Dan Wilbur is on a mission to retitle books in a Ronseal-style "does exactly what it says on the tin". On his website betterbooktitles.com, Wilbur posts up a retitled book – sometimes with new covers of his own design – every weekday, giving over Friday to suggestions from his readers.
His mission statement reads: "This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!"
Browsing through the archive is a diverting way to kill some time, with more than 200 retitled books. Not all are safe for work, mind you, but many are pithy and to the point. F Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsbybecomes, in Wilbur's hands, simply: Drink Responsibly. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is renamed White People Ruin Everything. And I do like how Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach can be easily summed up as It's Okay If Giant Fruit Kills Your Aunts So Long As They Were Bitches.
Who can't empathise with Wuthering Heights retitled: My Teacher Ruined This? Would more people study classics if Plato's Symposium was really called Horny Drunk Guys Invent Philosophy? And is Wilbur risking a fantasy fatwah by renaming George RR Martin's Game of Thrones as Shakespeare Minus the Good Writing?
Perhaps Orwell and his more modern bookselling peers might be happier with more literal literary labels, but is a cryptic title necessarily a bad thing? And if you had to retitle a favourite (or hated, come to that) book, what would it become?
Taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/apr/29/book-titles-describe-content
I had a go...
Sneaking behind your uncle's back can only bring joy
= what book?
His mission statement reads: "This blog is for people who do not have thousands of hours to read book reviews or blurbs or first sentences. I will cut through all the cryptic crap, and give you the meat of the story in one condensed image. Now you can read the greatest literary works of all time in mere seconds!"
Browsing through the archive is a diverting way to kill some time, with more than 200 retitled books. Not all are safe for work, mind you, but many are pithy and to the point. F Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsbybecomes, in Wilbur's hands, simply: Drink Responsibly. Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States is renamed White People Ruin Everything. And I do like how Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach can be easily summed up as It's Okay If Giant Fruit Kills Your Aunts So Long As They Were Bitches.
Who can't empathise with Wuthering Heights retitled: My Teacher Ruined This? Would more people study classics if Plato's Symposium was really called Horny Drunk Guys Invent Philosophy? And is Wilbur risking a fantasy fatwah by renaming George RR Martin's Game of Thrones as Shakespeare Minus the Good Writing?
Perhaps Orwell and his more modern bookselling peers might be happier with more literal literary labels, but is a cryptic title necessarily a bad thing? And if you had to retitle a favourite (or hated, come to that) book, what would it become?
Taken from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/apr/29/book-titles-describe-content
I had a go...
Sneaking behind your uncle's back can only bring joy
= what book?
Formally known as patternweaver.
What would you rename your favourite book to?
- 03/05/2011 12:36:20 PM
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"Lack of Funerals Makes Everyone Commit Suicide" was a rather good one.
- 03/05/2011 10:33:04 PM
718 Views