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15 Books That Hooked You with Just the Title
A great book with a lousy title may never lure a reader as they roam the bookstore. Would The Grapes of Wrath be so beloved if it was called Tenant Farmer Tales? We don't think so.
Titles have power—and a good one can stop readers in their tracks. We asked on Facebook and Twitter: What books have you read just because the title caught your eye? Check out the top answers below.
Titles have power—and a good one can stop readers in their tracks. We asked on Facebook and Twitter: What books have you read just because the title caught your eye? Check out the top answers below.
Comments Showing 1-50 of 72 (72 new)
Brazilian writer Lygia Fagundes Telles has a short stories book called "The Structure of the Soap Bubble".
Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb.
the hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse by robert rankin and the skullduggery pleasant series by derek landy!
The Nymphos of Rocky Flats and Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse. And the second one is actually worth reading!
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
The Guernsey literary and potato peel pie society
Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson ! One of the funniest books I've ever read <3
One of the titles that immediately hooked me was "Sparks: The Epic, Completely True Blue, (Almost) Holy Quest of Debbie" by S.J. Adams. If that isn't one genius book title.(Also from the list I liked the one with the Fakir a lot, really got me laughing and interested in the book)
Purple wrote: "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective AgencyAristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"
Yay, Aristotle and Dante, I didn't even think of that, but that title had me hooked too, and I just love that book so much <3
The Call of the MildThe Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles
The Chickens are Restless
Cows of Our Planet
Death Wore Gloves
Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World
The Dog is not a Toy
The Faerie Godmother's Apprentice Wore Green
Flawed Dogs: The Shocking Raid on Westminster
How to Tell if your Cat is Plotting to Kill You
Night of the Crash-Test Dummies
A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!
Weiner Dog Art
Welcome to Your Afterlife
I found Quite Ugly One Morning in a London bookstore many years ago. The title definitely attracted me and it turned out to be a very funny mystery.
Sally wrote: "I found Quite Ugly One Morning in a London bookstore many years ago. The title definitely attracted me and it turned out to be a very funny mystery."The first book in Christopher Brookmyre's excellent Jack Parlabane series. What initially attracted me was that he'd taken the title from a Warren Zevon song.
Sorry, I really don't take a book by it's cover or title! I am a person who likes to suss the contents and blurb, even reading the first chapter to get a feel before I read. *2017* BUT when I was a young child titles like "The Magic Faraway Tree" captured my attention and the colourful covers of the same were always a lure!
Joy wrote: "Extremely loud ......&......Everything is illuminated"
I agree!
MortA Great and Terrible Beauty
Looking For Alaska
Chalice
Speak
The Gospel According To Larry
(do I judge books by their Titles?
So I judge books by their Titles.
Small words contain multitudes).
Apologies to Walt Whitman
The Phantom TollboothThe Storied Life of A. J. Fikry
Twilight (and I don't regret it)
The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward. I had never read this author before but the title caught my eye, and when I read the blurb it seemed interesting. I bought it and thankfully, was very much worth the impulse book buy.
The Smell of Other People's Houses by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock
Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, but it turned out to be a disappointment.I once wanted to read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, but never did. Maybe I will someday.
The Hand That First Held MineThe Kingdom of Little Wounds
The Square Root of Summer
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything didn't disappoint. Entertaining, informational, and I still use a handful of the memory techniques.You'll Like It Here (Everybody Does) was a mixed bag. The dystopia implied in the title was decent, but in the end the book tried to do too much and didn't do it terribly well.
Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley and Me, Elizabeth I didn't like, unfortunately. But the title remains one of my all-time favorites.
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubas III
The Elegance of the Hedgehog sounded interesting, but I was put off when I didn't enjoy The Gourmet.
I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes by Jaclyn MoriartySpecial Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
I feel pretty meh about most of these, tbh. Some of the titles I've found most immediately intriguing are: A Universal History of Iniquity
I Am Not A Serial Killer
I Don't Want to Kill You
The Machine Stops
A Night in the Lonesome October
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
The Graveyard Book
American Gods
Sarah wrote: "The Elegance of the Hedgehog sounded interesting, but I was put off when I didn't enjoy The Gourmet."You should go for it - I was put of this book because too many (wrong) people were thrilled by this book, but then I read it anyway and it was really something. And different ...
None of those titles do anything for me. Titles that made me pay attention recently:The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes: And Other Surprising True Stories of Zoo Vets and their Patients
Resurrecting the Shark: A Scientific Obsession and the Mavericks Who Solved the Mystery of a 270-Million-Year-Old Fossil
Castle Hangnail
The Well-Tempered City
How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of de-Extinction
The Sun's Heartbeat: And Other Stories from the Life of the Star That Powers Our Planet
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making went straight on my TBR when I heard about it, purely because of the title.
"Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist"
The coldest girl in coldtown by Holly Black :-)
Don't Tell Mum I Work on the Rigs, She Thinks I'm a Piano Player in a WhorehouseLet's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir
Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
I actually think it's catchier when the title is just a word or two instead of something long and contrary, most of the later usually end up being badly written books.Titles that grabbed me and ended up a pleasant surprise.
NPCs - by Drew Hayes
Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
LOL "The Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared." Added to want-to-read
'The Bone Clocks' by David Mitchell 'Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight' and 'Scribbling the Cat' by Alexandra Fuller
'The Night Circus' by Erin Morgenstern
'Midnight at the Well of Souls' by Jack L. Chalker
'The Corridors of Time' by Poul Anderson
Naked Lunch by William S. BurroughsThe Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard
Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
O Banqueiro Anarachista by Fernando Pessoa
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, Under the Dome by Stephen King . . . To name a few.
Everything is illuminated