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Friday, November 9, 2007
World’s Worst Book Title contest
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s contest time again, and this time we’re coming up with The World’s Worst Book Title.
I was inspired by a delightful new volume called “Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities” by Russell Ash and Brian Lake. They have assembled an entire book of other book titles, many of them self-published, and/or British, and/or 100 years old, but all of which the authors swear are real books. A sampling:
“Where’s Arthur’s Gerbil?”
“A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating”
“The Fangs of Suet Pudding”
“Castration: The Advantages and Disadvantages”
“How You Can Bowl Better Using Self-Hypnosis”
“So Your Wife Came Home Speaking in Tongues! So Did Mine!”
So much more interesting than our current best-seller list, don’t you think?
Anyway, I am challenging one and all to come up with the all-time worst book title. It can be a real book, or one you make up. You don’t need to post which it is, either, which will add to the fun. It can be fiction or non-fiction. It should be no naughtier than a PG rating. You may enter more than once, but just don’t overdo it and annoy me. If you’re familiar with the annual Bulwer-Lytton contest for writing a bad opening sentence of a novel, this is in that vein, only presumably easier.
We will accept entries until midnight Nov. 15. Then I will choose what I think are the 10 best, and open up voting. Your votes will decide the winner. One winner will receive my copy of “Bizarre Books,” complete with a few page turndowns (sorry), and a book to be named later. Plus, of course, the rabid envy of the multitudes, which is not to be sneezed at.
Get titling.
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