Weird book titles
1 October, 2009
Trying to get your manuscript published? You may laugh—or cry—when you read what has made it into print.
Some titles below are from the annual Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. This competition selects entries solely on their titles. A title may make perfect sense if you know the book’s subject matter.
Book Titlcs
- 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais
- Curbside Consultation of the Colon
- Strip and Knit with Style
- 50 New Poodle Grooming Styles
- Paint It Black: A guide to Gothic homemaking
- Reusing Old Graves
- Ductigami: The art of the tape
- A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coatings
- Sex After Death
- Waterproofing Your Child
- People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How they attach themselves to unsuspecting bystanders and what to do about it
- Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers
- How to Avoid Huge Ships
- Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to increase the other 90 per cent of your mind to Increase the size of your breasts
- How Green Were the Nazis
- The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A guide to field identification
- Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan
- One Wheel—Many Spokes: USA by unicycle
- The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome
- Better Never to Have Been: The harm of coming into existence
- Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality
- The People’s Business: A guidebook to 87 company & industrial tours in & near Ohio
- Flattened Fauna
- Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual
- Up Sh*t Creek: A collection of horrifyingly true wilderness toilet misadventures
- Cooking in the Nude
- Living with Crazy Buttocks
- Bombproof Your Horse
- Manifold Destiny: The one, the only guide to cooking on your car engine
- How to Avoid Huge Ships
- Scouts in Bondage
- Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself
- Be Bold with Bananas
- The Flat-Footed Flies of Europe
- Across Europe by Kangaroo
- 101 Super Uses for Tampon Applicators
- How to Make Love While Conscious
- Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them
- Doga: Yoga for dogs
- Nuclear War: What’s in it for you?
- The Pop-Up Book of Phobias
- How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction
- A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown
- Is Your Dog Gay?
- How to Be a Pope: What to do and where to go once you’re in the Vatican
- The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
- The Great Pantyhose Crafts Book
- The Lost Art of Towel Origami
- An Incomplete History of the Art of the Funerary Violins
- The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling
- Highlights in the History of Concrete
- The Thermodynamics of Pizza
- History of Shit
- The Haunted Vagina
- The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe
- The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career management in house prostitution
- The Joy of Chickens
- Last Chance at Love: Terminal romances
- High Performance Stiffened Structures
- Christian Texts for Aztecs
- Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings
- The Emotional Life of Contemporary Public Memorials
- The Large Sieve and its Applications
- If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs
- I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen
- How to Write a How to Write Book
- Cheese Problems Solved
- Introduction to Adult Swallowing
- Knitting with Dog Hair
- Queen Victoria and Ping Pong
- Soil Nailing: Best practice guidance
- The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox
- 227 Secrets Your Snake Wants You to Know
- The Voodoo Revenge Book: An anger management program you can really stick with
- Design for Impact: 50 Years of airline safety cards
- The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy: Open your mind to greater creative thinking
- First You Take a Leek
- Forensic Examination of Rubber Stamps
- Melons for the Passionate Grower
- Postmortem Collectibles
- Second-hand Parrots: A complete owner’s manual
- Without Regret: A handbook for owners of canine amputees
- Tea Bag Folding
- The Art and Craft of Pounding Flowers: No paint, no ink, just a hammer!
- Whose Bottom? A lift-the-flap book
- Psoriasis at Your Fingertips
- Male Genitalia of Butterflies of the Balkan Peninsula with a Checklist
- Guide to Eskimo Rolling
- A Method for Calculating the Size of Stone Needed for Closing End-Tipped Rubble Banks in Rivers
- Stick Making: A complete course
- Build Your Own Hindenburg
- Explosive Spiders and How to Make Them
- Heave Ho: My little green book of seasickness
- More Balls Than Hands (It’s about juggling.)
- On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers
- The Romance of Proctology
- So Your Wife Came Home Speaking in Tongues! So Did Mine!
- Who’s Who in Barbed Wire
- The 2007-2012 Outlook for Tufted Washable Scatter Rugs, Bathmats and Sets That Measure 6-Feet by 9-Feet or Smaller in India
10 Comments
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WritingCompanion 
How to Avoid Large Ships…. That has to be a useful book. Awesome list!
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Yes, you never know when a large ship might sneak up on you!
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Marsha,
Thanks for the laugh -I love “Bombproofing your Horse!” It must be a typo! I hope.
Your site is lovely – I just came across it as I was searching for “place” writing prompts. I will be back for sure – and thank you for allowing us to borrow your writing prompts. I have you and the site fully credited for my handout for the creative writing class I lead in Vancouver, Canada.
Cheers,
Elee
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Yes, that title offers some rich imagery, doesn’t it. Thanks for your kind words about my site. I hope you and your students enjoy the prompts. Your ‘Thursday’ site gives a great sense of writing being alive and well in Vancouver.
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This is hilarious, though obviously for some of them context is everything,
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Yes, true. Unless an odd title has a cover photo or a synopsis with it, it may be misleading or unintentionally comical. I imagine there’s a swag of odd or crazy movie titles as well, but I haven’t looked. Would be interesting to use some of these titles as writing starters.
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I wouldn’t know where to start. Very funny! And wierd!
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I think some of the titles would make sense if you know the subject matter. But others–subject AND title–are definitely unusual.
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I think most of the titles are pretty self-explanatory! Though I wouldn’t have thought there would be many people wanting to read about Male Genitalia of Butterflies of the Balkan Peninsula with a Checklist! Ha!
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Some how-to-write books suggest finding a niche market, but yes, some writers get TOO nichey. An academic specialising in some kind of bird told me proudly that only 6 people in the world would understand what his papers. Most of us aspire to more of an audience than that.
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