Sunday, December 7, 2008

Bad Titles

Today I will be giving out the awards for "worst title in a recently published book". All of these are books that I have come across in the course of my daily shelving.

Third place goes to...



There are, of course, many book titles which fall into the category of "fun with a popular idiom or expression", but this one is particularly confusing. What does it mean? That the extra mile is easy to navigate due to low traffic? From the looks of it, the extra mile is a desert-y, off-road situation. Perhaps he is saying that his work on American Idol was dull and cactus-studded?


In Second place:



As you know, the biographical titling act of 1983 mandates that the title of a musician bio MUST contain a veiled reference to one of said musician's songs. Here we have a not at all forced or awkward reference to the Neil Diamond song "I am, I said". This song, incidentally, contains the following lyric:

"I am, I said, to no one there;
and no one heard at all, not even the chair.
"


This book would easily win the award for most labored play on a song title were it not for our grand prize winner:



There is nothing to be said about this title.

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