Cats and golf, of course.
Crap Ghosts by Gavin Inglis. It’s short stories about ghosts who aren’t very good at it!
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
There are a bunch of great children’s book titles I remember from my childhood, such as:
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon (I Mean Noel)
How could we leave out:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Weasels Ripped My Flesh
From the world of Science Fiction –
Golden Apples of the Sun
Something Wicked This Way Comes
A song title (since I just downloaded the album from Amazon)
**
You’re So Sweet Horseflies Keep Hanging Round Your Face** by Neil Diamond
I think it’s fun also to look for great titles among the classics. Plenty of classic books have dull titles: Tom Sawyer, Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet.
But there are some classics with great titles:
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is very evocative.
Much Ado About Nothing pokes fun at itself and is pretty great.
Couple of oldies:
Will Cuppy’s How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes, and (my favorite title ever) Helen Hokinson’s So You’re Going to Buy a Book.
Salmonella Men on Planet Porno
It’s on my to-read list. How could I resist?
Manga’s always good for some delightfully odd titles.
I’ve not read the series, but one of my favourite titles as a title is Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer.
I’m currently reading one called Kurogane Pukapuka Tai, which, aside from being a fun title to say in Japanese, has the rather fun approximate translation of Black Steel Splashing Brigade.
We didn’t. I think someone mentioned it on the previous page.
ETA: Post 22, RealityChuck
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances
Caramel Knowledge
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
A Canticle For Leibowitz
Holy The Firm
The Alaskan Bootlegger’s Bible (we used to have a copy at work. It explained how to make a still, and how to make everything vaguely fermentable into booze)
It’s not a book, but Into Great Silence is a great title. jsgoddes beat me to Everything that Rises Must Converge, my favourite O’Connor title.
ETA: Mr. Lissar just reminded me of The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven. Oh, and A Ring of Endless Light and Dragons in the Waters.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower - Dylan Thomas
Old (very old) but still good (all of these are ballads):
The Laidly Laidly Worm and the Machrel of the Sea
The Whummil Bore
Crow and Pie
Sheath and Knife
I loved that one but had completely forgotten about it!
Special Topics in Calamity Physics (Marisha Pessl) was a pretty good title.
James Lee Burke has In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead.
Lawrence Block, When the Sacred Ginmill Closes and Time to Murder and Create, The Girl with the Long Green Heart.
Ruth Rendell, An Unkindness of Ravens, A Guilty Thing Surprised.
Raymond Smullyan’s books of logic puzzles also qualify:
What Is the Name of This Book?
This Book Needs No Title
My university library had a volume of humorous essays which was entitled Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality.
One must not, of course, omit from such a discussion the tomes of Lewis Grizzard, among which one finds the following classics.
[ul]
[li]Shoot Low Boys, They’re Riding Shetland Ponies[/li][li]Elvis Is Dead and I Don’t Feel So Good Myself[/li][li]When My Love Returns From the Ladies’ Room Will I Be Too Old to Care?[/li][li]Don’t Bend Over in the Garden, Granny – You Know Them Taters Got Eyes[/li][/ul]
Just to clarify, Jaguars Ripped My Flesh (post #70) is a travel book, iirc, although the title is no doubt a riff on the Zappa album, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, mentioned in post #85…
I Have America Surrounded by John Higgs. it’s a bio of Timothy Leary
The Greatest Fucking Moments in Sport by Kevin L. Donihe, and I see he also co-wrote one called Ocean of Lard!
More Grizzard goodness:
They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat
If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground
My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of A Gun
Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night
I don’t recall the author, but Alien Rapes Nun, Flees In UFO was a very amusing book about tabloid journalism.
Eaters of the Dead
His Share of Glory
Atlas Shrugged
Flight of the Intruder