This is a silly game – invented by an editor acquaintance of mine who doesn’t know that I’m stealing it here – that I think Dopers are just the right kind of people to appreciate.
The rules are simplicity itself: look at bookshelves, wherever you may be. Find examples. Extra points if it changes the original usage of some of the words.
To start off:
Something Under the Bed is Drooling Bill Watterson
Digesting the Child Within John Callahan
Paradise Postponed John Mortimer
The Mauritus Command Patrick O’Brian
Baby, It’s Cold Inside S.J. Perelman
Smoke Donald E. Westlake
Wheel of the Infinite Martha Wells
A Specter is Haunting Texas Fritz Leiber
The Dain Curse Dashiell Hammett
I Married a Communist Philip Roth
After Dark, My Sweet Jim Thompson
Stalking the Perfect Tan G.B. Trudeau
The Hard Way Up A. Bertram Chandler
The Wandering Jew Eugene Sue
Wasteland Peter McCabe
The Tar Baby Jerome Charyn
Enough Donald E. Westlake
The Hot Rock Donald E. Westlake
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold John le Carre
The Murder of My Aunt Richard Hull
The Cold War Swap Ross Thomas
The Last Good Kiss James Crumley
Freezer Burn Joe R. Lansdale
The Doorbell Rang Rex Stout
The Father Hunt Rex Stout
The Great Spy Films Leonard Rubenstein
The Captain and the Enemy Graham Greene
The Prince Machiavelli
Prometheus Bound Aeschuylus
Paradise Lost Milton
Origin of Species Darwin
Gulliver’s Travels Swift
Beyond Good and Evil Neitzche
On the Nature of Things Lucretius
Representative Government Mill
With that lot at work, dare you say I’m not a romantic?
When the Fat Lady Sings David W. Barber
What Jane Austin Ate and Charles Dickens Knew Daniel Pool
Dance For the Dead Thomas Perry
Sunburn Lawrence Shames
Awakening the Buddha Within Lama Surya Das
Hee hee hee. I’ll never look at a bookshelf in the same way again. Hee hee hee.
Friends help you move.
Real friends help you move books.