The 13 Most Baffling Book Titles
We've all heard the old adage: never judge a book by its cover. But judging it by its title? Hell yeah.
Can just those few words tell us whether a book is worth reading? Probably not. Can they make us wonder if the author was batshit insane? Definitely. Especially if it has a title like...
#13.
"Pornogami" by Master Sugoi
According to Amazon.com, 76% of the people who stumble upon "Pornogami" ultimately buy it. So who knows, maybe there's a marketing genius at work here. One that realizes there is a sexual fetish that requires a basic understanding of geometry and ultimately results in paper cuts in places you'll instantly regret.
#12.
"The Cookie Sutra" by Edward Jaye
"The Cookie Sutra?" you're probably saying, "Ha! I bet it's about two cookies fucking in various ways!"
And, you'd be right. So, say what you want about the title, but at least it's accurate.
It's hard to know what the point of this book itself is, unless these pictures are to serve as templates for the amateur bakers out there to create the most awkward conversations in Christmas history. "Look, Grandma! You bit off his little erection!"
#11.
"Scouting for Boys" by Baden Powell
Don't look at us like that. It wasn't our idea to call the book "Scouting For Boys" and to have a cover that portrays a boy, resting unaware on a rock, while we silently creep behind him.
This is actually the original Boy Scouts of America manual. Was there really no pedophilia back in the day? Were those such innocent times that you could get away with any boy love innuendo, no matter how blatant?
#10.
"Scouts in Bondage" by Geoffery Prout
Apparently so.
#9.
"How to Avoid Huge Ships" by Captain John W. Trimmer
No innuendo here, just a premise for a How-To book that seems almost criminally retarded. However the author is a Captain, as the cover so proudly notes, so we'll assume he's a wise man who's yet to sink a raft of Cuban refugees.
Our favorite part is the "Second Edition" note on the cover. Really, you needed to update a book whose only page should read "Move right or, if unable to, move left?" What could be less useful?
#8.
"How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler
Ah, that would probably do it.
#7.
"277 Secrets Your Snake (and Lizard) Wants You to Know" by Paulette Cooper
As a general rule of thumb, secrets are only interesting if they're useful, and we're really doubtful that your garter snake knows the identity of the Zodiac Killer, so it's safe to assume this is a pretty dull read.
An excerpt from this tome of knowledge gives us one such secret: "The most popular name for a pet python is Monty." We're more than curious how many of the 277 "snake secrets" Paulette had to run through before she pulled that one out of her ass.
"The Great Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories"? That sounds like the kind of title you'd use for a compilation of MLP:FIM shipfics...
ReplyDid anyone else notice that #8 was seemingly written by Charles Van Doren, the guy who Cheated on 21 in the 1950s? Does anyone know if this is actually him?
ReplyIf I hear another person name their stupid python monty...
ReplyIt was only funny the FIRST time.
Why not "How Children Fail"?
Reply"The Great Cat Massacre" has always caught my eye
ReplyI once found 2 books in my library with strange titles. One was called "Getting High in Natural Ways" and the other was, I kid you not, "How to Sell Yourself", with a picture of an older man in a suit doing kind of a Fonzy point.
Replythis was kak funny. Well done dude.
ReplyLol you call us heathens but we aren't the ones who firebombed Dresden, or committed a nearly successful genocide against the aboriginies, or ignited a race war between India and Pakistan, or... I'm just going to stop now, I think I've got my point across
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThat was a response to jamesrolfe btw
Do you somehow think anyone cares?
Ctrl+F has confirmed that there is not a single instance of the word "heathen" in this article, so I must ask: Who called whom heathens?
Okay, just barely got into this, and I have something to say. The author of the first book, "Master Sugoi," has one of the funniest joke names I have ever heard. For those without proficiency in Japanese, sugoi (すごい) means "wow," or "amazing." This guy is either so ashamed that he refuses to put his name on the book while giving an obviously phony name, or he is so vain that he decided that he could call himself "Master Amazing," which just sounds like a Silver Age D-list superhero. God, I love people sometimes.
ReplyAs a Celt, my experience of "Celtic sex magic" is whiskey. Lots of whiskey
ReplyHaving worked in various tutoring and teaching capacities at a nationally-recognized university, I have to say a lot of people don't the first clue how to get the information they need out of a book. Which, of course, is what "How to Read a Book" is actually attempting to teach.
ReplyScouting for Boys is not the manual of the Boyscouts of America. It was writen by the Baron Baden-Powell for his Scouting Movement. The British scouts, which you americans and all other heathen nations then leapt upon. You americans sicken me by thinking you invented everything. You didn't, the Brits did, including the Internet and the computer, etc...
Reply Hide All See All 8 RepliesThe American handbook was also titled "Scouting for Boys" until the 1950's.
You could at least capitalize "Americans." You capitalize "Brits," so it's kind of insulting to an unnecessary degree. Secondarily, the phrase "You [A]mericans" is offensively closed minded and prejudiced. It's just as bad as "all black people are poor and uneducated," or "all Brits are self-superior people with bad teeth." The Americans you are talking about are the loudest, but they are also (generally) the minority. Most of us are not stuck-up, self-important jackasses. Please, attempt some civility and respect when dealing with other culture. Also, see jbuzz's post.
The USA did invent the internet. Decades before it was cool. It was called ARPANET back then (1969). And Nazi Germany invented the first computer, called the Z3 in 1941. Quit being silly.
MISINFORMED LIMEY FTW!
Be careful now, before someone gets all 1775 up in everyones face and we have to have another war. Always write your congressman in advance of throwing s**t in the ocean.
I just love how your username is the name of an AMERICAN short film director (aka The Angry Videogame Nerd). You must really respect that stupid, "heathen" American if you would dedicate an entire account to him. Irony at its best. Go rot in a hole you worthless, racist filth.
Nice try. The BSA did actually use that one for a short period of time. But, officially, the writer is incorrect. When the BSA became official, they made their own version.
All other idiocies notwithstanding, heathen seems an unusual term for comparing Americans to other developed countries. Across most of the world, economic and social development has a negative linear relationship with religious belief, while America is a clear outlier. While I take no pride in this fact, religious nuts would be a more accurate description than heathens (this holds true even if your "One True God" is not the Christian one, at least in comparison with other historically Christian nations).
As to your primary accusation that we claim credit for everything, nowhere in the article (or anywhere else that I know of) has anyone said that Boy Scouts was invented in America. The invention of computers and internet are more ambiguous. Technically, any series of on off switches representing data is a computer, and any system consisting of multiple computers is a network (the internet being merely an arbitrarily large scale network, without any obvious criteria by which to identify the difference between a large network and what can truly be called the internet). You could argue that the abacus was the first mechanical computer. Conventionally, the first computer could be considered either Nazi Germany's Z3, or the computer the British used to crack the Nazi's codes. In either case, IBM was using punchcard based simple computers since 1911. While WWII did provide the impetus to advance computer technology significantly, to call Enigma the first computer requires a very precise and arbitrary definition of computer. Similarly, while Europe (acting as an international whole, not just England) greatly expanded the idea of a computer network, it is a rather unworkable argument to call that the invention of the internet when computer networks had been used by NASA for so long. Moreover, the internet was made navigable to ordinary citizens by search engines such as Gopher and later Google and Yahoo, all founded in, you guessed it, America. In conclusion, it is 3:45 AM and I have no idea why I am still typing. I'm going to sleep. Goodnight internet.
I actually own a copy of 'How to Read a Book'. I tried to read it, but didn't make it very far. Really I own it for the irony.
ReplyHiiiiiipsteeeer!!:D
I love how the bust enlargement book was written by a dude, which begs the question; how did he figure it out? Does this Donald Wilson now have incredibly busty man breasts?
Reply277 secrets your snake(and lizard want you to know. I think i know cracked has planed for their next article
ReplyThe "pornogami", "cookie sutra" and "how to read a book" images really made me giggle. Thanks for making my day again Cracked!
ReplyOh Cracked, you keep surprising me with clever reads like these.
ReplyNo... "Scouting for boys" as in a book about scouting meant to be read by boys! What's that? "Scouts in Bondage"? F&*K
ReplyReally did it have to be "in"? It couldn't be "and"?
Or "Bondage for scouts"? Really?
Awesome. "Scouting for Boys." I guess those were innocent times.
ReplyI actually had to read "How to Read a Book" for my high school AP English class, it's about analyzing literature. It blew and it responsible for me never wanting to take another English class again.
ReplySeriously. They should have called it "How To Make Reading Never Be Fun".