I would like to compile a list of the best book titles ever, with your help. I will start the ball rolling as follows:
The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, by Oliver Sacks
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
Are short story titles fair game? If so, Cordwainer Smith is your go-to guy. For example:
The Queen of the Afternoon
Scanners Live in Vain
The Lady Who Sailed The Soul
Think Blue, Count Two
The Colonel Came Back from the Nothing-at-All
The Game of Rat and Dragon
The Burning of the Brain
The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal
The Dead Lady of Clown Town
Drunkboat
Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons
Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
The Ballad of Lost C’mell
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
I haven’t read it, but Artie Lang’s Too Fat to Fish is a title that makes me laugh.
Plus, look at the cover!
Perhaps the most misleading title ever is The Death of the French Broad. Sunds like hard-boiled detective or spy fiction, right? It’s the story of the pollution and environmental ‘death’ of the French Broad River, in western North Carolina and easternmost Tennessee.
Saw one yesterday at the local library that I thought was good.
“You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It’s Monsooning”
A quick browse thru the book didn’t impress me, but the title was splendid.
The Platypus of Doom (and other Nihilists) by Arthur Byron Cover
We All Murdered Grandma by Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown also gets points (like the above-mentioned Cordwainer Smith) for short story names, my favorite being
Nothing Sirius
For sheer incomprehensible pompousity, I nominated Harlan Ellison’s
The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World
Another of his that’s memorable is
I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream
I always thought that would make a good title for a Dilbert collection.
(Both of those last titles are both titles of story collections, and of the leading story in each)
Sharon McCrumb gets a nod for her two related mystery novels (set among SF fans and writers)
**Bimbos of the Death Sun
Zombies of the Gene Pool**
But one of my all-time favorite book titles is:
The Jewish-Japanese Sex and Cook Book and How to Raise Wolves by Jack Douglas
One of my favourites as well. I believe it was the tag line of an actual news report that Burroughs saw some time in the fourties.
I always liked NOFX’s song titles. They have one called Falling in Love. Not funny until you listen to it. It’s about a couple on an airplane that’s going down.
Endurance
The Terror
The Wreck of the River of Stars
Fevre Dream
The Ghost Belonged to Me
Two Years Before the Mast
“Snakes on a Plane”
A Stephen King short story: “Everything You Love Will Be Carried Away”.
One of my favorite books: We Swam the Grand Canyon: The True Story of a Cheap Vacation that Got a Little Out of Hand
A few of my favorite titles (and books, too):
Confessions of a Raving, Unconfined Nut: Misadventures in Counter-Culture by Paul Krassner (autobiography)
The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul and The Salmon of Doubt both by Douglas Adams
I Am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert
The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby
It’s funny, I was just thinking about starting this thread.
Robert Rankin’s books have to be up there. The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, Nostradamus Ate My Hamster, Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls, Raiders of the Lost Car Park, Dance of the Voodoo Handbag, Armageddon the Musical… that guy is quite possibly insane.
Christopher Moore gets honorable mentions for Fluke: Or, I Know Why The Winged Whale Sings, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, and The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove.
One of Pet Shop Boys’ better song titles was “You only tell me you love me when you’re drunk.”
Also, while we’re at it, the classics Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition (which I own) and Dreams About Her Majesty The Queen and Other Members of the Royal Family.
Actually, non-fiction books are almost unfair, but since I included Sacks up there, I suppose I’ll be lying in that particular bed.
*The Game of Blood and Dust
Divine Endurance
Of Mist, Grass and Sand *