Do you think book titles make a difference? How about really weird ones??
Book titles.
Do they make a difference? Will you pick up a book or NOT pick up a book just for the title?
I was scrolling through some trades (Shelf Awareness and PW Daily) today and a couple of funny/clever titles jumped out at me. They were Carrie Fisher’s aka Princess Lea’s new “Wishful Drinking” and Joy Behar’s ”When You Need a Lift: But Don’t Want to Eat Chocolate, Pay a Shrink, or Drink a Bottle of Gin.”
Cute, huh?
Never mind that I wish celebrities would stop “writing” books and taking up all the media and shelf space. Don’t they have enough going on in their careers already? Give the first and second time (real) authors a chance, will you?
How much attention is enough, never mind money??? Can somebody please call Dr. Phil?
I thought I’d engage you in a solicitation of odd or otherwise blog-worthy book titles and share some of my own observations. Since I find such titles on a regular basis and constantly share with my immediate colleagues down the hall, I thought this task would be a cinch.
Fifteen copies of Publishers Weekly later, and too much time taken up at my actual job, I scanned and scoped for funny, hah-hahs, and merely found page after page of unremarkable titles.
Don’t fret. I didn’t come up empty handed. I’ll share the few that caught my attention. Perhaps, you’ll get a chuckle or a raised eyebrow out of this post. Work with me, ok?
Here goes:
Backstabbing for Beginners: My Crash Course in International Diplomacy by Michel Soussan (Nation) – November 2008
Sex and Bacon: Why I Love Things That Are Very, Very Bad for Me by Sarah Katherine Lewis (Seal) - May 2008. (Except for the food choice being bacon, I of course, resonated with this one – BEWARE – this is x rated – I had no idea!)
Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy by Eric C Wilson (Crichton/FSG) February 2009. (Finally, someone taking a stand! Let’s call this one the “Anti-Secret.” Just between us.)
I’ll Sleep While I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon (Harper Collins/Ecco) May 2008. (If you know Zevon’s music, this title is just right for the Werewolf of London)
The Agony and the Agony: Raising a Teenager Without Losing Your Mind by by Betty Londergan (De Capo) 2008. (Do you sense a dark, macabre theme? Sorry, it’s a full moon eve and I’ll wholly use that as my excuse.)
When God Goes to Starbucks: A Guide for Everyday Apologetics by Paul Coan (Baker Books) August 2008 (LOVE this title)
Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP by Victor Gold (Sourcebooks) — April 2008. (Had to sneak that one in)
Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid by Dennis Leary (Viking) — November 2008. (Another celebrity tome but from a pretty irreverent one – which I like)
and
Tuna: A Love Story by Richard Ellis (Knopf), July 08. (Don’t you just love this? I also saw one called Beef: A Love Sory – really – but it didn’t possess the same poetic value)
Hands down, I think the prize goes to one of my favorite HCI titles (which you read about again and again in KWTB&B). Drumroll, please:
Crazy Aunt Purl’s Drunk Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair: The True Mis-Adventures of a 30-Something Who Learned to Knit After He Split by dear Laurie Perry (HCI) – 2007.
Eat your heart out Sweet Potato Queens!!
PLEASE send me your title picks. The odder the better!
HCI runners up:
Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box
The Germ Freak’s Guide to Outwitting Colds & Flu
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