To Index or Not to Index
The Books
Recently*, I purchased a couple of books that I am very much looking forward to reading: World Travel: An Irreverent Guide, and Bourdain: The Definitive Oral Biography, both of them are well written, by Laurie Woolever, and published by Ecco in 2021.
I already started going through World Travel, and I haven’t started the Bourdain biography yet because I’m halfway through Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961, by Nicholas Reynolds (published in 2017 by William Morrow), and would like to finish it before starting another book.
I’m also making my way through the classic, A History of the Arab Peoples, by Albert Hourani — the updated version, published by Faber & Faber in 2013.
Spoiler alert: the books published by Ecco did not include subject indexes. (This was especially disappointing because their font choice and cover design is really cool.) My first instinct when picking up a book is always to check the index; it is a habit that formed during my library school days and has come in handy during my career when examining books to determine whether they should be included in the library collection.
Generally, an index is a quick way of seeing what topics are covered in the book and finding out whether a specific subject I’m interested in is represented in the text.
Books That Will Benefit from
Having an Index
Histories
Clearly, historical books like Hourani’s demand an index, which provides a map of the text, informing readers where certain names, places, and concepts are discussed. Researchers, students, and writers referring to this seminal work will rely on the index to find important details, casual readers looking for something or someone they read about but can’t remember where, and people who haven’t read the book but are interested in a specific topic, will all rightfully turn to the index to see where they will find what they are looking for. Indeed, for this kind of book, especially one as comprehensive and dense as Hourani’s, an index is crucial. Fortunately, most publishers of histories understand the value added to a book when it includes an index and require their inclusion.
Biographies
Biographies are a category within histories, and they also typically benefit from indexes. Fortunately again, this is something publishers typically recognize and as a result, require their biographies to be indexed. The index gives another way of looking into the subject’s life, presenting readers with access points to find people or events that sometimes play a complex role and may appear only once or multiple times throughout the book. These people, places, concepts, or events may be buried in the text but are no less important than what can be gleaned from chapter or section titles but are virtually unfindable if there is no index.
The biography of Hemingway does have an index, but Bourdain’s oral biography does not. I was so surprised to find it only has an “Index of Contributors” with long strings of page numbers after each name! This is hardly useful. Can you imagine looking for Bourdain’s travels in Vietnam, or his relationship with a certain person — which may be discussed by that person, or by somebody else entirely? You, dear reader, would be at a total loss to quickly find where those topics are covered.
Travel Guides
Some books are often considered to be “self indexing” because of their structure. These include dictionaries and encyclopedias, and other alphabetically organized works.
World Travel was apparently considered to fall in that category by the publishers; it is organized in alphabetical order, by country name — unlike other, formal travel guides which are organized in geographical order and also include indexes.
World Travel is definitely not a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia or other typically self-indexing type of work. Nor is it a typical travel guide. It contains location information, yes, but it also contains extensive commentary, names of people, and subjects that are independent of the location at which Anthony Bourdain commented on the biodynamic wine, seafood, or the culture. Topics that are buried in 445 pages of (delightful) text.
No, World Travel, does not have an index, but it does have a listing of “Cited Quotes,” which is also organized alphabetically by country. Although this is somewhat helpful, it falls short of the benefit that a proper index would bring to such a text and really functions more as a bibliography.
Indexes provide a map to the book, so it’s ironic to find that a book about world travel, that is even called “World Travel,” would lack an index.
A Note on Index Length Estimates
While index length limitations are ultimately determined by the publisher, the standard length will depend on the audience. In general, mass-market trade books (i.e., for a general audience) are typically about 5% the length of the book, while general reference books and scholarly texts tend to be around 7-8% the length of the book.** Biographical works tend to be on the longer end of those estimates since they typically include more names of people that should be indexed.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it is time for some arm-chair travelling…
Arrivederci!
*This blog post was edited for clarity and to add the last section on index length, on 7/6/2026.
**Mulvany, Nancy C. Indexing Books, 2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 2005), p.72.
