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The best books with the worst titles
Richard Squire writes to me:
Some friends and I last night came up with a parlor game, Best Books with Worst Titles. Here were our finalists:
Freakonomics
The Audacity of Hope
The Beautiful and Damned
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
Moby Dick (winner)
I agree with the middle three picks but think that Freakonomics and Moby Dick are both very good titles. I've never actually liked the title Ulysses, as used by James Joyce. I know all about the structural parallels with Homer's Odyssey but to me they are superfluous to enjoying the work. The title stresses those parallels and so it irritates me. What nominations do you all have?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 13, 2008 at 03:41 PM in Books | Permalink
Comments
"Grey Lamb and Black Falcon"-- or, um, possibly the other way around.
Posted by: MattF at Jul 13, 2008 3:47:39 PM
I thought Freakonomics was a great title with a bad book.
Posted by: at Jul 13, 2008 4:00:47 PM
-Freakonomics is a better title than it was a book.
-Moby Dick is a perfect title. wtf?
-A Farewell to Alms is the worst title of any book I've read. But I don't consider it a very good book, either.
-So my vote goes to Quantum Generations, a well written, engaging history of 20th century physics, with a stupid title.
Posted by: efp at Jul 13, 2008 4:10:43 PM
The Shawshank Redemption.
No question.
Posted by: Robinson at Jul 13, 2008 4:10:51 PM
You Can Be a Stock Market Genius: Uncover the Secret Hiding Places of Stock Market Profits
Posted by: Zirill at Jul 13, 2008 4:19:47 PM
You consider "The Audacity of Hope" a good book?
Posted by: lt.milo at Jul 13, 2008 4:19:59 PM
The Bible...pretty uninspired title.
Posted by: Max at Jul 13, 2008 4:28:24 PM
When I first heard of "Audacity of Hope" I threw my hands up and held "HOPE? THE AUDACITY!"
Ignoring whatever the book is good or not (I never read any of his books) I have to say that John Irving is a contender; A Prayer of Owen Meany, The 158-Pound Marriage, A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound. I've been told he's a good writer, but each of those are embarrassingly pretentious titles.
From a marketing point of view, I have to say "The Killer Angles" is pretty misleading.
Posted by: Jonathan Hohensee at Jul 13, 2008 4:30:11 PM
This doesn't qualify but it's funny nonetheless. Disney published a children's book of recipes themed around A.A. Milne's bear: Cooking with Pooh was the unfortunate title.
Posted by: John S. at Jul 13, 2008 4:31:17 PM
Sticking to economics, I'd nominate Can Labor Standards Improve Under Globalization? by Kimberly Ann Elliott and Richard B. Freeman. I almost fell asleep before finishing the title but the book is a fine one.
Posted by: tom s. at Jul 13, 2008 4:35:18 PM
Its annoying that people seem generally to be encouraged to pick really "catchy" (actually pretentious) titles, I guess by the publishers. There are a lot of bad ones. But maybe its better than falling asleep during the title.
Still, I have filled my bookshelves with wonderful books largely by picking according to title. It would have been difficult if instead of all being called something very nearly like "The Economics of the Soviet Union" or "The Soviet Economic System" they had instead been called "A Cry for Exchange" or something.
Posted by: liberty at Jul 13, 2008 5:00:12 PM
Looking at the list and reading the comments, I can't figure out what the criteria are for a "bad" title. Doesn't tell the prospective reader anything useful about the book? Sounds bad to the ear? Is pretentious (as some have suggested)? All of these and more?
Posted by: M Wms at Jul 13, 2008 5:26:05 PM
"Of Mice and Men" was a pretty lame title, IMO.
As was "The Giver"
Can't believe I have to go back to middle school to find examples, though...
Posted by: Robert Olson at Jul 13, 2008 5:46:49 PM
atlas shrugged
Posted by: eric at Jul 13, 2008 5:53:22 PM
How about "The Feast of the Goat", by Mario Vargas Llosa. A great book by one of my favorite authors, but I hate the title.
Posted by: Marcos Jazzan at Jul 13, 2008 5:54:51 PM
How about "The Feast of the Goat", by Mario Vargas Llosa. A great book by one of my favorite authors, but I hate the title.
Posted by: Marcos Jazzan at Jul 13, 2008 5:56:42 PM
The sole reason I have not read "the Audacity of Hope" is because its title makes me cringe. I guess we could say "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" though I dunno if that's a great book in the sense that it's well-written, intelligent and keeps your attention the whole way through.
Posted by: at Jul 13, 2008 6:20:38 PM
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. It's a staggeringly good book, but it isn't nearly heartbreaking or the product of genius.
Posted by: matt at Jul 13, 2008 6:39:44 PM
I was recently collecting good books with misleading titles, not quite the same thing but close:
Defying Hitler, by Sebastian Haffner. Good book about life in Germany during Hitler's consolidation of power, but contains almost no defiance.
Glut, by Alex Wright. Another good book, but has very little to say about information glut; instead it is a historical overview of classification schemes and library science.
Posted by: mtraven at Jul 13, 2008 6:43:08 PM
I love Eggers but has he ever had a good title? "What is the What," "You Shall Know Our Velocity," and of course, "AHSOWG"
Posted by: emerson at Jul 13, 2008 7:15:40 PM
the sun also rises
Posted by: jake at Jul 13, 2008 7:22:20 PM
Good chance that "AHSOWG" is a worse title than "AHWOSG" :)
Posted by: fred lake at Jul 13, 2008 7:33:08 PM
Moby Dick is possibly the worst best book ever written, except for the first chapter.
I defy anyone, except those with photographic memories, to tell me the ratio of nautical crap/plot.
It is one of Melville's worst piece - unlike Dickens he cannot write for a penny a word without being weak.
Posted by: michael webster at Jul 13, 2008 7:54:16 PM
How about Macy P. England's "The Enfartening"?
Excellent book, the title could use some improvement.
Posted by: mk at Jul 13, 2008 8:25:05 PM
"Cop in the Hood."
And the cover is totally 1992.
Posted by: Alex at Jul 13, 2008 8:28:21 PM
