1) "The book 'The Three Musketeers' is a wonderful example of. " Here we have a proper noun, a title that happens to end in a plural, and I have no sense that the verb should be plural. "Musketeers"/is seems proper/natural/correct, and 'are' not at all. However, such certainty begins to wane in other examples: 2) "'The Heidi Chronicles' is a wonderful example of. " doesn't completely shake my confidence, but it moves the needle, at least a little bit. But, practically speaking, I wouldn't have a second thought about correcting a student who used 'are' instead of 'is'. Here's the one that really bothers me: 3a) " 'The Basement Tapes' are a wonderful example of. " I don't think this sounds any less proper/natural/correct than 3b) " 'The Basement Tapes' is. " In fact, 3a seems less awkward than 3b. Why?
asked May 6, 2014 at 17:58 user67322 user67322If you're to speak/write English well, you'll need to trust that certain constructions are correct, though your intuition currently causes you to feel differently. One that you should definitely trust is subject-verb agreement. To follow this rule, you need to be aware of what the subject of the sentence actually is.
"The book 'The Three Musketeers' is a wonderful example of.. is actually
The book is a wonderful example of.. (or The Three Musketeers is a wonderful example of. )
If you say "'The Three Musketeers' are. ", you're talking about Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.
The same is true of all the other plural proper noun titles.
Perhaps you are having doubts because you are identifying the subject incorrectly. The Basketball Diaries is a movie (singular), not a set of diaries. The Basement Tapes is an album (a singular noun which happens to be a collective noun as well), not a group of individual tapes. (The individual songs on an album are tracks.)
The Basketball Diaries and Trainspotting are powerful movies dealing with drug addiction.