We tend to think of book titles as one-shot deals – once you’ve used it, it’s yours. But in reality, there’s nothing prohibiting publishers from reusing old titles if it suits their purposes – just go look up “The Island” on your favorite online bookseller, and see how many hits you get. “Romance, mystery and other genre books are particularly likely to have recycled titles because of the vast numbers that are published and their brief lives in the public’s memory — meaning a name can be brought back within a few years.”