# Best titles ever **URL:** \ **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:** 3
**Author:** ![Yorikke](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yorikke/32/4335_2.png) [@Yorikke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yorikke)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/41 "2009-02-27T08:08:05Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > 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=)! It’s pretty good - wait for the paperback, though. Joe ---
**Author:** ![Promethea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Promethea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Promethea)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/42 "2009-02-27T08:56:33Z")
“Breakfast of Champions” by Kurt Vonnegut is my all time favourite title of a novel. ETA: “Tender is the Night” by F. Scott Fitzgerald as my runner up. ---
**Author:** ![footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9f8e36/32.png) [@footballisplayedwithyourfeet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/footballisplayedwithyourfeet)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/43 "2009-02-27T09:16:56Z")
Pretty much everything from Garcia Marquez (I think the dutch translations sound better tough) _Love in the time of Cholera_ _Chronicle of a death foretold_ _No one writes to the Colonel_ _Of love and other demons_ and of course _Memmories of my melancholy whores_ ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/44 "2009-02-27T09:55:10Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > 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. I think I can top that with **Golfing for Cats** a collection of humorous essays which have nothing whatsoever to do with golf. Or cats. I have it in hardcover, and the cover is bright red with a large swastika on it. The book also has nothing to do with Nazism. Somewhere along the line, the cover was changed to [this](http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/x2/x10943.jpg). I’m really not sure if that makes it better, or worse. I can’t find any images of the original; I may have a collector’s item on my bookshelf. ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/45 "2009-02-27T10:25:52Z")
Island of the Sequined Love Nun - Christopher Moore ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/46 "2009-02-27T10:34:20Z")
Great movie title: “Slavegirls From Beyond Infinity” Books Tomorrow and Tomorrow and the Fairy Chessmen “Shut Up He Explained” – another Jack Douglas title Great Mambo Chickens and Transforming the Human Condition (nonfiction) ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/47 "2009-02-27T10:39:38Z")
Music: **In the 7th Moon, the Chief Turned into a Swimming Fish and Ate the Head of his Enemy by Magic** A record by the [Kasai Allstars](http://www.crammed.be/craworld/crw44/index2.htm). This is also the title of one of the songs. Éric Satie is always a great source of odd titles: **Embryons déssechés** – Dried-up Embryos **4 préludes flasques (pour un chien)** – 4 Flabby Preludes (for a dog) Books: **Anyone Here Been Raped and Speaks English?** By Edward Behr, a fascinating behind-the-scene look at journalism, especially war journalism. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/48 "2009-02-27T10:48:54Z")
\*Drinking Midnight Wine The Water of Thought Flow My Tears the Policeman Said\* ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/49 "2009-02-27T10:52:29Z")
Great video game title: Leather Goddesses of Phobos (an old Infocom text adventure) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/50 "2009-02-27T12:00:00Z")
When I was a teenager and worked in a library, I always thought _The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test_ was a fantastic title. Along slightly different lines, two of Abbie Hoffman’s: his book of con artist tricks, _Steal This Book_, and his rant against the war on drugs, _Steal This Urine Test_. A more recent addition: _The Yiddish Policeman’s Union_. ---
**Author:** ![Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/46a35a/32.png) [@Walker\_in\_Eternity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walker_in_Eternity)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/51 "2009-02-27T13:07:54Z")
[Michael Moorcock](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moorcock) has many good titles, such as: The Dancers at the End of Time The War Hound and the World’s Pain The Brothel in Rosentrasse to name but three. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/52 "2009-02-27T13:17:37Z")
> [@usar\_jag](#): > > A short story by P.J. O’Rourke: **“How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill a Drop of Your Drink”.** O’Rourke also wrote the famed short story **“The King of Sandusky, Ohio.”** ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/53 "2009-02-27T13:56:48Z")
The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Damn good reading if you want to know what the 60’s were really like. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/54 "2009-02-27T14:00:46Z")
**I Still Miss My Man, But My Aim Is Getting Better** , by Sarah Shankman ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/55 "2009-02-27T14:43:46Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > What about Mark Leyner? > > - Et tu, Babe > - My cousin, my gastroenterologist > - The Tetherballs of Bougainville: a Novel > - Let’s Play Doctor: The Instant Guide to Walking, Talking and Probing like a Real MD (with Billy Goldberg, MD) > - Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog Plus, _Why Do Men Have Nipples? : Hundreds of Questions You’d Only Ask a Doctor after Your Third Martini_ ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/56 "2009-02-27T15:07:13Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > “Shut Up He Explained” – another Jack Douglas title stolen from a famous Ring Lardner sentence (I admit, I had to Google to see whether it was he, S. J. Perelman, or Robert Benchley) > [@](#): > > Great Mambo Chickens and Transforming the Human Condition (nonfiction) nitpick: Evidence that this is a great title is that, even though it’s been over 15 years since I read it, I still remember that it’s actually _Great Mambo Chicken and the Transhuman Condition_. How about _Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede_ by Bradley Denton ---
**Author:** ![Archeonomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7cd45c/32.png) [@Archeonomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Archeonomist)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/57 "2009-02-27T15:30:36Z")
I bought the book _Accordion Crimes_ by E. Annie Proulx just because of the title. Luckily, it turned out to be a very good novel… To me the accordion in itself is, with a few exceptions, a crime against humanity. ETA: Just remembered that someone once defined a gentleman as ‘someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t’. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/58 "2009-02-27T16:33:51Z")
Robert Fulghum also has “Was (Was Not)” and “Uh Oh (Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door” ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/59 "2009-02-27T18:05:49Z")
_How to Shit in the Woods_ (nonfiction book on , well, that) ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598/60 "2009-02-27T18:41:47Z")
**The Way the Future Was** , Frederik Pohl’s autobiography. Another great book! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-titles-ever/487598.md?page=4)