Oh look, a noun followed by a sentence starting with "How." This is perhaps the laziest construction of nonfiction titles. It just screams "2nd-grade essay." The point of a book's title is to inform in as few words as possible. Who the fuck would be confused by the cover of a book that simply said "Sarah" and has a picture of SARAH!!! on it?
This style of titling is popular with [name redacted] and her shitty slurry of archconservative brainvomit. Every time I see these kinds of books, I instinctively recoil, like stumbling upon a giant turd laid in the jungle. Goddammit, dad, I told you not to shit by my cave!!
Book title I would write if I had to write in this style: "Shithead: How You Became One by Buying and Reading This Book"
Here's a classic style: Imperative followed by a sentence starting with "Inside". Anything with "inside" that is not actually inside of something is going to be misleading. Here, Huck promises to show us the "inside" of a movement that will do something inspiring (so long as you are a white Christian, preferably male, preferably circumcised. Irish need not apply).
What these books most likely deliver, though, is simply a series of disjointed monologues about what's wrong with America, in particular "kids" and their "crack rock." This form of title is also popular with political farts in general who think they're being all intriguing by spilling the bears on the "inside" of some shitty, nascent political movement that is really the regurtitation of ideas that civilization has come to terms with. Bonus points if this is "inside" the CIA, which inevitably is attached to books that whitewash the CIA.
Book title I would write if I had to write in this style: "Look out! Inside the Workings of Your Anus, Which Is Where Your Head Will Find Itself Shortly After Opening This Book."
Twin verbs followed by a gerund, or how your grandpa learned to read self-help books. Whenever you promise something to someone, you have to pile on verbs. Not simply "Yes you can," but "You can do shit, fuck shit, beat shit and slang shit!" The more verbs you pile on, the more empowering you seem.
This is beyond "How to Win Friends and Influence People." How-to implies passivity, and you can't be bothered to sit still for two fucking seconds and actually learn something. No, you have to be constantly reassured that you are indeed "changing" something right from the start, such as changing your brain cells from "living" to "dead."
Here, this author goes for the patented one-two "change". He cuts right through the bullshit's crust to its soft, tasty interior. It's almost as if he realizes that the first "change" is a lowball and jumps right to the big picture. "Change your thoughts... NO, change your life." :sits back, hi-fives self, downs bag of Cheetos:
Of course, you must follow up with a sentence that describes what kind of shit you're peddling. Always use a gerund; it combines the excitement of action with the awesomeness of owning shit. In this case, the gerund is "living." Seize life by plunking down $20 to have some guy tell you to stop fucking around and buy a Corvette already YOU 45-YEAR-OLD WASTE OF LIFE.
To top it all off, please include a picture of the author in a sweater or sweatervest casually leaning against a railing that overlooks someplace more awesome than you will ever see. Perhaps some place you will imagine before the boot of reality comes down on your face for the last time before it all goes dark.
Book title I would write if I had to write in this style: "Kill Your Family, Kill Yourself: Ending the Mistake That Was Your Lineage."
Quad Damage: Four titles in one horrid piece of shit! I don't know who the Duggars are. Perhaps they are a great, well-adjusted family... Wait, they have 20 kids. I am retracting that bet. I SAID I AM RETRACTING IT. GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY BACK.
If you're in doubt about what to name your book, just throw up as many ideas as you want. Fuck it! Here we have a somewhat rare fourpeat of mediocrity.
We start off with your standard noun/colon combo. Pretty simple, pretty amateurish, but then the Duggars throw a curveball: the exclamation point! 20 AND COUNTING! In case you were confused by the picture on the cover of two maladjusted people and their 20 kids, yup, those are all Duggars. Can you spot all of them? Hint: one is located in someone's pocket!
Having exhausted the most exciting parts of their story, the Duggars then move on to the standard gerund. But wait, what's this? A DASH? THEY ARE SWITCHING GEARS AGAIN!!!
"How they do it"
OHHHHHH NOOOOOOO, how they DO it? Noooo Duggars, you held my amusement until there, now it just sounds like babyish tripe! Awww man.
Still, give them their propers for enthusiasm. They really wanted to squeeze every last banal detail about their book out of the title. It's rare that you see a dash used like that, so there is some hint of great mediocrity there. Maybe when they hit #40 they can come back with a sextuple title and really blow our minds (and further strike fear in the heart of our crotches).
Book title I would write if I had to write in this style: "Bang Bang: You're Dead! Fifty Bullets in Your head--Make It a Reality"
You can tell it's a conspiracy because it contains the word "and" in it. The best titles are the pedantic ones. "GETTING SHOT: WHY IT HAPPENS IN AMERICA, AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR SOCIETY IN GENERAL (HINT: IT'S NOT AS AWESOME AS ADVERTISED!@)" The first thing I want a book title to do is to tell me why I have the most obvious reaction to something because I am a retard who needs to have everything spelled out right from the fucking get-go.
In this case, we have the easy target of the Bosh Family. The writer here uses BIG WORD small preposition BIG WORD, a pretty typical construction when you want to scare the shit out of stupid people. But the real kicker is the sentence at the end that's like a little child stacking blocks, one larger than the other, on top of each other, then marveling at his archetectural monstrosity before putting army men on it and then knocking it down with toy blocks. Hey, fuck you, THAT GAME ROCKED. BEEEEEOW BEEEEOW RATAATATATATATTA KABOOM OH GOD THEY GOT JOHNNY! MY GOD NO!
This title only works on the supremely dumb, though. Everyone who has been alive these past 20 years knows about the subject matter, so beating around the bush (lol) like this is simply tacky. THE BUSH DYNASTY (points off for not using Bu$h Dyna$ty), THE POWERFUL FORCES THAT PUT IT IN THE WHITE HOUSE, well gee, really? The Bushes, who now count two presidents, a governor and a cartoon character amongst their ranks are a DYNASTY? WHO ARE BACKED BY POWERFUL PEOPLE? How naive does one reader have to be to buy this shit? Hint: every Obama supporter in the universe is this book's target audience.
The kicker, though, is WHAT IT MEANS FOR MERICA, aka you, the horrified reader. Yes you. What does it mean for you? Something ominous because he uses the word DYNASTY. Yes, he is referring to the show. VICTORIA PRINCIPAL IS THE MOST DANGEROUS
Book title I would write if I had to write in this style: "Piece of Shit: The Author, the 20 Odd Hours of Googling He's Done for "Research", and Why You Should Ready Your Own Grave Right Now"
So what's the deal with all these boring, dumb titles? The world may never know. I don't know when nonfiction books started being so banal and I don't know who's to blame. Maybe it was Dr. Spock. Yes... Dr. Spock... it's too logical..........
:RAISES
EYEBROW:
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