What would you call your autobiography?

[roger thornhill]

For me, it's got to be taken from my games report from elementary school (aged 7), which read "Keen as mustard; a fighter among giants".

So, A Fighter Among Giants, by Roger Thornhill.

[Mangetout]

In the same vein, I think I would consider calling mine "Must try harder"

[Malacandra]

It's a Pity He's So Socially Inept, by Malacandra.

They say eavesdroppers never hear any good of themselves, and in my case I shouldn't have read a letter my then-SO had written to her son's girlfriend. (She was a much older SO.) But quite honestly, when someone's dumped you, then accidentally set her car on fire with herself inside it, and you've nursed her through the skin grafts and so on, that's not what you want to hear about yourself. :rolleyes:

[betenoir]

I've been toying with:

"The Bad Existentialist."

Do you think it would sell?

[roger thornhill]

Okay, Mallers, you've just given me an idea for another thread. Worst things you've heard about yourself by chance. Coming up!

I think we're all socially inept here (at least the bright ones), but then the bright ones always are misfits. Which reminds me of another possible title, though this is cheating since it's how I defend myself when the wife says I have no EQ:

The Price of Genius, by Roger Thornhill

Perhaps that can be 18-30, if I do a Stephen Fry and write 400 pages about my life from 8-17.

[roger thornhill]

I've been toying with:

"The Bad Existentialist."

Do you think it would sell?Hot-fucking-cakes!

[GuanoLad]

"A very short book"

[Malacandra]

Okay, Mallers, you've just given me an idea for another thread. Worst things you've heard about yourself by chance. Coming up!

I think we're all socially inept here (at least the bright ones), but then the bright ones always are misfits. Which reminds me of another possible title, though this is cheating since it's how I defend myself when the wife says I have no EQ:

The Price of Genius, by Roger Thornhill

Perhaps that can be 18-30, if I do a Stephen Fry and write 400 pages about my life from 8-17.

Mallers?? :dubious: Must be a public-school thing. (I sounded like a public-school boy all through my comprehensive education. You can imagine what that did for my social eptitude.)

And if you do a Stephen Fry, will it include vastly exaggerated accounts of underage homosexuality to try to make yourself sound more interesting?

My other title would be A5, as in "A for achievement, 5 for effort", which is what my chemistry teacher gave me after I'd skated through his class on next to no homework. Apparently studying and committing to memory the entire O-level set text within about three weeks of the start of term, for fun, didn't count as "effort". The git.

[phoebo32]

"And then it all went pear shaped." Seems appropriate, in my land, when it rains it frickin pours and hails and snows. But for all the rest of the time its awesome. Theres not a lot of in between. But as the title may suggest even when it does explode, we still laugh about it, because what else is there to do, really?

[don't ask]

Setting A Bad Example

[Beware of Doug]

In the same vein, I think I would consider calling mine "Must try harder"Not Working Up To Ability

[Beware of Doug]

[Apparently studying and committing to memory the entire O-level set text within about three weeks of the start of term, for fun, didn't count as "effort". The git.Nothing done for fun counts as effort.

[DeVena]

Bite Me: Confessions of a State Employee

[bouv]

For me, it's got to be taken from my games report from elementary school (aged 7), which read "Keen as mustard; a fighter among giants".

So, A Fighter Among Giants, by Roger Thornhill.

You can't drop the Keen as mustard, that's the best part!

[RealityChuck]

Hack Writer

[twickster]

Sometimes Her Jokes Are Really Weird.

From a student evaluation, many, many moons ago -- in full, "She drinks a lot of Diet Coke, and sometimes her jokes are really weird."

I'm sure none of you have noticed any such proclivity.

[Liberal]

The Inner and Sensible Intuition of Our Mind (as Object of Consciousness) Represented as Being, Determined by the Succession of Different States in Time, and Not the Self Proper, as It Exists in Itself — That is, Not the Transcendental Subject — But Only an Appearance that Has Been Given to the Sensibility of This, to Us Unknown, Being.

(Apologies to Immanuel Kant)

[Malacandra]

The Inner and Sensible Intuition of Our Mind (as Object of Consciousness) Represented as Being, Determined by the Succession of Different States in Time, and Not the Self Proper, as It Exists in Itself — That is, Not the Transcendental Subject — But Only an Appearance that Has Been Given to the Sensibility of This, to Us Unknown, Being.

(Apologies to Immanuel Kant)

::falls asleep before getting past the front cover::

Dude, that was one awesome piece of self-parody! ::applauds::

[Spiff]

Unauthorized.

[coffeecat]

Writ In Water

:( sob :(

[middleman]

Mine would be titled "Actually..." Subtitled "Confessions of a Know-It-All Who Doesn't Know Very Much."

The cover would feature me pointing a fork at the reader. (Inside joke)

[don't ask]

Unauthorized.

I think Chuck Barris beat you to this one - his autobiography (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=0786888083)

[marque elf]

The Roads Not Taken

[elfkin477]

If I wanted to depress people, I'd call it "Miles of Gray," and include this poem (http://www.geocities.com/theevilwriter/gray.html) I wrote when I was 20.

[Anaamika]

Confessions of a Stud Monkey!


*shamelessly stolen from Berkely Breathed*

[Liberal]

::falls asleep before getting past the front cover::

Dude, that was one awesome piece of self-parody! ::applauds::Thank you! :)

[Annie-Xmas]

It seems to me that I've spent my whole life Scrouging for Pennies

[AndyPolley]

Looking at my daytime life I'd probably go with a childishly simple, "Say Cheese." If I look to my night-life persona, I might go for something like "Theremins are Sexy, Dammit!"

But for the entire picture, I'd go with something like "I'd Like to Shot You."

Not with a gun...I'm a photographer, see?

[roger thornhill]

Mallers?? :dubious: Must be a public-school thing. (I sounded like a public-school boy all through my comprehensive education. You can imagine what that did for my social eptitude.)

And if you do a Stephen Fry, will it include vastly exaggerated accounts of underage homosexuality to try to make yourself sound more interesting?
I didn't think they had comprehensives when you were a lad. Bet you're a grammar school boy! Fry and I are very much the same age, and thus went to prep and public schools at much the same time. My school even used to play his school at cricket. So, when I read of all the kissing and smooching, and holding and fondling, and being lined up behind the bike sheds and vaselined prior to entry, I was left reflecting on how incredibly dull my schools had been. The best I could manage was being invited up into the girls' dormitory in the girls' house by a girl who's name I still remember after all these years and given a big snog. Could have been expelled if we'd been caught.

Bouv, 'keen as mustard' doews have a ring to it, I admit. Very 'Ice Cold in Alex', very John Mills. Elfkin, your poem puts me in mind of a Simon and Garfunkel number.

[Gatopescado]

"Potential unrealized, or How to get by fairly well despite Half-assed effort"

[roger thornhill]

We got us a Chinese link to the Asia World Detective Agency. Would that middleman's 'confessions' or Liberal's Kantian riddle, I wonder.

[Governor Quinn]

A Study In 21th Century Multiplicity

[Evil Captor]

"I'm Still Waiting for My MacArthur Genius Grant!"

I also want that on my tombstone.

[Askia]

Now I Can Laugh
Memoirs and Remembrances
by Askia

[Rhiannon8404]

I'm Sorry, What Were You Saying? or Help! I Can't Stop Thinking

[Love Rhombus]

Holding Pattern

Do Unto Others

and my personal favorite: Just About

[Colibri]

Beyond the Toad Mountains

[Sampiro]

I'm currently working on a book that's a collection of autobiographical essays and short stories set between 1972 and 1986 (with flashbacks from the 19th century to the present as relayed by old relatives). The working title is just Spinning in the Sunlight & other recollections but I'm hoping for something pithier. Things I've considered:

It's a Southern Thing (Not Really, but that's What We Tell Ourselves)

Casseroles for the Dead (from a comment of my mothers- "Mr. Kirby from the Presbyterian Church died in a wreck last night so I'm taking him a casserole."

The Eunuch's Grandson: Memoirs of a Stick Collector

The Absolute Definitive Secret History of Weokahatchee, AL, as Told to the Author the People Who Vaguely Remembered It

Other Families Just Don't Do This (the suggestion of a Doper in the thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=326481&highlight=weokahatchee) that contains very very rough drafts of a couple of the sections I'm using)

So far nothing has really leaped out and said "Pick me! Pick me!", but hopefully it'll come. For the cover I'd like four lynched Best-of-the-West figures in a cardboard box (from, of course, one of the stories).

[roger thornhill]

Casseroles for the DeadThis is the one.

[Marley23]

Some possibilities...

Laugh, and the World Laughs with You; Cry, and the World Laughs at You
Rattling the Bars: Confessions of a Patron of the Human Zoo
Words Typed by a Small Angry Man

[Malacandra]

I didn't think they had comprehensives when you were a lad. Bet you're a grammar school boy! Fry and I are very much the same age, and thus went to prep and public schools at much the same time. My school even used to play his school at cricket. So, when I read of all the kissing and smooching, and holding and fondling, and being lined up behind the bike sheds and vaselined prior to entry, I was left reflecting on how incredibly dull my schools had been. The best I could manage was being invited up into the girls' dormitory in the girls' house by a girl who's name I still remember after all these years and given a big snog. Could have been expelled if we'd been caught.


You're marginally my senior, as is Fry; not by so much as I'd have fagged for either of you. And a comprehensive it was, tho' the posher end of a two-site school and one that had been a grammar until not too long before (the erstwhile City of Bath Boys' School).

Next to no girls though. We had a minute intake into the sixth form by the time I got there. It was generally considered infra dig. to make a beeline for the three or four girls there were in the entire school, though. I believe it's fully co-ed these days, not that I've been back for a look in the better part of thirty years.

[Ice Wolf]

Garbage You've Just Paid About $30 For, by me.

[Shirley Ujest]

My Life In A Nutshell by Shirley Ujest.


Cassaroles for the Dead is an awesome title.

[PapSett]

Shades Of Grey by PapSett (An old song by the Monkees)

subtitled "A lifetime of Fighting Depression"

[Madd Maxx]

Where the hell did that come from? by Madd Maxx

[NE Texan]

Twelve Thousand, Five Hundred and Thirty Seven Pages of Pointless Rambling by NE Texan
The Early Years, Volume 1

[cbawlmer]

Casseroles for the Dead (from a comment of my mothers- "Mr. Kirby from the Presbyterian Church died in a wreck last night so I'm taking him a casserole."

Another vote for this one. It's funny and memorable, the sort of thing that makes you want to buy it, read it, then give copies of it as gifts. I want to read this book right now.

[Telperien]

Toothpick or French Fry: Choose Your Weapon or Trips to Wal-Mart with Igor.

[Satchmo]

"Nobody gets out of here alive."
By Satchmo

Unfortunately, already taken. :(


Plus I really like "Casseroles for the Dead".

[Marley23]

One other thought

If You're So Smart, Why Don't You Write a Book?: A Memoir Written to Spite My Mother

[dotchan]

Based on my RL name,
Quite Contrary

(*grumbles about people who think they're SO clever* :rolleyes: )

Based on my pen name,
(i'm the cute one)

[Spectre of Pithecanthropus]

I'm currently working on a book that's a collection of autobiographical essays and short stories set between 1972 and 1986 (with flashbacks from the 19th century to the present as relayed by old relatives). The working title is just Spinning in the Sunlight & other recollections but I'm hoping for something pithier. Things I've considered:

It's a Southern Thing (Not Really, but that's What We Tell Ourselves)

Casseroles for the Dead (from a comment of my mothers- "Mr. Kirby from the Presbyterian Church died in a wreck last night so I'm taking him a casserole."

The Eunuch's Grandson: Memoirs of a Stick Collector

The Absolute Definitive Secret History of Weokahatchee, AL, as Told to the Author the People Who Vaguely Remembered It

Other Families Just Don't Do This (the suggestion of a Doper in the thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=326481&highlight=weokahatchee) that contains very very rough drafts of a couple of the sections I'm using)

So far nothing has really leaped out and said "Pick me! Pick me!", but hopefully it'll come. For the cover I'd like four lynched Best-of-the-West figures in a cardboard box (from, of course, one of the stories).

My god, they're all brilliant!

[Tibby or Not Tibby]

The Bible


Some people accuse me of having delusions of grandeur, but they are mere mortals :o