# What are your favourite titles?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 7, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161 "2007-12-07T15:25:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/1 "2007-12-07T15:25:31Z")
Books, movies, anything. I know the title doesn’t make the book (or movie, or painting) but I love it when they’re interesting. Mine are:
\*Their Eyes Were Watching God
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs
That Hideous Strength
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Everything That Rises Must Converge\*
I tend towards wordy. And they’re all books. What are yours?
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### Author:  [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/2 "2007-12-07T15:30:58Z")
Lord High Executioner.
Grand Poobah.
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### Author:  [@Surok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surok)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/3 "2007-12-07T15:32:41Z")
Both books:
_My War Gone By I Miss It So_
_The Country Ahead Of Us, The Country Behind_ - I haven’t actually read this, I just love the title. And feel no need to spoil my enjoyment of it by reading what might be a less-than-satisfactory book.
I’m sure there are more but those are the two that I think of when I’m grouchy and want to cheer myself up.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/4 "2007-12-07T15:41:51Z")
To me, the perfect title to a play was _Children of a Lesser God_. Summed up the whole thing in 5 words.
That and _The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_. 😃
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### Author:  [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/5 "2007-12-07T15:46:27Z")
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ for Dummies. I love the concept, and the fact they deliver what the title promises.
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### Author:  [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/6 "2007-12-07T15:47:30Z")
[The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stray-Shopping-Carts-Eastern-America/dp/0810955202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197042222&sr=1-1).
> [@](#):
>
> **Synopsis**
>
> Despite the ubiquity of stray shopping carts, little effort has been made to comprehend the complex relationship between cart and landscape. This is, in no small part, due to the fact that we have until now lacked a formalised language to describe these wayward carts in systematic detail. That is, until now. In “The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification”, a layperson is able to identify and classify their own cart spottings based on the situation in which they were found. In five handy chapters, Montague leads the reader through his identification system, covering such bucolically littered locations as the Niagara River Gorge (where many a cart has been pushed to its untimely death) and mundane sites that look suspiciously like a suburb near you.
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### Author:  [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/7 "2007-12-07T16:03:33Z")
Books:
_A Clockwork Orange_
Movies:
_American Psycho_
_Grave of the Fireflies_
_Children of the Corn_
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/8 "2007-12-07T16:10:39Z")
**They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?**. Mysterious, until you see the movie, when all becomes clear.
**Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand** by Samuel R. Delany
**I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream** by Harlan Elllison. Ellison is a master at great titles ( **Crazy as a Soup Sandwich; The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World; Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktockman** ), but this is his best.
**The Women Men Don’t See** by James Tiptree, Jr.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/9 "2007-12-07T16:33:35Z")
I must say that I appreciate the nerve it took for someone to call his book **A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius**.
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### Author:  [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/10 "2007-12-07T16:49:58Z")
It’s lucky for him it was actually good, wasn’t it? 🙂
The shopping carts book is great- we had it at work.
_Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight_
_The Places in Between_
_Holy the Firm_
_The Word for World is Forest_
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### Author:  [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/11 "2007-12-07T17:00:07Z")
Christopher Hitchens was on tv a while back saying how he wanted to name his recent book that took a critical view of Mother Theresa **Holy Cow** because it was a _triple entendre_. Alas the publishing company wouldn’t let him. Pity
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### Author:  [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/12 "2007-12-07T17:04:18Z")
I like Sharon Kay Penman’s titles, such as:
_The Sunne in Splendour_
_When Christ and His Saints Slept_
I also like Alexander McCall Smith’s titles:
_The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
Morality for Beautiful Girls
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies
The Kalahari Typing School for Men
The Full Cupboard of Life
Tears of the Giraffe
Blue Shoes and Happiness
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive_
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### Author:  [@Mark\_Ryle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Ryle)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/13 "2007-12-07T17:27:34Z")
I’m surprised, **Lissla** , you like That Hideous Strength. I’m nonplussed by that and many CS Lewis titles – Till We Have Faces and Mere Christianity being two others. I never really get comfortable with them, either, even after years of being familiar with the books.
But you did say you like when a title is interesting. I like it more when they have a grand sound.
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
Of Mice and Men
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### Author:  [@joechip236](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joechip236)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/14 "2007-12-07T17:32:43Z")
_Shut Up, He Explained_ (title of a Ring Lardner short story collection).
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/15 "2007-12-07T17:39:22Z")
Falling Through the Earth
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
The Milagro Beanfield War
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### Author:  [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/16 "2007-12-07T17:39:41Z")
“No Country For Old Men” is a great title.
“Fargo” is a great title.
“The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner”.
Some westerns. . .
“High Plains Drifter”
“For a Fistful of Dollars”
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### Author:  [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/17 "2007-12-07T17:41:11Z")
\*Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time\*
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### Author:  [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/18 "2007-12-07T17:45:06Z")
**The Friday Book: Or, Book Titles Should Be Straightforward and Subtitles Avoided** by John Barth
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### Author:  [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/19 "2007-12-07T17:50:42Z")
One of several titles of the Werner Herzog film about Kasper Hauser is **Every Man For Himself and God Against All.**.
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### Author:  [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-favourite-titles/429161/20 "2007-12-07T18:29:02Z")
[QUOTE=don’t ask]
Lord High Executioner.
Grand Poobah.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t forget Poo-Bah’s title: Lord High Everything Else!
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