While out hunting down links, I came across an amusing article written by Sarah Stodola on The Top Ten Novel Titles of All Time. Amusing not as in written that way, as the lady is obviously in earnest (okay, maybe she was joking) but in that I've not read a single book on the list. They're all great works of literature, I'm sure.
All right, I'm not an utter Philistine; I did read a couple of the honorable mentions. The Name of the Rose rocked, as did Sense and Sensibility.
Thing is, I don't think any of these great titles are really all that great. Lemon? That's something we all try not to buy from the car salesman. Atlas Shrugged? I'm sure Atlas also reached back and scratched his ass sometime, too, but I wouldn't title my book after it. The Sun Also Rises? Wow, really? It doesn't just set? Who knew?
If you want to qualify for my list of the ten greatest titles of all time, you can't trade on your literary status. And you've got to give me a little more than body language, sunshine and fruit.
I don't think I could do a greatest list -- there are too many terrific titles out there -- but here are some that left a deep impression on me:
Diplomacy of Wolves: Not only is this a great title, but it's the novel in three words, and I will envy it for eternity. By Holly Lisle.
No Victor, No Vanquished: The title of Edgar O'Ballance's study of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. This title actually made me buy this book.
The Sea Remembers: Peter Throckmorton's big book on shipwrecks and archaeology from Homer's Greece to the rediscovery of the titanic. It's beautiful and sad and a chilling reminder.
Cats in Cyberspace: the only title for Beth Hilgartner's novel, told from the POV of two computer-savvy house cats (I wrote the intro to this one so I'm a little prejudiced.)
Got any world's greatest title contenders of your own?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Snow Falling On Cedars. So evocative.
ReplyDeleteI've always admired Dick Francis' titles. There is something in them that is at once utterly simple and yet truly, deep down, what the novel is about. I know a lot of authors try to achieve this balance, but I think Francis succeeded more often than others do. But that's just me.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure there's more "great titles" for me lurking about the cobwebs in the nooks and crannies of my brain, but it's late at night and they must be asleep. They're definitely not coming out to say hello right now, that's for sure.
I like clever titles, but not if they've been twisted so far out of shape that they no longer make sense.
ReplyDeleteCheck out some of UK author Robert Rankin's books for really funny gags. E.g.
Sex, Drugs and Sausage Rolls
Web Site Story
The Fandom of the Operator
However, name is one thing... I'm more interested in what happens when you get between the covers with your choice.
My problem is that I never remember titles. Authors, yes. Titles, no.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the last PREY book I read? Couldn't tell you. But I can tell you that John Sandford wrote it.
The latest Harry Bosch? Hmmm, the name escapes me. But Connelly is a master.
I can't even remember the name of that terrific science fiction book I recently read, but I can damn well tell you that S.L. Viehl wrote it.
And, in the end, isn't that all that matters?
Seems to me a great big list of non-science fiction and non-fantasy.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm.
What about "A Clockwork Orange", or "1984", or "Lord Foul's Bane", or . . .
Yeah, my list would be way different.
And no Lovecraft either. At least she could have listed "At the Mountains of Madness."
I'm just bitter, like lemons I guess.
Or is that tart? Can a guy be tart?
I fall in love with titles easily; a good number of the books on my bookshelves and my Amazon wish list are there because of their titles.
ReplyDeleteSome favorites off the top of my head:
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Any Small Thing Can Save You: A Bestiary
Old Man's War
The Chains That You Refuse
Or All the Seas With Oysters
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
I'm awful at remembering titles, unless they are on my keeper shelf.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best titles I've seen lately is dates from hell, a paranormal romance anthology. And i bought just cuz i loved the idea the title invokes.
It's weird, I put so much time into coming up with my own titles, but I don't pay too much attention to the titles of the books I read. I had to stop when I read the question and wonder what titles HAVE I considered amazing?
ReplyDeleteSome of Alan Dean Foster's stand out, mostly because a number of them continue to remain unpronounceable to me (but I'm not sure that makes them good titles). I love For Love of Mother-Not, though. It works beautifully for the story, and it's just always captured me.
Robin Cook's Contagion made me pick up the book (but, then again, I'm fascinated by viruses *-*).
And, for some reason, All Quiet on the Western Front has always stuck with me, even though I didn't particularly enjoy the book.
I really like "Atlas Shrugged" as a title, though your comment made me laugh, PBW.
ReplyDeleteLet's see. "Les Miserables." "The Naked and the Dead." "A Man In Full." (fun to say.) "The Prisoner of Azkaban," believe it or not--also fun to say.
"angel's gate" -- it's always captured me, and it fits the story even though it doesn't seem to.
ReplyDelete"Tomorrow, When the War Began" and most of the titles of the rest of the series. "Darkness, Be My Friend" probably the most, even though it was the book I liked the least in the series. (I especially like the original cover of that one and of the last book, but we're not talking covers.) All the titles fit the tone of the series, and of each particular book. (Besides being a brilliant series overall.)
"Blood and Chocolate" -- very sensual and attention-grabbing, and fitted the story nicely.
I don't really tend to like fantasy or SF titles, they often seem too wordy. I've seen some good ones in bookshops (that I've been too broke to buy), but none that I can remember now.
Wolverine.
Some recent titles I love:
ReplyDeleteInkheart
Dutchess of Fifth Avenue
Empress Orchid
I liked the Garth Nix titles: Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday... etc.
The Kissing Blades title caught my eye before I even looked at the name. ;)
I'd have to add Slaughterhouse Five to the list, because I remember picking it up years ago to read it and have NO CLUE as to what it was going to be about! Ditto for The Catcher in the Rye.
ReplyDeleteBut then, perhaps I'm biased, seeing as how these are among some of my favorite books.
Okay, I did a search on "weird book titles" and here is what I found.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, they are "real" books.
1. Alien Abductees Handbook
2. Headhunting in the Solomon Islands
3. How to Enjoy Sex While Conscious
4. Elephants in Pink Tutus
5. Handbook of Underwater Acoustics
6. The Screwing of the Average Man
7. How to Read A Book
8. 1978 Oahu Bus Schedule
9. Psychological Effects of Preventing Nuclear War
10. Advice from a Failure
11. Population Control Through Nuclear Pollution
12. Suture Self
13. How to Make a Moron
14. Superfluous Hair and Its Removal
None of the top ten really does it for me. I'd never buy a book titled Lemon except if some friends recommended it as being more interesting than the title. ;) I liked Hundred Years of Solutide but that has nothing to do with the title.
ReplyDeleteSome that stick out for me:
Threads of Malice (Tamara Siler Jones, her next, Valley of the Soul got a good one, too)
A Tale of Old Mortality, Sir Walter Scott
Die unsichtbare Flagge (The Invisible Flag, Peter Bamm - The semi-autobiographical story of a surgeon in WW2)
Sunne in Splendour (Sharon Kay Penman)
Another one I like is If Angels Burn, and I admit I'd have liked Darkness has no Need better than 'Dark Need'. ;)
Jaws
ReplyDeleteAwaken Me Darkly
A Girl of the Limberlost
Uglies
The Face on the Milk Carton
I know I can think of many more...
I'll never forgive that Spanish git for stealing 'The Shadow of the Wind' before I could come up with the story that went with it. I've had it written on a scrap of paper stuck to my cork board for about six years.
ReplyDeleteI also like:
Sparking Cyanide
Spindle's End
Kingdom of Shadows
The Ruins of Ambrai
Our Lady of the Sorrows
The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse
American Gods
Carpe Jugulum
All extremely good books, too.
Elephant Bangs Train by William Kotzwinkle. One of my all-time fave titles! I also love the title In The Beginning Was the Command Line by Neil Stephenson.
ReplyDeleteSigh. Now I have title envy.
I read Donna Andrew's Meg Langslow Mystery series. I think the last four are great and have everything to do with the books, but not quite in the way some would think. I haven't read the newest (it's not out yet), but I like the title.
ReplyDeleteNo Nest For the Wicket
The others as follows:
Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
We'll Always Have Parrots (my fav title)
Owl's Well That Ends Well
Some of my favorite titles are:
ReplyDeleteThe Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin
The Power that Preserves - Stephen R. Donaldson
Dead Days of Summer - Carolyn Hart
The Butterfly House - Marcia Preston
Sugarplum Dead - Carolyn Hart
Map of Bones - James Rollins
Mirror of Her Dreams - Stephen R. Donaldson
Gods Old and Dark - Holly Lisle
And a host of others.
the post about weird titles reminded me of this one... *G*
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/mpoxr
The Sex Lives of Cannibals
does that title make anybody else wince instinctively? Or is it my dirty mind...
I think Atlas Shrugged is a brilliant title -- it conjures so much (impossible responsibilities, failures, betrayals, catastrophe) in two little words. And conversely, Cybercats in Space sounds to me like a bad Saturday morning cartoon.
ReplyDeleteBut If Angels Burn is definitely one of the more striking titles I've seen lately. Other favorites: Because It is Bitter, and Because it is My Heart (even if Oates, whose books I don't like, committed an act of shameless theft in using this title!); If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, and the very simple Unless.
Great titles (some of which I've read, some of which I haven't):
ReplyDeleteTowing Jehovah by James Morrow
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore
Six Miles to Roadside Business, by an author whose name I can't remember -- this is the best 68-cent hardcover novel I've ever read
A Dark and Hungry God Arises and This Day All Gods Die by Stephen R. Donaldson
All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman
and the title that I've fallen in love with, and am working on a novel to fit, Everything that Never Happened
To Kill A Mockingbird
ReplyDeleteI Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
The Colour of Magic
Children Of A Lesser God
Quartered Safe Out Here
Rebecca
But I'm hopeless at titles myself :-(
Some titles that grabbed my attention:
ReplyDeleteScanners Live in Vain Cordwainer Smith
Sarah, Plain and Tall Patricia MacLachlan
If Angels Burn S.L. Viehl
Diplomacy of Wolves Holly Lisle
Farenheit 451 Ray Bradbury
The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Leguin
Secondhand Lions Ok, I know it's a movie, but great title!
They Shoot Horses Don't They? Horace McCoy
Up the Down Staircase Bel Kaufman
(my absolute favorite title)
Motherf*cking Snakes on the Motherf*cking Plane.
ReplyDelete