Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Oddest book titles

As celebrated every year by Booksellers magazines:

1978: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (University of Tokyo Press)
1979: The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution (Transaction Press)
1980: The Joy of Chickens (Prentice Hall)
1981: Last Chance at Love: Terminal Romances
1982: Population and Other Problems (China National Publications)
1983: The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling (MIR)
1984: The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today (Constable)
1985: Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts (Westwood Publishing Co)
1986: Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality (Brunner/Mazel)
1987: No Award
1988: Versailles: The View From Sweden University of Chicago Press)
1989: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (Ten Speed Press)
1990: Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual (Lace Publications)
1991: No Award
1992: How to Avoid Huge Ships (Cornwell Maritime Press)
1993: American Bottom Archaeology (University of Illinois Press)
1994: Highlights in the History of Concrete (British Cement Association)
1995: Reusing Old Graves (Shaw & Son)
1996: Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers (Hellenic Philatelic Society)
1997: The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition (Mitchell Beazley)
1998: Development in Dairy Cow Breeding and Management: and New Opportunities to Widen the Uses of Straw (Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust)
1999: Weeds in a Changing World (British Crop Protection Council)
2000: High Performance Stiffened Structures (Professional Engineering Publishing)
2001: Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service (Butterworths)
2002: Living With Crazy Buttocks (Kaz Cooke - Penguin)
2003: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (Kensington Publishing)
2004: Bombproof Your Horse (J A Allen)
2005: People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It (Gary Leon Hill - Red Wheel/Weiser Books)
2006: The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (Harry N Abrams)
2007: If You Want Closure In Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs (Simon & Schuster US)

Ever wondered what the oddest title on your book shelf is?

I think mine has to be 'The Sheep look up' by John Brunner (awful book)

8 comments:

mlj said...

"If you can't say anything nice, say it in Yiddish".

Anonymous said...

Two contenders on my shelves are "That Darn Squid God" and "Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television".

Unknown said...

I keep my copy of "Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America" on my desk at work.

Anonymous said...

Sheep Look Up is a pretty good book, if kinda depressing.

Anonymous said...

Yeah,weird names...
My weirdest is Terry Pratchett's Nanny Og's Cookbook :)

Anonymous said...

I've got a copy of "The structural design of the cross section of buried vitrified clay pipelines" sitting on my desk. A compelling read.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

One of my favorite odd possessions is a book called "The Extraterrestrial Life Debate 1750-1900". A very thick book, it's a historical treatise on scholarly debate about life outside Earth, and it's written in the most amazingly academic language.

Kristo Miettinen said...

Mine might be "Beating the Sicilian". Quite arresting if you don't realize that it's about chess.