In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle enjoys some of the best funny book titles courtesy of How to Avoid Huge Ships
Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them. How to Avoid Huge Ships. How Green Were the Nazis? Highlights of the History of Concrete. The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America. What to Say When You Talk to Yourself. Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers. Italian Without Words. The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today. These are all genuine book titles, which are included in How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books
As you can imagine, books like How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books is exactly the kind of book that appeals here at IL Towers, although we’ll admit that such a book is heavier on the ‘interesting’ than on the ‘literature’. Most of these books are niche publications, non-fiction works which appeal to a very small but, one imagines, eager readership: the train-spotters and marmalade-obsessives, if you will. This is a book designed as a novelty present, a Christmas gift for a friend who is a book-lover with a fondness for the quirky.
How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books is light on detail: we learn very little about the individual titles which feature. Indeed, there’s very little beyond the titles. But what makes it worth a look (and ‘look’ here is 
probably more apt than ‘read’) is the fact that a full-page image of the book’s cover is included for each title. So although the only additional information offered about C. Anne Wilson’s The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today (Pennsylvania Press, 1999) is the single sentence ‘All you could ever wish to know about marmalade’, we are treated to a picture of the book’s jacket, featuring a half-peeled orange, a lemon, a half-orange and a jar of the finished preserve.
Others, such as Kaz Cooke’s Living with Crazy Buttocks (Penguin, 2001), is described as a ‘novel’ – although perhaps the word ‘novel’ here is meant to be an adjective as much as a noun. Whose Bottom? is subtitled A Lift-the-Flap Book, and was published in 2000 by distinguished children’s publishers Ladybird Books. The cover depicts a tiger, whose face is obscured in the undergrowth, leaving only his posterior and tail in view. Sticking with the animal kingdom, James K. Wangberg’s Six-Legged Sex: The Erotic Lives of Bugs (Fulcrum, 2001), which announces exactly what the book is about, has perhaps the most accurate and sensible title of all the funny book titles featured. Only those into threesomes or bestiality are likely to be disappointed with false expectations.
Although it is not the job of such a book, one thing which How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books does, through presenting these funniest of book titles to us along with their often equally bizarre cover images, is invite us to think about how much of this is down to canny marketing on behalf of publishers and how much is optimistic but misguided sincerity on the part of the authors. Did the authors of Entertaining with Insects choose this title for their cookbook, or was it thrust upon them by an insistent publisher? (It’s a cookery book about – you’ve guessed it – how to make meals containing insects.) Was The Anger of Aubergines Bulbul Sharma’s first choice for the collection of her short stories published by Spinefex Press in 1998, or did a commissioning editor suggest it would be more eye-catching and memorable than her original title? One cannot choose but wonder.
But the main purpose of How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books
Oliver Tearle is the author of The Secret Library: A Book-Lovers’ Journey Through Curiosities of History
Pingback: Book Review: How to Avoid Huge Ships And Other Implausibly Titled Books by Joel Rickett – Write Out Loud
Anddddd…no I was wrong. Clicked on the link to Amazon, couldn’t resist the price – bought the book anyway! I’m seriously considering making it a goal to obtain a copy of all the books contained within – what a collection!
That would make for a fascinating library – especially if the books were displayed where guests would spot them. They’d be a great talking point! It does have nice big cover images of the books and is a springboard for discovering new titles if nothing else. That’s intriguing about the insects. I had heard they were becoming more and more popular because they’re in plentiful supply and farming meat is notoriously bad for the environment. However, I can’t forget Stephen Fry trying one on an episode of QI and getting its legs/antennae stuck in his throat! There was a Victorian cookbook called ‘Why Not Eat Insects?’ (by Vincent Holt, I think), so it’s been around a while…
Oh I’d very definitely put such a collection on display! Yes, insects are increasingly popular though, worryingly, globally they are decreasing rapidly and that has just as much an environmental concern as over-farmed meat – but I’m straying out of my literary world and into my green issues one! I think the answer to that Victorian rhetorical question requires an expletive or two…
Oh really? I had no idea. That is a shame. Not that I can say I’m in a rush to eat them just yet! Yes, I think I know my answer to Vincent Holt, too…
What a wonderful book! I would go and buy it but it sounds from what you say Oliver that there’s not enough detail – I’d want to know more about these wonderful books!
As an aside, I think I can answer your question about ‘Entertaining with Insects’ – when I visited Cornwall a couple of years ago, I went to a local annual fair and there was a huge stall doing a roaring trade in edible insects. Apparently, they’re all the rage down there. There were several books on sale about cooking insects and so though I can’t guarantee this book was there, I think it likely. Or its equivalent! Insects are, apparently, highly nutritious :)
All titles I would have been proud to come up with.
“Cooking with poo” by Saiyuud Diyong also sounds worse than it is
“A Short history of Tractors in Ukrainian” by Monica Lewycka sounds like it fits but is much much better than it sounds
Was just discussing how interesting titles have gotten in the non fiction section. This is interesting information, I like your writing.
these are great finds