[Joliet Jake]

I saw some similar posts, but both of them have the "this thread is old" tag, and the problem isn't exactly the same.

I'm having a minor problem ordering books in Calibre. I have noticed this problem with two series, both of which start with "The". It's possible this is a coincidence. The series are "The Cat Who" and "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya".

Both use "cute" titles that are similar to the series name and all start with "The". So "The Cat Who Turned On and Off" (three books in the series have this problem) and "The Boredom of Haruhi Suzumiya".

So what is the problem? If I arrange my books in series order, I see The Cat Who books 1-29 (long series) except books 3-5. I have to specifically look for "The Cat Who" to see all of those books, in which case books 3-5 are listed after the other books. In the case of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I see all the books without having to search, but book 3 is at the end of the list.

I thought I had put in a similar but not identical series name, and so tried a bit of copying and pasting, but it made no difference. But while messing with the metadata, I noticed that the "book order" starts with the word "The" for the anomalous entries. For all the other entries, the book order will have a name like "Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya, The" or "Cat Who Said Cheese, The".

The problem is very rare, and I'd rather Calibre not use "A" or "The" as part of the book order. Does anyone know why book order works differently for a few books?

Edit: I can find the "missing" Cat Who books under "The" (when looking for series) in addition to books from two other series (The Melancholy... and another one). A total of seven books out of a library that is now a bit over 5,000 books.