesting) was written a century or so earlier. And he could have written the Irish history book too, since it seems to have been originally published in 1966. I sit corrected.

The Thomas C. Oden page is a mess. I own a book, The origins of the Christian mystical tradition from Plato to Denys, by Andrew Louth but since these two authors have, I assume, authored or edited something together along the way they were combined. Two separate people should really never be combined. One combines different names, not different people. Thus one correctly combines the names Avicenna and Ibn Sina, two names, one person, - but one does not ever combine two people like Louth and Oden. I mention this so that a 'conversation' (hopefully) will appear on these two author pages.

Some notes as I go through combining works and authors who are in my catalog:

There are apparently two George Boyles--one who wrote a biography of a Canadian priest and one who writes about cat first aid. I imagine they're not the same person.

There are also a number of people named John McDermott, although I'm not sure how many--probably three.

There are also several authors named John English (no surprise there). One is a historian and biographer of Canadian politics. There's also a book about Australian stock investing and about Washington Post feature writing; these are each presublaby by two different people.

Did the American politician Eugene McCarthy write poetry? Because on that author page, there are both books of poetry and political memoirs.

Two authors named Jessica Evans, one who writes about museums and cultural history and one who writes about Microsoft FrontPage.

>226 jacr: Yes, Eugene McCarthy wrote poetry both while in office and after retiring.

And then there are the two British authors: Roy Lewis (John Royston Lewis), writes mysteries (Arnold Landon and Eric Ward series, plus other stand-alones); and Roy Harley Lewis, also writes mysteries (Matthew Coll, bookman!) and non-fiction books about books, book collecting, bookstores...a rare book expert... Assume both are still living...

Robert C. Fisher, a travel writer and a mathematics textbook author.

Ian Fleming, in addition to the creator of James Bond, there is a management writer and an organic chemist.

Richard Ford, the novelist/short story writer, a cooking author, and maybe a writer about Spain (this is after separating out a science fiction writer, a roleplaying game author, and several others with COMPLETELY different names who, for some reason, had been combine with Richard Ford).

DissemblyOfReason saw this in #73, but here's more detail. These are definitely five different people.

Michael Alexander, retired professor and translator of Old/Middle English works like Beowulf

Michael Alexander, writer of various computer books like Microsoft Access Data Analysis

Michael Alexander, author of Jazz Age Jews

Michael Alexander, author of Queen Victoria's Maharajah: Duleep Singh

Michael Alexander, writer of How to inherit money

There are at least two, and possibly three, people named Jim Sleeper:

One is a political writer: Closest of Strangers and Liberal Racism.

One wrote Jim Sleeper's 3rd Orange County almanac of historical oddities.

And there's a book called The new Jews which may have been written by the first sleeper, but I don't think so, as he was still in graduate school when it came out, and his work wasn't on Jews.

So far, there are two Otto Weiningers, one the notorious antifeminist philosopher who killed himself in 1903, the other a child psychologist and probably still living.

The former has only three books in print, "Sex and character", "On last things" and "Diary and letters to a friend", but he's definitely the more (in)famous of the two.

Nigel Slater in addition to being a TV chef, appears to be a Yoga writer (though I think this is bad data from Amazon? because I seperated out a few wallace slaters who were also Yoga writers)

Nigel may also be a lancaster historian, and a fiction writer though as there are no tags and no reviews Falcon may be about falconry or the falcon Yoga position or even how to cook a falcon.

There is a Benjamin Franklin who wrote a biography of Anais Nin -- clearly not "the" BF.

The Brownings - Robert and Elizabeth Barrett - will need to be fixed one day. I read the Combiners archive, and it looks like EB was set to never combine with Robert, so not much can be done now. There is so much messed up in these two authors it almost looks like they will need to be separated manually.

Don Gordon: poet The Sea of Tranquility

Don Gordon: biologist Growing Fruit in the Upper Midwest

Michael Phillips: Author of The Apple Grower (in two editions)

Michael Phillips: Author of a whole bunch of other stuff (probably more than one person?)

Singer = Isaac Bashevis Singer etc.
Singer = Singer as in Singer Sewing Company etc.

A couple of IBS's works are included in the sewing books (when only the author's surname was entered).

Everyone who has posted here, or finds this of interest, might want to weigh in on a proposal from Tim here.

The poet Hilda Doolittle has a Home Depot (HD) book on her page: Decorating 1-2-3. Note: Paint It Today is by Hilda Doolittle and should not be removed.

Killing Cousins (Mort Sinclair Mysteries) is by Eugene Aubrey Stratton or Gene Stratton, not by Gene Stratton-Porter.

Killing Cousins has it correct.

William Clark (with no middle initial) appears to be several different people:

William Clark (1770-1838), explorer with Meriwether Lewis, whose correspondence is assembled in Dear Brother.

William Clarke (1800-1838), who wrote The Boy's Own Book. (Same year of death, but note the spelling - I have sent a private message to the only user with this title.)

A novelist who wrote Number 10 (not using a touchstone here because it pops up with the one by Sue Townsend)

A Salvation Army guy (possibly British or Canadian?) who wrote The Soldier's Armoury in 1972. Other editions credit the Salvation Army as the author. (I will see if LT might have a Salvation Army user group I could contact for assistance.)

William Clark who wrote Cataclysm: the North-South Conflict in 1985.

William Clark who wrote "Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios" with William Cogan in 2003.

And finally, a university professor, possibly at the University of Chicago, who in 2003 wrote about German Academia in "Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University"

(some of the touchstones aren't working)

There seem to be three David Montgomerys. One is a labor historian; one wrote a book about church music; one writes about Indian crafts. This last is actually David R. Montgomery, whom I have separated from the author without an initial. But some of his books don't seem to use the initial, and I can't switch those.

Patricia Cox: Quilt Designer and author of American Quilt Classics.

Not the same persona as Patricia Cox, author of Batallón de San Patricio, about an Irish battalion in Mexico and written in 1954.

More on Patricia Cox/Patricia Cox Crews: http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=8021

Robert Frost, poet.

Robert Frost, musician, All For Strings Books 1-3

I don't think the Paul Beck who wrote Uncover a Race Car and Uncover a Crocodile is the same person who wrote The History of Eastern Europe for Beginners. But is suppose it could be. I didn't find anything useful with a Google search.

edited to add touchstones.

Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha is not the same as Arthur Golden, professor, who wrote Walt Whitman (Contemporary Studies in Literature).

Alice Cary seems to be several people, one of whom, the author of Clovernook Sketches is the person who has a wikipedia article. There are also children's stories and a hiking guide that were probably written by other people.

Robert Hicks is either two or three people.

The author of The Widow of the South may or may not also be the author of Nashville: Pilgrims of Guitar Town. What I've seen so far is that his first novel is The Widow of the South, but he is also a music publisher in country and blues.

I don't think he wrote the rest of the books listed under the author, though - all about manhood and Christianity.

Not surprising, Jack Kelly seems to be more than one author. My Jack Kelly wrote, along with Marcia M. Kelly, Sanctuaries : a guide to lodgings..., and a series of regional follow-ups.

I don't believe this is the same Jack Kelly that wrote Young King David or Gunpowder: Alchemy, Bombards....

O.

Sam Keith, author of One Man's Wilderness is not the same as the graphic novelist Sam Kieth (note spelling - correct). Because of misspellings, I can't separate these two out.

John Keats the poet is not the same as John Keats, the author of You Might as Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker.

Arthur William Galston -- the botanist and (probably) a writer about life in China

I just discovered that Wikipedia has some so-called disambiguation pages, e.g., for John Gardner, who started this thread. Using the new links feature, I added a link to this disambiguation page on the LT John Gardner page.

Joseph M. Williams is probably four people

Author of books on writing

Author of computer books

Author of Narrative of a tour from the state of Indiana to the Oregon territory in the year 1841-2

Author of Sheep in Wolves' Clothing: When the Actions of a Christian Turn Criminal

Dick Harrison is two authors.

One is a Swedish historian and another writes about Canada

I don't think the Howard Hillman who is the author of cookbooks is the same author who wrote The Computer Log

Mike Gonzalez the linguist and the Marxist historian

Question: Since this thread is getting very long and taking a long time to load, does it make sense to start a Part 2? Advantage: shorter loading time. Disadvantage: absence of master list created so far, so possibility of duplication of entries.

What do you think?

alibrarian has summarized the authors listed here. See "Authors with same name"

So we start a part two and when we reach 200 we will add its contents to the smararry thread good bJob alibrarian BTW

>262 SimonW11:

good bJob alibrarian

Simon, perhaps you would feel a little more at home on a hard porn site? I hear they have lots of pictures of women with humungus smararry glands!

There are also two Tracy Chapmans. Both are very talented, but somehow I doubt the musician would want to be confused with the knitting designer, or vice versa.

Damn I was sure I corrected that.

Eugene Aubrey Stratton and Gene Stratton are the same person. His two non-fiction works on genealogy were published as "Eugene Aubrey Stratton". He then published two works of fiction, with a genealogy sub-theme, as Gene Stratton. His most recent work, Fit for Fate, was published as "Eugene Aubrey Stratton". I've met Gene at mystery conferences and can only surmise that as an ex-CIA case officer he wants to keep his bibliographic identity murky.

I don't buy it - that both sets of books are by the same Barbara G. Walker.
I'd be astonished to imagine that the sloppy scholarship and "make it up as you go along" methodology of the feminist mythology writer (whose work, albeit mythic itself, I still adore for its explorations) could possibly be the same meticulous charter of so many knitting patterns.
The mythic author was born July 2, 1930, in Philadeliphia, PA; the knitter's full name is Barbara Goodwin Walker.
The knitting books do not list the women's mythos books in any of the "also by"; nor do the women's mythos books mention the knitting books. The writing styles are ineluctably different in style, tone, approach, not to mention publishers.

Do you happen to know her in person, bluetyson?
I could be convinced, but at the moment the idea just croggles my mind.

Here's another one: Michael Moore the herbalist author of Medicinal plants of the Pacific West and Michael Moore the documentary and film maker
Marco

re: Barbara G. Walker

I remember researching this once before for the old google group.

See LoC Authorities. I believe there is a bio on the web as well.

http://authorities.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?AuthRecID=470645&v1=1&H...

The direct link doesn't seem to work. Here's a quote from the page:

100 10 |a Walker, Barbara G.
670 __ |a Her A treasury of knitting patterns, 1968.
670 __ |a Her Feminist fairytales, 1995: |b CIP t.p. (Barbara G. Walker)
670 __ |a Contemp. authors, v. 73-76 |b (Walker, Barbara Goodwin; b. 7/2/30; teacher of modern dance and fitness excercise, 1954-69; free-lance designer of knitwear, 1968- ; writings: A treasury of knitting patterns, 1968; lists other works on knitting; work in progress: research on historical, religious, and social aspects of sexism, women’s status ...)

Color me amazed - and delighted to know for sure that this is one and the same Barbara G. Walker !

There's even a Wikipedia page that discusses both her knitting and feminism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_G._Walker_(author)

Who would'a thunk? I guess it's a good reminder not to make any assumptions when combining and separating.

at my request the Barbara Walker entries have been
"Un-nevered! (A highly technical term)." by abby.

I will have to write to Abby it seems. I set Barbara Walker, (without the 'G.' ) to 'never'. Sheesh, I even made an author disambiguation statement. Didn't anyone read it?

There are books by three different authors entered with Barbara Walker in LT, Barbara G. Walker, Barbara K. Walker, and an 'editor' Barbara Walker born in, if I can remember, 1946.

See Out of the Ordinary edited by Barbara Walker, now sitting on the Barbara G. Walker author page.

Oops dont worry I will sort it.

Simon

ha! should have combined the shared books before severing the combination ah well i learn by my mistakes.

Another multi-author: William Matthews is an award winning twentieth century American poet After All: Last Poems (among the dozen or so volumes he wrote), editor, and translator who died recently, and also a Diarist/Historian of Diaries in English British Diaries: An Annotated Bibliography of British Diaries, and also perhaps a linguist Cockney past and present: A short history of the dialect of London? The touchstones don't seem to find "authors" per se, but instead point to publications of Historical Societies and such. Very confusing.

Stolen Thunder was written by David Boggis under the name David Axton

David Chilton contains works by David Chilton (pastor/religious writer) and The Wealthy Barber by David Barr Chilton (financial writer). Disambiguation note written.

These have been SPLIT

The J.D Robb works on the Nora Roberts page contain a single work by J(ohn) D(onald) Robb, former Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico who wrote Hispanic Folk Songs of New Mexico

Another Dan Brown. The one who wrote The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year is not the DaVinci Code author (here is a link to his website http://www.danbrownonline.com/).

Edited to add website link

There are at least three Per Anderssons.

I wrote a disambiguation notice, but I didn't check how many Per Anderssons exactly there are on that author page.

>135 DisassemblyOfReason:

There's (at least) a third David Schwartz in there: David M. Schwartz, David Joseph Schwartz and David John Schwartz

Library of Congress has 9 David Schwartz's with no middle name or initial, plus 20 more with middle names or initials. They use dates of birth and death to separate them (put after the name).

Ralph Walker
http://www.librarything.com/author/walkerralph

The author of the book on Gunsmithing is Ralph T Walker. The author of the book on Kant is Ralph C. S. Walker.

SPLIT 2/28/09

Richard Hooker

Richard Hooker (1554-1600) was an Anglican theologian, author of Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity. "Richard Hooker" was also the pseudonym of H. Richard Hornberger (1924-1997), author of MASH.

SPLIT!!! 2/7/09 - WooHoo! Thanks for the splitting feature Tim!

We need to separate our two Gregory Clarks: one the Canadian journalist, veteran, and sportsman who is author of several books of humourous essays; and another writer about international, psychological, political, and perhaps economic topics.

Well, do it, then. This is a very old topic from before we had author division.

In fact Gregory Clark has been divided into 5 different authors.