Originally it was called Walden, but had Thoreau written it today, he may have had to call it Camping with Myself: Two Years in American Tuscany. Matthew’s gospel might have been called 40 Days and a Mule: How One Man Quit His Job and Became the Boss. Hamlet? “Grieving: A 5 part study of Danish family dynamics.” Read other silly titles from today and feel free to make up some of your own. (via Frank Wilson)
Now: West Oversea
Tomorrow: West Oversea: How One Man’s Quest to Live Christianly in a Pagan Culture Changed the World.
Let me think about that.
No.
By the way, Jim Baen was always adamant that book titles be short. Three words were good; two better. “If you have to squeeze the title into two lines on the cover, the print gets too small.” Wolf Time was originally Wind Time, Wolf Time, and I still prefer my version.
I’m not feeling too funny this morning, but how about –
St Benedict, “Rule” -> “Zen and the Art of Monastery Maintenance.”
Cheers
Here’s a real life example of entitling excess.
“Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible”
Of course, past authors wrote remarkable titles too, like Jonathan Edwards. “THE GREAT CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN DEFENDED; EVIDENCES OF ITS TRUTH PRODUCED AND ARGUMENTS TO THE CONTRARY ANSWERED,
CONTAINING, IN PARTICULAR, A REPLY TO THE OBJECTIONS OF DR. JOHN TAYLOR, IN HIS BOOK, ENTITLED, ‘THE SCRIPTURE-DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN PROPOSED TO FREE AND CANDID EXAMINATION, &C.'”
And who can forgot: A FAITHFUL NARRATIVE OF THE
SURPRISING WORK OF GOD IN THE CONVERSION OF MANY HUNDRED SOULS, IN NORTHAMPTON AND THE NEIGHBOURING TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, IN NEW ENGLAND; IN A LETTER TO THE REV. COLMAN OF BOSTON.”
My grandfather had a book (I own it now), whose title I memorized because it amused me so. Captain William F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts, as Pilot to Immigrant and Government Trains Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago.