# Best titles ever
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 27, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598 "2009-02-27T01:53:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/1 "2009-02-27T01:53:12Z")
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
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### Author:  [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/2 "2009-02-27T02:07:10Z")
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
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### Author:  [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/3 "2009-02-27T02:16:46Z")
We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families
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### Author:  [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/4 "2009-02-27T02:24:03Z")
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](http://sitb-images.amazon.com/Qffs+v35leqmLPcc0FXS5Q9605MRYnsLUWAvvjDIkScnQEGF8pBtJNF5f4pd4uDqmYC47y2FWf0=)!
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/5 "2009-02-27T02:24:03Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/6 "2009-02-27T02:26:37Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/7 "2009-02-27T02:32:41Z")
[**Pride and Prejudice and Zombies**](http://www.chroniclebooks.com/index/main,book-info/store,books/products_id,7847/title,Pride-and-Prejudice-and-Zombies/)
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/8 "2009-02-27T02:35:52Z")
**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
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### Author:  [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/9 "2009-02-27T02:36:48Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> _And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks_, by William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac
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.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/10 "2009-02-27T02:39:50Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/11 "2009-02-27T02:41:03Z")
Endurance
The Terror
The Wreck of the River of Stars
Fevre Dream
The Ghost Belonged to Me
Two Years Before the Mast
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### Author:  [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/12 "2009-02-27T02:41:38Z")
“Snakes on a Plane”
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/13 "2009-02-27T02:43:46Z")
A Stephen King short story: “Everything You Love Will Be Carried Away”.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/14 "2009-02-27T02:46:04Z")
One of my favorite books: [We Swam the Grand Canyon: The True Story of a Cheap Vacation that Got a Little Out of Hand](http://www.amazon.com/We-Swam-Grand-Canyon-Vacation/dp/0963405594)
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### Author:  [@Rich\_Mann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rich_Mann)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/15 "2009-02-27T02:48:35Z")
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
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### Author:  [@Key\_Lime\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Key_Lime_Guy)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/16 "2009-02-27T02:58:29Z")
**The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby**
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### Author:  [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/17 "2009-02-27T03:04:56Z")
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_.
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/18 "2009-02-27T03:22:05Z")
> [@Cisco](#):
>
> 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.
One of Pet Shop Boys’ better song titles was “You only tell me you love me when you’re drunk.”
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/19 "2009-02-27T03:23:45Z")
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.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [February 27, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/20 "2009-02-27T03:24:07Z")
\*The Game of Blood and Dust
Divine Endurance
Of Mist, Grass and Sand \*
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