Today’s theme for a book list is long book titles; and I had to come up with a long post title as well, right? I first though of The Good, Bad, Ugly and Awesome of Long Book Titles; and then decided I cannot write about the good, bad, and ugly, so kept it simpler with Top Ten Tuesday: The One With Long Book Titles.
How does a book catch your attention? Most likely one of the first things is its cover, giving meaning to the phrase, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But how about its title? I do believe that the title is equally important to capture the reader’s attention. I know that I often pick up the book simply because of its title, like the Uh-Oh book in my list below, or books that include ‘bookshop’, ‘library’, or other bookish references in their title.
The title, or the name, of the book helps, very often, to explain the book. This post does a good analysis of the psychology of the book title. And I also loved reading these posts (here, here and here) about how to come up with book titles, or how authors come up with titles for their books.
Top Ten Tuesday: The One With Long Book Titles
When I saw this theme for Top Ten Tuesday over at ThatArtsyReaderGirl , I thought of the many really long titles of books I have read; and there are very many. I finally decided to use the list of books in my home library to get the top ten longest titles (fiction/non-fiction)
My List of Long Book Titles
I have read most of these, or at least a part of them definitely. The second column is the length of the title (using the LEN formula in Google Sheets!)
| Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language | 68 |
| Uh-Oh : Some Observations from Both Sides of the Refrigerator Door | 66 |
| Text and Contexts: A Contemporary Approach to College Writing | 61 |
| How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk | 60 |
| The Room of Many Colors : A Treasury of Stories for Children | 60 |
| Well Advised: A Practical Guide to Everyday Health Decisions | 60 |
| How to Develop Self Confidence and Improve Public Speaking | 58 |
| The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma | 58 |
| The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey | 56 |
| Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and it is All Small Stuff | 53 |
| I Must Say: On English, the News, and Other Matters | 51 |
| How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life | 50 |
And a Shorter List of Books With Long Titles
Then there are those books I know I would like to add to the list above (aka my home library). Here are the first few I could think of.
- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek
- The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
- Mr. Penunmbra’s 24-hour Bookstore
- My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
- The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
If you want to check out more long-titled books, here is one list.
And Now, the End of This Post
Dear reader, what is the book you thought of when you saw this prompt? Have you read any of the books on my list? Do let me know.
The Room of Many Colours sounds like a good read.
My post.
The Room of Many Colors is a cool collection of stories and I dip into it every once in a while
I have not read one book on your list – lol! I am trying to widen my genre of reading, so maybe I can one of these. 🙂
🙂 this list of 10+ books is totally random – based on length – rather than anything else.. so definitely will help widen reading genres :))
These are all new to me.
these are books i either picked up at library sales or bookstores simply because the title caught my eye
So many choices, so little time.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
and let us not forget Dr. Seuss’ And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
My Dr.Seuss books are part of a collected book – so did not include them here 🙂 I need to check out ‘And the Hippos…’ now 🙂
and totally agree with the so little time part
I often wonder why publisher allow long titles, especially when they take up the whole cover and after often forgettable. Great post.
true about the space they take up on book covers and elsewhere; but sometimes they are truly so unique and offbeat and something else to make them memorable.. and according to a couple of articles i saw, titles are on average getting longer nowadays (for fiction and non-fiction)
That’s a lot of books but the only one I know is the Webster’s Encyclopedia Dictionary.
🙂
Oof, those are mouthfuls! I’ve noticed many nonfiction books have lengthy titles because there is often a subtitle.
yes, that is true..
Interesting concept for a post – you are so creative
can’t take credit for this one, this time. it is thanks to the top ten tuesday theme for the week 🙂
Whatever observations the fridge wants to share about me, it can keep them to itself. My midnight snacking does not need to be public knowledge.
LOL!! That is true for me too, Dianthaa… 🙂
Interesting list of titles.