Mr. Baseball and I always have handy some bathroom reading material for certain times when nature calls. One of our favorite reads is Uncle John's Ultimate Bathroom Reader. For those of you not familiar with Uncle John's, it, and its companion books, are a compilation of some of the craziest material out there. Its just random, which is why we like it.
Recently I came across a hilarious work entitled "The Odd Title Award", pg. 183, and oh is this ever post-worthy stuff.
(my comments will be in red)
The Name Game
Every year, tens of thousands of new books are published. Some are pretty strange...and in 1978, the staff at Bookseller magazine decided to honor a few with the Odd Title of the Year Award. Every year, they give a bottle of champagne to the person who finds the most unusual book title of the year. The only rules: the book itself has to be serious, and "gratuitously eye-catching academic works" are automatically disqualified. The title has to be weird without trying to be. (That's why New Guinea Tapeworms & Jewish Grandmothers; Tales of Parasites and People, lost out in 1994.) Here are (some) of the winners. Remember: These are real book titles!
1978: Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (What was so incredible about the first workshop that made it necessary to have a second one?)
Runners Up:
* Cooking with God (I wonder if He only uses organic?)
* Iceberg Utilization (Classic example - Titanic)
* Fight Acne and Win
1979: The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution (Stay-at-home-mom is just a cover-up people.)
Runners Up:
* Macrame Gnomes (Gnomes are weird, and why is the G silent? Who gnows?)
* 100 Years of British Rail Catering (boring...whatever.)
1980: The Joy of Chickens (the joy is in the meat and the eggs. period.)
Runner Up:
* Children Are Like Wet Cement (yeah, impressionable)
1985: Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts (Oh, so if I just have enough faith, then they'll grow?)
Runner Up:
* Anorexia Nervosa in Bulgarian Bees
1989: How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (bwahahahahahahahahahaha! How is it a lost art, dogs do it everyday!)
1993: American Bottom Archaeology (maybe this is about "digging" out wedgies! tee hee!)
Runners-Up:
* Liturgy of the Opening of the Mouth for Breathing (Um, NEWSFLASH...Anyone who is not opening their mouth to breathe certainly won't be reading this book-I think we all know how to do this!)
So there you are, just a few of the funny ones. I might try to come up with some titles of my own. Maybe I'll work on that for later.
