Everyone on LT at the moment seems to be talking about The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I haven't read it yet but I must say it's a great title. And it's not that I have a thing about hedgehogs (well, I do a bit but this is sheer coincidence) but I'm reading a book right now that I couldn't resist because it was called Up in a Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog. So what are your favourites - and they don't have to be hedgehog-related.

Message edited by its author, Jan 18, 2009, 11:41am.

I bought this book just because of the title.

And to My Nephew Albert I Leave the Island What I Won Off Fatty Hagan in a Poker Game by David Forrest

I will be looking out for both Hedgehog books now.

Now that really IS a great one! Hope it lived up to expectations.

My favorite title is still Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem.

I have two:

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant and Three Men in a Boat, to say nothing of the Dog.

I really like this thread.

I actually haven't read this one yet, but I want to just for the title: The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories.

How about this one (which could also be on a list for the longest titles).....

"Don't Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, The Torments of Low Thread Count, The Never- Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems" by David Rakoff

Message edited by its author, Jan 18, 2009, 1:11pm.

Comparatively short but still made me unable to resist buying it - The Colour of a Dog Running Away.

One I haven't bought but saw in someone's library (Rob's) and am interested in is God Laughs When You Die. It's a book of short stories and sounds quite interesting. I don't know if it's a great title but it caught my attention.

Yup, I'd definitely have had to pick that one up.

Not reading it now, but one I read several years ago: Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead. How could one resist such a title? I also recently read The Maniac in the Cellar. Curiously, they are both about Victorian sensationalism. I guess the subject just lends itself to great titles!

I've always been partial to I Capture the Castle - not only is the book spectacular, it has one of the best titles, it's so poetic.

I rather like Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey, the title of a poetry collection by Hayden Carruth. I also like You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense, by Charles Bukowski.

>1 Booksloth, I read that book a few months ago and loved it. I hope you read it!!

Who the hell is Pansy O'Hara?, The Lollipop Shoes, Turtle Feet and Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard.. I think were all purchases where I was attracted because of the titles.

Message edited by its author, Jan 18, 2009, 4:18pm.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks is one that I just saw yesterday at Borders. It is supposed to be the story of a murder done by a friend of Kerouac and Burroughs, written by Kerouac and Burroughs in alternating chapters. Looks interesting enough that I may end up buying it.

Love them all! And although I haven't read any except I Capture the Castle I do know who the hell Pansy O'Hara is/became.

And I'm now reminded of a couple I have read, both of which I grabbed solely because I loved the titles and both of which completely lived up to expectations - Sea Otters Gambolling in the Wild, Wild Surf and The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break

I bought Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul just because the title caught my eye.

For a long-time cult novel, Rachel Ferguson's The Brontës Went to Woolworths, practically unfindable though at a reasonable price. (I got mine in collectible condition in a 1940 Penguin paperback at around $50, but the 1990 Virago edition seems to be the favorite and in collectible quality goes for well over $100.)

So many books with great titles. Some of the quirkier ones that I've read lately:
Ella Minnow Pea
The Cheese Monkeys
You're an Animal, Viskovitz

A few I like:

Men, Women and Chainsaws
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
and one of my favorites as a child,
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth

My favorite is No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew It Cauze Bill Bailey Ain't Never Coming Home Again by Edgardo Vega Yunqué. It was also a great read!

Landscape Painted With Tea by Milorad Pavić

I really like Sagan's titles, particularly Dans un mois dans un an (from a line in Racine's Bérénice), La Chamade and Un peu de soleil dans l'eau froide.

All six of Barbey d'Aurevilly's stories in Les Diaboliques have excellent titles ("Le rideau cramoisi" : "The crimson curtain", "Le plus bel amour de don Juan" : "Don Juan's greatest love", "Le bonheur dans le crime" : "Happiness out of crime", "A un dîner d'athées" : "An atheists' dinner", "Le dessous de cartes d'une partie de whist" : "Under the cards of a game of whist", "La vengeance d'une femme" : "A woman's vengeance"), not particularly beautiful or original, but at once intriguing and revealing, and quite in accordance with Barbey's flamboyant aesthetics.

I really love the way Kundera's Le livre du rire et de l'oubli sounds in French, with its harmony of clear vowels and liquid consonants (like Colette's Le pur et l'impur, another beautiful title for another beautiful book).

Since long funny titles seem to be successful here, there is one (still in French) I quite enjoy : Quel petit vélo à guidon chromé au fond de la cour? ("What little bike with a chrome handlebar in the backyard"?).

All of Henry Roth's titles are beautiful, especially A diving rock on the Hudson. Call it sleep's French title is "L'or de la terre promise" : beautiful but unfaithful, both by its literal meaning and by the fact it introduces an ironical note which is not in the original.

One of the greatest titles I know is the one Nabokov chose for the French translation of Speak, Memory : Autres rivages ("Other shores") (not read yet).

Message edited by its author, Jan 26, 2009, 1:53pm.

#23
I agree with all the examples you gave. I love Sagan's books in particular. Even her most famous books (Bonjour Tristesse and Un Certain Sourire) have special titles. D'Aurevilly's prose is very poetic, love him too.

#18
How about Our Spoons Came from Woolworths? I enjoyed this book too when I read it. As crazy as the title suggests it is.

One of my favorite titles is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And I love that book too!

Haven't read it, but I came across a fun title today -- Never Hit a Jellyfish With a Spade.

I like Alexander McCall Smith's The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, which I haven't read yet because it comes out in paperback the day before my birthday, and if hubby doesn't get the hint there'll be trouble!

All the bookshops up here push Don't tell Mum I work on the rigs: she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse because he's a local author. I haven't read it yet but I think it's a great title.

>26 Never Hit a Jellyfish With A Spade is one I spotted in a charity shop ages ago and had to pick up. A hilarious collection of funny 'How to' columns - Mum nearly choked on her coffee reading it, and I was reading it about ten minutes ago and snorted toast crumbs everywhere trying not to laugh mid-mouthful.

Message edited by its author, Jan 19, 2009, 3:53pm.

>1 Is Up in a Tree in the Park at Night With a Hedgehog actually about hedgehogs in some fashion? It is a cute title but it didn't come up in the LT search results.

Louise Rennison has an entire series of YA books with great titles starting with Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging. I had to get the first book just because of the title and then read the rest because they made me laugh.

Also, back on the animal theme I recently read There's a Porcupine in My Outhouse which was quite an enjoyable little non-fiction story.

I've always been mesmorized by the title No One Belongs Here More Than You. I know nothing about Miranda July, but I find that bold statement awesome!

I've got Never Hit a Jellyfish With a Spade. It's quite amusing but how could it possibly live up to that title? Just picturing it still makes me laugh.

#29 It's not actually about hedgehogs (it's a novel) but the protagonist does end up up a tree in the park at night with a hedgehod. My copy is an ARC - I believe it's due to be published in February - but I had more luck searching for it under the author's name Paul (P) Robert Smith.

And the Full Frontal Snogging one is a great title too - as is that other YA classic drama P'tang, Yang, Kipperbang!

James Lee Burke has some great titles that in a weird way really manage to convey what the books are about, even if they don't always make much sense in themselves; In the Electric Mist With the Confederate Dead, and The Lost Get Back Boogie are two of my favourites.

Here are a few I own:
How To Be A Complete Bitch by Pamela Stephenson, bought over twenty years ago in London
Bigger Than Hitler, Better Than Christ, the autobiography of comedian Rik Mayall (he actually lists himself as The Rik Mayall on the cover
Cannibalisim and the Common Law by A.W. Brian Simpson, a sociology book
and The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks.

#33 Love the idea of Cannibalism and the Common Law - and what a great example of how sociologists can 'make a meal' (unintended pun but strangely apt) of almost anything, when you'd think that all you'd need to know is 'Don't'!

Is The Gallery of Regrettable Food the sequel?

Just seen one on the homepage recent activity list called It was on fire when I lay down on it by Robert Fulghum.

Never heard of it but think I might have to take a look at it now.

And that reminds me of another one I keep meaning to read - A Big Boy Did It and Ran Away, and another along similar lines and by the same author, All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye

Booksloth-
I didn't even notice that when I wrote it! No, "The Gallery..." isn't a sequel but it might as well be because it has photos and descriptions of party foods from the 50's-60's that you'd jump back from. Beef Aspice anyone?

I don't know about titles, but I checked Monster, 1959 out of the local library because I liked the cover. :)

The only one I can think of offhand is one my niece was reading, A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass. It's about a girl who has synesthesia and was able to hide it until she turned 13 and now is trying to learn about it and to live with it openly. My SIL is reading it now but I'm hoping I'm next in line to borrow it.

I read two books strictly on the names alone. Drunk, Divorced, and Covered in Cat Hair and The Extra Large Medium.

Cal I read The Extra Large Medium too and have seen the DD&CICH book mentioned and been tempted to track it down.

I didn't like Extra Large medium as much as I hoped to but I still think the title is great. What did you think of it?

It wasn't the worst book I ever read but it wasn't the greatest. If it was a bigger book I'm not sure if I would have kept after it. I did like DD&CICH. I thought it was funny.

The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove was a great book, as was Al Capone Does My Shirts for young adults.

One of the better titles I've seen (which caused me to read it) was Lulu Meets God And Doubts Him by Danielle Ganek. Not a bad book either...

#43 Miss Teacher: I loved Al Capone Does My Shirts

Several I like are:

The Sunshine Rider: The First Vegetarian Western
by Ric Lynden Hardman

Everything on a Waffle by Polly Hovath

Necking With Louise by Rick Book

Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

I don't have a particular thing for hedgehogs, but loved Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog. Great title, great book. I laughed, I squirmed (I might even have shuddered), while making a mental note never to let my girlfriend get her hands on it - P. Robert Smith gives far too accurate an insight into the inner workings of the male mind. Does that make him a traitor I wonder?

Message edited by its author, Jan 29, 2009, 4:08am.

#46 One man's traitor is another woman's hero (or something like that). Don't worry drufford, we knew already.

ETA - Just spotted you're a newbie - welcome to LT!

Message edited by its author, Jan 29, 2009, 6:58am.

I've wanted to read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café for years, just because of the title. I think it's great.

It is great! That's why I bought it and it's also a great book and a great film.

Some I like:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Back When We Were Grown-ups
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Last Night at the Lobster
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair

Many of my favourites have already been mentioned, (ie, Ella Minnow Pea, I Capture the Castle, Charlaine Harris's titles, etc.), but I think my all-time favourite is Son of a Witch. It still makes me giggle.

I never read this one, but I always loved the title--it was in the mystery section of the library where I worked, and at the time was not interested in the genre.

"Dewey Decimated" I read the blurb to know that the murder took place in the library, I think.

#47 Thanks for the welcome, Booksloth.

I saw one in Waterstones today called Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog. I'm intrigued...

My book group just finished Rabbit in the Moon. The title, I learned had to do with an ancient Chinese legend about longevity- not the zodiac as I'd thought. Great book too we all thought

Ah yes, Moomin - that's one of the ones that started the whole thread. I wouldn't call it great literature or anything but it was a nice little read and quite amusing. And yes, of course I bought it for the title!

It's Hard out Here for a Shrimp by Pepe The King Prawn
Are You There Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
Smile When You're Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer by Chuck Thompson
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins
Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley

What I'm Going To Do, I Think by Larry Woiwode

If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino

Because It Is Bitter and Because It Is My Heart by Joyce Carol Oates

Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller

(..and all these happen to be terrific books too.)

And Blood and Guts in High School which sounds pretty close to the average high school to me and is a book that's now been sitting on Mount TBR for far too long. And another one I'm still trying to get hold of but can never get Pluck the Bud and Destroy the Offspring by Kenzaburo Oe (no touchstones).

ETA - Aha! Just inspired myself to have another search and discovered that Pluck the Bud is also known as Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, which is just as good a title and finally gives me a chance to find a copy!

Message edited by its author, Jan 31, 2009, 4:01pm.

I liked the two volumes of Is it Just Me or is Everything Shit by Steve Lowe - and its counterpart, It is Just You, Everything's Not Shit by Steve Stack! Actually, the second one includes LibraryThing as one of its happiness-bringing entries, and it's the book that led me here...

I really like a book from a few years back called Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis. Excellent and very unusual.

I just bought Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist just because of the title. Well, the cover is adorable too.

I also forgot Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog for those of you fellow geeks who used to love diagramming sentences.

I don't know why I forgot The Name of This Book is Secret by Psuedonymous Bosch. I have no idea what it's about (except that it's YA Fiction), but the title has placed it atop my TBR pile.

#57 Jhedlund - Are You There Vodka?, It's Me Chelsea is a title that made me smile everyday at work. I usually found a way to face it out on the shelf so others would notice it.
Another one that made me smile, recently, was Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.
And I'm not even a drinker.

Wishful Drinking is on my wish list... (and I'm not a drinker either!)

>#64 My son loved The Name of this Book is Secret and its sequel, If You're Reading This, It's Too Late

Another one he liked is one of my favorite titles, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians

An amusing dipping book is Bedside Lovers and Other Goats by Joe Bennett. Also like the sound of Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison but haven't read it yet.

I cannot forget the excellent THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE OF WATER: Discovering the Essence of the American Desert by Craig Childs. The title refers to the knowledge of the location of hidden water supplies that allowed Native Americans to survive in the desert for perhaps ten thousand years. There is much more about the climate, ecology and geology that is almost unbelievable. Highly recommended.

68> Some years back now my church book group read Bastard Out of Carolina. I didn't read it on the grounds that I didn't like the title.

Robert

Titles can make or break a book sometimes, but Bastard Out of Carolina is truly an exceptional novel, and I've recommended it many times in the years since it came out.

I agree. Bastard Out of Carolina is an excellent novel - and, also, an excellent film.

#70 Now reading a book because of the title I can understand but not reading it? You must miss some really great books that way. (It's not only a term of abuse, you know.)

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Puntuation by Lynne Truss is a great example of a title that grabs you. The book grabs you too.

I just spotted this one on the Book of the Month group. Fruit: a Novel about a Boy and His Nipples. I know nothing more about it but, oh I want to read it!

#75 - Booksloth, I just went to the page to look at that and LT is recommending a book called The fat woman next door is pregnant. I know how she feels. So two great titles on the one page there.

I've also just mentioned a book on your profile that fits right in here. Why not Catch-21 by Gary Dexter. It explains the reasons for chosing many famous book titles and I thought it might be something interesting for this thread.

Yes, I liked that too. Still makes me think of a friend who asked the new neighbour when her baby was due - only to find out she was just fat. Thanks for the recommendation - you are definitely my worst influence!

ETA - See, I've ordered it already - no willpower. How on earth did I give up smoking?

Message edited by its author, Feb 3, 2009, 12:14pm.

ok, maybe I've been hanging out with kids too long (school librarian) but how can you not love "Captain Underpants" as a title? I mean really--Captain Underpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman; or Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy, (Parts 1 and 2)??? And then, just imagine you are a 9 year old boy--reading just doesn't get more fun than that!

I seem to like books with long convoluted titles, two that I just bought for the library--primarily because the titles tickled me:

The Strictest School in the World: Being the Tale of a Clever Girl, a Rubber Boy and a Collection of Flying Machines, Mostly Broken
and its sequel
The Faceless Fiend: Being the Tale of a Criminal Mastermind, His Masked Minions and a Princess With a Butter Knife, Involving Explosives and a Certain Amount of Pushing and Shoving

They are by Howard Whitehouse, and are really fun to read--kind of along the lines of A Series of Unfortunate Events.

And, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread, by Kate DiCamillo. EXCELLENT read (skip the movie!)

Kim Harrison's "The Hollows" series. Thus far....
Dead Witch Walking
The Good, The Bad, and The Undead
Every Which Way But Dead
A Fistful of Charms
For A Few Demons More
The Outlaw Demon Wails

I found a winner today: Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World. I'm not even vegetarian, but I'd buy this book for the title alone.

I have to second Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. I love that one.

Also:
Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede. The Subtitle is: Being the Correspondence of Two Young Ladies of Quality Regarding Various Magical Scandals in London and the Country.

Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins

and
Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson

#81 - Now I'm intrigued. I know all about the Jerome K Jerome Three Men in a Boat etc, but Connie Willis? Please tell. Half Asleep in Frog Pyjamas sound great!

eta - Aha! I checked on Amazon and found one by Willis called To Say Nothing of the Dog. I know nothing about it but I'm already wondering if I should get that too. Say something to stop me, PLEEEEAAASE!!!

Message edited by its author, Feb 5, 2009, 8:25am.

#79, There's a new Hollows book out later this month--White Witch, Black Curse; but I think the earlier titles are better!

#83

Yeah, I didn't recognize that title, White Witch, Black Curse. Aside from Dead Witch Walking, Harrison's titles are take-offs of Clint Eastwood movies. I guess White Witch, Black Curse must be a take-off of White Hunter Black Heart, which I noticed from checking the IMDb.

How about.... Two Fangs for Sister Ivy? Any Witch Ivy Bites? Play Takata for Me? Dirty Hollows? Where Pixies Dare?

I've just been browsing Waterstones online and came across a childrens book called My Brother's Hot Cross Bottom by Jeremy Strong.

Just read a newie called Up a Tree in the Park at Night with a Hedgehog by P. Robert Smith. Any book with four prepositions in its title is worth a look in my opinion. Anyway, it was a hoot. Black and funny. Main character is a total bastard. Loved him.

#86 - If we're counting votes that has to be the winner so far!

I also loved the title Don't Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining by Judy Sheindlin (Judge Judy)

I just remembered the book I bought for Mum for Christmas - Bearded Tit by Rory McGrath. In case non-Brits don't know him, it's the biography of a small beardy tubby comedian who likes birdwatching - I thought it was a really good title!

#89 - ellie I was just looking at that book today and wondering if my Dad might want it. He's tall with a beard and likes birdwatching and for just that reason I was tempted but in the end I left it. I did see Rory talking about the book on TV though and might pick it up for myself at some point.

I was checking out the 1000 Books Everybody Must Read and Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf caught my attention.

I've always loved Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour an Introduction by J.D. Salinger.

Other books that come to mind are Obsidian Butterfly and Cerulean Sins (trashy Anita Blake vampire stuff but great titles).

#83 To Say Nothing of the Dog is great stuff. Sorry I can't help restrain you.

#6 The title story ("The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories") is one of my all-time favorites, and there are several other gems.

I always liked the reversal in The Horse and His Boy.

#19 Ella Minnow Pea is one of my favorites! The title is what caught my eye but the story-telling totally sold me.

When it comes to titles, I don't think anyone does it better than Christopher Moore.
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

And the actual stories totally live of to the titles.

One that's on my TBR pile at the moment and that I was drawn to because of the title is The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite. Just imagine having a luminous life - how wonderful would that be!

ETA - It comes up in touchstones but then they disappear again.

Message edited by its author, Feb 11, 2009, 4:13pm.

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know if 94's The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite is the same book (just the British title) as Glimmer Palace? They SEEM the same.

I'm in late to this discussion but I love this topic. My all time favorite book title is The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston. So yearning and romantic. It's set in Newfoundland and I bought it solely on the title. Was pretty good too.

I had a kid's book by Sheila Lavelle called The Strawberry-Jam Pony which I remember being a good little story...

The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros just pulls me in. And I like You Suck: A Love Story by Moore.

#95 Ooh, you're right Devourer! I just checked the author's homepage and The Luminous Life has been renamed Glimmer Palace for the US market. I do wish they wouldn't do that!

Someone gives an award for this kind of thing:

Oustandingly strange competition for odd book prize

Saw mention of it here:

Bookslut blog

A book that comes to mind is Can You Trust A Tomato in January? by Vince Staten. It's a fascinating and humorous look at the American supermarket and the foods we eat.

I love the titles of the non-fiction book "A Whack on The Side of The Head" and part two: "A Kick in The Seat of The Pants".

Attack of the 50-Foot Verbose Mutant Killer Fountain Pens from Mars By Mark Cantrell

>103, wow that is a great name.

I take You Can't be Neutral on a Moving Train to heart.

#62.....I just bought Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist recently and loved it!!! Another title that I find amusing is Blood Lite by Jim Butcher and others. I recently read a book called The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg and how can you not be sucked in by a book like that? The first chapter is the best by the way. Another good title is Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange....that one just cracks me up for some reason, especially after you read how he came up with the title.

You're a newbie turkeybaby! Just wanted to say hi and welcome to LT!

I've just ordered Dewey: The Small-town Library-cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron after reading about him on the Spencer Public Library website. I wish Libraries in the U.K would allow Library cats

More problems with Touchstones

Message edited by its author, Feb 24, 2009, 11:09am.

#107 Booksloth......I am a newbie!!!! Thank you! I'm so addicted to LT already.....still haven't figured all of the basics out yet, but I'm getting there...and I've already almost used up my 200 Free books, so I suppose I'm going to have to break down and upgrade my account!!

Can you top a title such as The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse?

Message edited by its author, Mar 8, 2009, 4:25am.

#110 JimThomson - your title is great! I will never be able to look at another chocolate bunny without remembering this.
I just came across this title today (touchstone not working on the title):

Some Damned Fool's Signed the Rubens Again by the British cartoonist Norman Thelwell.

An addition to the Bukowski comment: Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit

I always liked the title, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon.

Also, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, about an imagined London underground world, and Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessi.

Eminent Dogs & Dangerous Men by Donald McCraig.

Message edited by its author, Apr 21, 2009, 11:45pm.

Three unusual titles from my bookshelves:
"How the Get Out of the Bath...and Other Problems" by Michael Rosen
"Land of the Burnt Thigh" by Edith Eudora Kohl
"Some Damn Fool's Signed the Rubens Again" by Norman Thelwell

#115 - I like the Michael Rosen title. At almost 9 months pregnant now I could do with that advice.

Message edited by its author, Mar 21, 2009, 5:14am.

hehehe... I'm a big fan of fun titles, and have picked up a few books for the sheer joy I'll have being seen reading them in public. Here are a few:

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things -I saw this one in a fellow BookMooch member's inventory and could NOT resist. I couldn't tell you what the book is even about.

An Arsonist's Guide to New England Writers' Homes -The title grabbed me, but I also like the story. I haven't read it yet, though.

Un Lun Dun by China Mieville had an interesting enough title, and I actually did start reading it, but got sidetracked and haven't piced it back up again.

The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God is a book of short stories, one of which, "Kneller's Happy Campers," was the basis of the movie Wristcutters: a Love Story (it's a bizarre movie).

I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked out All the Pots - strange title and an intriguing story line.

The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand. I will get around to reading this, probably before I finish Atlas Shrugged, too, but the title just sounds so wrong.

Ballyhoo, Buckaroo and Spuds - a book about words and their origins.

and one of the best titles I have ever heard:

Why You Shouldn't Eat Your Boogers and Other Useless or Gross Information About Your Body - I loved this one so much, I had a giveaway for it on my blog a few months ago. It is chock full of some of the most stomach-turning facts you NEVER wanted to know.

Oh, this thread has been VERY fun to discover and catch up on!

A title that immediately caught my imagination and amused me to no end was a 2008 read of mine, A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories by Victor Pelevin. That the stories were so well done, so entertaining, and exceeded my own "title infatuation"-induced hype was literary icing on the cake!

I'll also throw in another 2008 read, They Call Me Naughty Lola. Admittedly, it's not quite as salaciously amusing when one sees the subtitle but then it wasn't the subtitle that first got my attention, heh.

Message edited by its author, Mar 30, 2009, 3:04am.

I also just found this thread, which surprises me as I am addicted to books with unusual titles. Here are a few of my favorites:

Bitter is the New Black : Confessions of a Condescending, Egomaniacal, Self-Centered Smart Ass,Or, Why You Should Never Carry a Prada Bag to the Unemployment office - Jen Lancaster

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day. Pearl Cleage

Many Things Have Happened Since he Died and Here are a Few of the Highlights

If I'd Killed Him When I Met Him Sharyn McCrumb

Lament for a Silver-Eyed Woman Mary-Ann Tirone Smith

I think God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a great title (and book), as is Armageddon in Retrospect, both by Kurt Vonnegut. Dancing Naked in the Mind Field by Kary Mullis is pretty interesting as well.

I also think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a great title. It's still in my tbr pile.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard is one of my favorites. Also Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

I just bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith (no touchstones). Surely no reasonable person could have expected me to resist that?

#123 - I think I will have to buy that one as well when I see it.

I'll be letting you know all about it, J, don't worry. I just have to finish Swimming Pool Library first and that's the next on my list. It looks very clever - the author has taken the original text of P&P then mixed it with his own to have Lizzie Bennett having to fight off zombies before she can get Darcy - whether the joke will hold up well throughout the book remains to be seen but there are also some wonderful illustrations. I was mainly attracted to it by the from cover which is made to look just like a Penguin or OUP Classic but bearing a picture of Jane Austen with her throat ripped out! Tasteful, eh?

How do you get the titles to be links? In blue?

#126 Put them inside square brackets. For authors, use a double set of brackets. These are called Touchstones and the instructions are inside that little box to the right of where you type your message. Welcome to LT!

The latest great title I've run across: I loved, I lost, I Made Spaghetti. I don't remember who the author was but it is non-fiction. I love the sound of Up a Tree in the Dark at Night with a Hedgehog, I'm going to have to read that one!

Long time listener, first time werewolf struck me as funny, so I had to pick it up. Haven't read it yet.

Bonus: My favorite song title
"The Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria" - Blue Oyster Cult

I just recalled an oldie but goodie, Ruth Ozecki's My Year of Meats.

Additonally I am especially tickled by a new title I recently acquired and am very much looking forward to starting this week People are Unappealing: Even Me by Sara Barron because the potential cyncism, nihilism, ennui or whathaveyou seems palapable from a title like that!

Where the Sea Breaks Its Back by Corey Ford.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has great titles: Love in the time of Cholera, One hundred years of solitude, Chronicles of a death foretold and Memories of my melancholy whores.

edited for touchstones

Message edited by its author, Apr 22, 2009, 12:39am.

Just joining in:

The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches by Gaetan Soucy
Man or Mango by Lucy Ellmann
The Pope's Rhinoceros by Lawrence Norfolk
Who will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore

Adding books to Sir Walter Scott's library, I just came across a couple that seem to qualify for this thread:

A modest defence of publick stews: or, an essay upon whoring. As it is now practis'd in these kingdoms. By the late Colonel Harry Mordaunt (1740)

The case of John Atherton, Bishop of Waterford in Ireland; who was convicted of the sin of uncleanness with a cow, and other creatures; for which he was hang'd at Dublin, December the 5th, 1640. ... To which is added the sermon preach'd at his funeral, ... The whole written by Nicolas Barnard (1710).

- I do like the way the author's name runs into the title with these old books - you can just imagine the zombie colonel practising whoring, can't you...?

"uncleanness with a cow"? I hope that means putting ketchup on steak.

>135
I expect so - according to Wikipedia it was all a posthumous smear campaign anyway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Athert...

>134

thorold:

LMAO! "Publick stews"---how awesome is that? I think the entire thread should cry out a collective cyber, "UNCLE!!" and just give up because those two titles you cited are just pure, unadulterated GOLD!

>137 indeed.

Still, I couldn't resist adding another one from Scott, which might be apt in a day or two:

Funebria florae, The downfall of May-games wherein is set forth the rudeness, prophaneness, stealing, drinking, fighting, dancing, whoring, mis-rule, mis-spence of precious time, contempt of God, and godly magistrates, ministers and people, which oppose the rascality and rout, in this their open prophanenesse, and heathenish customs : occasioned by the generall complaint of the rudenesse of people in this kind, in this interval of settlement : here you have twenty arguments against these prophane sports, and all the cavills made by the belialists for the time reselled and answered : together with an addition of some verses in the cloze for the delight of the ingenious reader by Thomas Hall (1661).

Brilliant! That old whoring colonel will stay with me for a long time! It was hardly worth them going on to write the books after some of those titles, was it? In all honesty, what more could there be to say about Funbria florae?

My favorite title is also my favorite book, Nabokov's Conclusive Evidence, though he eventually changed it to Speak, Memory.

The original title referred to conclusive evidence of his having existed.

A favourite of mine is the humorously titled
I Lick My Cheese and Other Notes: From the Frontline of Flatsharing by Oonagh O'Hagan.

Message edited by its author, May 10, 2009, 3:48pm.

Some interesting/unusual titles on my bookshelves:

>"Land of the Burnt Thigh" Edith Eudora Kohl

>"Treasure In a Cornfield" by Greg Hawley

>Several Martha Grimes titles (actual British Pub names BTW): "I Am the Only Running Footman", "Help the Poor Struggler", "The Man With a Load of Mischief", "The Horse You Came in On".

For vegan Lovecraft fans, I nominate Veganomicon.

Ministering Cross-Culturally: An Incarnational Model for Personal Relationships by Sherwood G. Lingenfelter — when I saw this on a recommendations page, I felt sure it must be a spoof title: the author's name is just too good to be true. But it seems to be perfectly genuine: obviously a publisher with a sense of humour (or rather "humor") bypass, and the unfortunate author a prime example of what P.G. Wodehouse called "dirty work at the font".

lol

There's no one like Plum, alas.

I just bought this. Did you ever read or see the movie Cold Comfort Farm?

>146
No, but I have read the book.

>147
I've never read a movie, but I suppose it could be done. My father had to learn to read punched tape in the army: I expect cinema film would be a bit more difficult than that, but not impossible.

>146
Cold Comfort Farm is a great book - maybe you could quibble as to whether it's as amusing a title as some of the others above, but it's a book everyone should read, so the more often it's mentioned the better!

I just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog and found it to be one of the most absorbing books I've read in a long time. It's a great title because it captures the essence of the book. That is, that people are not what they seem to be and we should look beyond appearances. Originally written in French, the translation is beautifully done. The French title is L'Élégance du hérisson and it translates exactly to The Elegance of the Hedgehog.

Marjorie Price, author of A Gift from Brittany

146-148 Read the book, seen the film (Rufus Sewell wants me, I can tell from the way he looks at the camera) both great!

#150 - I've also read the book (many times) and seen the film and I love both dearly.

When I started this thread, I thought of a book I read earlier this year --- Who Invited the Dead Man? When I saw the title I just had to grab it.

My first pick was already taken, so what about Soon I Will Be Invincible?

Wow, 153 posts. I didn't notice if anyone (or me for that matter) mentioned that sociological classic, Pissing in the Snow and other Ozark Folk Tales.

never read it, but the title've always stuck with me:
Waiting to Exhale

Just spotted this one in a friend's library - My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters

Scanning your "Touchstone" , I didnʻt see the title "The Ticket that Exploded" by William Burroughs. It is one of the few books that I ever wanted to read JUST BECAUSE of the title! Am trying it now for about the fourth time.

Iʻm reminded of two books with --what shall I cal them --- NOT so great(?) titles. I could never bring myself to read them. Why not? --The reverse of the above, I guess --an immediate prejudice against the title. They are "The Dud Avocado" and "A Dandy in Aspic". I did see the name Dodie Smith in your list.
Rolandperkins

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy >> one cool title

So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish is an even better title.

Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks is another from Christopher Brookmyre along with A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil. Colin Bateman has a few as well, Of Wee Sweetie Mice and Men and The Seagulls Have Landed being a couple of examples.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a certain eye-catching quality.

>161. ha! i'm reading it right now. it's a very good marketing ploy to get people to read Pride and Prejudice. Like most men, I've never read Austen, but add zombies and ninjas into the mix, and it's like Pavlov ringing a bell. :)

The Ruins of Desert Cathay by Aurel Stein. Just the mere title conjures a whole exotic world, and evokes the romances of the Silk Road in a way that Marco Polo could only dream of.

#162 Must admit it was the cover picture as much as the title that clinched the deal for me!

>161
Just a minute ago, I thought of a good subtitle for that book, and sent it to a friend from the town whose slogan I borrowed for it:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Keep Austen Weird

> 165
:)

> 165
:)

Are you laughing at your own joke?
;)

lola! didn't realize i'd made a mistake. would you mind if i steal, erhmm, use, your idea ("Keep Austen Weird")?

Go right ahead. (I kinda figured you didn't really mean to reference your own post.)

Wow reading this thread just makes me want to go and look for these books in the stores or libraries now.

>170
it may not have been purposeful, but perhaps it was a freudian slip, exposing me to be a self-absorbed narcissist.

One of my greatest titles of the "pun definitely intended" type isnʻt a book title, but I canʻt resist recording it:

"A Mall and the Night Visitors"

(title of a segment of a "Frasier" episode about some last minute Christmas Eve shopping.)

One of my favorite titles is "My Lead Dog was a Lesbian: Mushing Across Alaska in the Iditarod, the world's most grueling race" by Patrick Brien O DonaghueGreat adventure read written by a first time musher, but the title just cracked me up.

Some of the books I've bought because of the title:-

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Gareth Stein
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Castle of Crossed Destinies - Italo Calvino
Misfits Country - Arthur Knight
Bed - Tao Lin
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

and numerous others (I am attracted to unusual book titles).

Watermelon Sugar

What an intriguing name.

#174 In Watermelon Sugar was my lesson in not getting too excited about all books with great titles. I bought it because I loved the title but was bored, bored, bored. Though I do know lots of other people loved it so I guess it works for them.