I wonder if this happens to everybody...

I take off my bookself Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. I go sit down to read it. I don't know that much about it except that it's well known and sounds interesting. Also it's one of the books my folks shipped to me from the states, so I figure it's probably a good one. I open it up to find that in fact it's not the novel at all: it's Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Casebook. "This casebook contains materials relevant to a deeper understanding of the origins and reception of this controversial text," which I haven't even read yet!