What are your favourite book titles??

[krishna_lit]

A book's name is the most important identity of its story. What are your favourite book titles (even though you dislike the book)??

[kev67]

Tess of the d'Urbervilles seems to my answer to most questions on this site. I liked the title even before knowing what it was about. When you know the story, it is even more apposite. Tess is a humble name. I think it's a diminutive form of Teresa. d'Urberville is a preposterously grand, Anglo-Norman name. Thomas Hardy spent a long time coming up with that title. I think Turberville was the model for d'Urberville, but d'Urberville adds that extra touch of grandiosity. Hardy also considered the title Daughter of the d'Urbervilles, but Tess is somehow better.

I have always liked some of Alan Silitoe's book titles, although I have not read any of his books or seen the films yet. My favourite titles of his are The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. I like the contrasts. Sunday mornings are sacred; Saturday nights are hedonistic. Saturdays nights you might drink too much or get into a fight; Sunday morning you might be suffering the consequences. Saturday nights might be spent dancing, Sunday mornings, sleeping. I liked the way The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner trips off the tongue. It has a different rhythm to most book titles. It's quite an intriguing title. Distance running can be quite a solitary sport, especially during training, but you suspect the title refers to more than that.

[Emil Miller]

Some titles that stay in the mind are:


The Moon and Sixpence - W.S. Maugham

Brighton Rock - Graham Greene

Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan

Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull - Thomas Mann.


And not forgetting two of the most well known titles of all:

Das Kapital - Karl Marx

Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler

[WyattGwyon]

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

[Lykren]

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a pretty good title.

[Snowqueen]

Here are some of my favourite titles.

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham

Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I haven’t read the last two, but they are on my list.

[hannah_arendt]

"North and south" by E. Gaskell
"Wuthering Heights" by Bronte
"Lord of the rings" by Tolkien
"Dune" by Forster

and many more.

[NedSiegel]

The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Wind in the Willows
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (never read this one)

[ChicagoReader]

Tender is the Night
The Savage Detectives
Blood Meridian
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

[Ming Twist]

The unknown Lincoln by Carnegie.

[Oedipus]

Human, All Too Human - Nietzsche
Heart Of Darkness - Conrad
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
The Glass-Bead Game - Hesse

[JBI]

The Literary Heart and the Carving of Dragons - Liu Xie basically a survey of Chinese literature until the 6th century AD, with critical ideas of how to create good texts, and how good texts develop.

[caddy_caddy]

1/2 (Half) a novel by Ibrahim Alzenedy

The Naked Bread by Mohamed Shoukri
and the title that I can never forget "Salt Cities "by Abdurrahman Munif

[Ecurb]

I once read an anecdote involving a famous writer and a rookie at the trade. "I've written a novel," said the rookie, "But I can't think of a title for it."

"Does it have any drums in it?" asked the famous writer.

"No."

"Does it have any bugles in it?"

"No."

"Well, how about 'No Drums, No Bugles'."

IN an attempt to verify the anecdote, I googled "no drums, no bugles", and there are now not one but two books so entitled (one is actually entitled "No Bugles, No Drums") available at Amazon. I never did discover who the famous writer was, nor could I confirm the anecdote.

[JBI]

How about "ode on the ode" (赋赋）

[ennison]

I enjoyed reading Kev's comments on titles. That is what I call analysing a text from the off!

[Scheherazade]

Some of my favourites such as "Tender is the Night" are already mentioned (I am sure there is similar thread somewhere, which I will unearth when I am not on my phone).

How about "My Name is Red" or "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime"?

[Vota]

Confessions of A Crap Artist- Philip K. Dick
The Razor's Edge- W. Somerset Maugham
The Divine Comedy- Dante
Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand
The Iliad- Homer

[TheFifthElement]

Some favourites of mine:
The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts
Strange Weather in Tokyo
Sombrero Fallout
Willard and His Bowling Trophies
Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy
After the Fire, A Still Small Voice
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

[grigioverde]

Elective Affinities.

[kev67]

I enjoyed reading Kev's comments on titles. That is what I call analysing a text from the off!

Ta :blush:

Another title I thought was good, although only after having read the book, was Nice Work by David Lodge. It was about a young English literature lecturer who is required to shadow the managing director of a engineering company. It was a ministry of education or department of trade and industry initiative to build closer links between business and the universities. Nobody wants to do it, but she's the most junior so he she has to. There's a phrase, "Nice work if you can get it," which is used to refer to people with cushy jobs, like the M.D. initially thinks of the university lecturer. "Nice work!" is also something you might say when you see something that has been well made or built. As it turned out, both the main characters were very good at their jobs. "Nice Work" was also a pretty brave choice of title for the author to choose. If it had not been a good book, the critics would have hit him around the head with it.

[qimissung]

Those actually are really good little capsule reviews, Kev. I'd also like to give a shout out to TheFifthElement for choosing books with the most playful titles.

Here are some that move me for one reason or another:

Laughing Girl
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Once and Future King (always sends a chill down my spine, for some reason)
The Secret Garden
A Room With a View
This Book Will Save Your Life
Ring of Bright Water
The Crimson Petal and the White (haven't read this one yet, although it's in a stack of books I plan to read)
The Water Babies

The names of almost any fairy tale, such as:

The White Snake
The Girl Without Hands
King Thrushbeard
The Singing Bone
Bearskin
The Pink
Allerleirauh
Snow White and Rose Red
How Six Men Got On In the World
The Six Swans
etc.