John Sandford’s Lucas Davenport novels all contain the word ‘Prey’ in the titles.
There’s James Herriot’s
All Things Bright and Beautiful
All Creatures Great and Small
All Things Wise and Wonderful
The Lord God Made Them All
How about Claudia Bishop:
Each book also contains a recipe purportedly made at the Inn.
Or go back a ways to children’s books. I used to work as a page in a library so I had to shelve them in proper order all the time.
Sue Barton went from Sue Barton, Student Nurse, all the way up the ladder to Sue Barton, Superintendent of Nurses.
The Black Stallion series of horse stories starts simply and then adds on lots of other horses, races, and challenges. The Black Stallion Returns; Black Stallion and Satan; Black Stallion Revolts; The Black Stallion and the Girl; and on and on. Then he branched out to the Island Stallion series, until finally he brought the two horses together.
This is a dull way of doing it, though. Adam Hall’s title character is Quiller, and his name is literally in every title. Similarly, Dorothy Gilman has Mrs. Pollifax’s name in the title of almost all of her books. David Weber is a touch more subtle with his Honor Harrington books. The word Honor can be found in almost all of the titles, but in contexts that allude to the protagonist rather than name her directly.i
You can be much more fun and creative before the marketing people start pounding on you for control. Mel Gilden’s great SF/PI spoof series has the titles Surfing Samurai Robots, Tubular Android Superheroes, and Hawaiian UFO Aliens.
Everybody’s got a gimmick and a mnemonic. And you know, half of them don’t actually work. Did I read C, D, and J from Grafton or B, L, and M? The Travis McGee books. I think I read blue, green, and pink, or was it green, pick, and turquoise? How about a freakin’ title that says something about the book?
And every fantasy trilogy (defined as a three-book connected series that will eventually be published in six parts) these days has connecting titles so that the reader/buyer can distinguish them from the next such identical series. Surely the cover art won’t be of any help.
Authors once did this more to be clever than for the marketing people. Today, they have far less say and it’s being beaten into the ground.
Eric Flint and his co-authors may have achieved the ultimate endless series with his 1632, 1633, and 1634. Wow, I bet 1647 will be a real dilly.
fishbicycle was on the right trail with Robert Ludlum. Most of his stories take the form The (name) (common noun), as in The Bourne Identity, The Holcroft Covenant, etc.
The names of James Patterson’s Alex Cross books come from children’s rhymes and games:
Along Came a Spider
Kiss the Girls
Jack and Jill
Cat and Mouse
Pop Goes the Weasel
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
London Bridges
You have to be careful, though, as he’ll use the children’s title theme for non-Alex Cross books also.
K.A. Applegate’s Animorphs series had the formula “The (one word)”- The Invasion, The Alien, etc.
The titles of the first few episodes of Family Guy had something to do with death: Death has a Shadow, I Never Met the Dead Man, etc.
The Simpsons have had a number of episodes with “vs.” in the title, usually in the form of “Character vs. Thing.” They are: Bart vs. Thanksgiving; Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment; Marge vs. the Monorail; Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy; Grampa vs. Sexual Inadequacy; Bart vs. Australia; Homer vs. Patty & Selma; Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment; Homer vs. Dignity; Bart vs. Lisa vs. the Third Grade; and the ultimate one, Marge vs. Singles, Seniors, Childless Couples and Teens, and Gays.
The exception to the format is “The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson,” which is supposed to sound more like a court case. There’s also the lost episode, Kent Brockman vs. Laramie Cigarettes.
Some titles are in the “Character the Adjective” format: Bart the Genius; Bart the General; Bart the Daredevil; Bart the Murderer; Lisa the Greek; Bart the Lover; Homer the Heretic; Lisa the Beauty Queen; Homer the Vigilante; Homer the Great; Homie the Clown; Lisa the Vegetarian; Lisa the Iconoclast; Homer the Smithers; Lisa the Skeptic; Lisa the Simpson; Bart, the Mother; Lisa the Tree Hugger; Homer the Moe.
There are a few in the “Character Gets an F” formula. Bart Gets an F; Bart’s Dog Gets an F; Lisa Gets an A (of course). If you want to be picky, Bart also Gets an Elephant.
Almost all of the remaining titles are puns. Usually they’re spoofs of movies (such as I Am Furious Yellow) or songs (D’oh-in’ in the Wind) or books (The Joy of Sect), sometimes they’re just figures of speech (Strong Arms of the Ma).
Before you ask, no, I didn’t do all that from memory. I think I would’ve done pretty well from memory, but I cross-checked on the SNPP.
Lawrence Sanders did his “Commandment” and “Deadly Sins” series, too, and the "Deadly Sin series always had the same detective, Edward Delany.
The “Commandment” series featured a variety of characters, but in the same line of work (insurance fraud or private investigation, I think?).
Oh, and as long as we’re expanding it to TV shows, Seinfeld episodes are all simple one or two-word titles, starting with “The…” (The Contest, The Sponge, The Junior Mint, The Puffy Shirt, etc.) and Friends episodes all have titles that start with “The One With…” or “The One Where…”
M.C. Beaton’s Hamish MacBeth series all start with, “Death of a [fill in the victim du jour.” Can’t wait 'til they’re serialized.
Many of John Riggs’ titles are cliches: The Last Laugh, One Man’s Poison,Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, etc.
Erle Stanley Gardener’s Perry Mason titles are usually alliterative.
S. S. Van Dine (the author of the Philo Vance novels) used “The (six letter word) Murder Case” for six of his seven novels.
Correction- ten of his eleven- I accidentially used an incomplete list.
Sharpe’s Rifles
Sharpe’s Eagle
Sharpe’s Company
etc.
David Eddings has done this with two series. The five books of the Belgariad all have chess related titles ( Pawn of Prophecy, Queen of Sorcery, etc), and the three Elenium books have precious stone titles ( Diamond Throne, Ruby Knight, Sapphire Rose). Both sets have sequel series where the titling convention goes to hell, though.
Joanna Fluke has her Hannah Swenson mysteries that are all “Food + Mystery” such as The Chocolate Chip Cookie Mystery and The Blueberry Muffin Mystery that come with delightful (and most delish) recipies.
Susan Wittig Albert has her China Bayles Herbal mysteries which always have the name of a particular herb in the title ( Thyme of Death and Witches Bane to name a couple), the herb plays a part in the book AND she gives interesting facts and recipies that include the particular herb. Ms. Alberts also writes for The Herb Companiion magazine.
Ms, Albert and her husband join together to write as Robin Page and have Victorian Mysteries that always start with “Death At (place)”
Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series feature titles that show up as names of nightclubs in the books. Guilty Pleasures is a strip club , The Lunatic Cafe is a werewolf ‘hangout’…
Selma Eichler’s Desiree Shapiro mysteries are always Murder Can (Blank) Your (Blank) and have included such gems as Spook Your Cat, Cool Off Your Affair and Spoil Your Appetite.
Lynne Murray’s Josephine Fuller series all have a word in them punning off the fact that Ms. Fuller is plus-sized. (It just dawned on me that the name Fuller is a pun, too) Large is the most common, but the most recent was something including “Ton.”
Tamar Myers’s Magdelena Yoder series has a food or cookery term named in each title, including Play It Again Spam, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Crime and my favorite, Custard’s Last Stand.
In addition to his Prey series, John Sandford has another series featuring a hacker named Kidd who reads the Tarot, and all of those novels include the name of a Tarot card, including The Empress Files, The Hanged Man’s Song.
Lastly, Edie Clare’s underrated Leigh Koslow mysteries are always Never (Verb) (Blank Blank) and include [i}Never Tease a Siamese* and Never Preach Past Noon.
Paul Sheldon’s books always begin with the name of his heroine: “Misery’s…”
C.J. Cherryh’s Foreigner series–all single or/er words.
Foreigner
Invader
Inheritor
Precursor
Defender
Explorer
and coming February 2005, Destroyer.
If this was mentioned and I missed it, I’m sorry (and it IS television and not books, but all the ones I knew have been covered snerk already) since it would be fairly obvious, but what about “Friends” with all their episodes titled "The One With the (whatever)? For some reason, I thought that was hilarious.
Yes, I’m easily amused.
And the episodes of Rawhide were all called *Incident at ****** or *Incident with the ****** or The **** Incident
Yep, mentioned in post #28. Once again, I feel invisible…