“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” - intriguing goofiness
“A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” - ironic self-reference
“The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper” - vivid, unexpected image
“Tarzan of the Apes” - simplicity with a promise of exotic adventure
“‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” - Ellison, baby, Ellison!
“The Executioner’s Song” - mysterious and melancholy
Do Andoids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Second on Cordwainer Smith, and Harlan Ellison had many great titles for short stories. In addition to those mentioned, there were:
“I See a Man Sitting in a Chair, and the Chair is Biting His Leg.”
“Adrift Just off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54’ N, Longitude 77° 00’ 13” W"
“‘Repent Harlequin,’ said the Ticktockman.”
“Shatterday.”
“The Whimper of Whipped Dogs.”
“Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes.”
“One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty.”
“Paladin of the Lost Hour”
“Crazy as a Soup Sandwich”
The third great name in SF short story titles is James Tiptree, Jr.
“And I Awake to Find Me Here on the Cold Hill Side.”
“Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket”
“I’ll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty”
“The Last Flight of Dr. Ain.”
“The Girl Who Was Plugged In.”
“Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death.”
“The Women Men Don’t See.”
“The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t do Awful Things to Rats.”
“We Who Stole the Dream.”
Finally, in the non-SF division, the clear winner is They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?.
NOFX also has:
Freedumb
Here Comes the Neighborhood
I Live in a Cake
Five Feet Under
Professional Crastination
Food, Sex, and Ewe
Gonoherpasyphilaids
Hobophobic (Scared of Bums)
Please Stop Fucking My Mom
Flossing a Dead Horse
Quart in Session
And Now For Something Completely Simila
Take Two Placebos And Call Me Lame
Thank God It’s Monday
Clams Have Feelings Too (Actually They Don’t)
Stranger Than Fishin’
We Threw Gasoline on the Fire And Now We Have Stumps For Arms And No Eyebrows
Pump Up The Valium
Fun Things to Fuck (If You’re a Winner)
Re-gaining Unconsciousness
Arming the Proletariat With Potato Guns
I Am Going to Hell For This One
There’s No Fun in Fundamentalism
Jamaica’s Alright if You Like Homophobes
California Über Alice
Last Night Was Really Fun?
Cool and Unusual Punishment
The Marxist Brothers
Everything in Moderation (Especially Moderation)
100 Times Fuckeder
Dr. Phil cited this, IIRC, about dealing with those difficult teenagers:
Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? by Wayne Parker
Everything That Rises Must Converge
“Children of a Lesser God”
The Last Camel Died at Noon
Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt
Such a great book too.
Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by Nick Flynn
Bless Your Heart, Tramp, by Celia Rivenbark
Lugging Vegetables to Nantucket, by Peter Klappert
I always liked “‘The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories’ and Other Stories” by Gene Wolfe.
Well, if we’re into song titles, I’ve always liked that old gospel song “They Don’t Make Jews like Jesus Anymore”
The Man Who Changed His Mind
I like Harry Stephen Keeler for titles:
The Skull of the Waltzing Clown
The Defrauded Yeggman
The Case of the Lavendar Gripsack
The Case of the Jeweled Ragpicker
The Riddle of the Wooden Parrakeet
The Gallows Waits, My Lord
The Mysterious Ivory Ball of Wong Shing Li
The Mystery of the Fiddling Cracksmen
Those are some of the most colourful…
Huge Cordwainer Smith fan here as well. The Ballad of Lost C’mell was one that immediately came to mind.
I read a great book called **An Armful of Warm Girl **that has always stuck with me as a great title…can’t even remember the author…ah, here it is on Amazon…
Jack Douglas had a few good titles. My favourite of his was Shut Up and Eat Your Snowshoes.
I also rather like Robert Fulghum’s It Was On Fire When I Lay Down On It.
I’m sure there are many in KidLit, but two that stand out (IMHO) are Dennis Lee’s Alligator Pie and Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends.
What about Mark Leyner?
*The Man Who Folded Himself
The Wind From a Burning Woman*
A Breath of Snow and Ashes
I haven’t read the book, but it’s one of the few titles I’ve ever read that filled me with a longing envy - I wish I’d thought of it first.
Comes Now the Power
*Travelling With the Dead
Burning Chrome*
Besides it being one of my favorite novels of all time, I’ve always thought Watership Down has a certain ring to it. You’d never guess what the book is about by the title alone, but it’s still so compelling.
Also, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.
Gun, with Occasional Music
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
How to Talk Dirty and Influence People
The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of
Tales of the Dying Earth
Agatha Heterodyne and the Golden Trilobyte
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”.