booktitleblog

Top Titles (& a Special Prize!)...on the Main Line

Hi neighbor! Several Sundays ago, I was perusing the New York Times Book Review when a title stopped me in my tracks: I’m Glad My Mom Died . Written by Jennette McCurdy of iCarly fame,…

Hi neighbor!

Several Sundays ago, I was perusing the New York Times Book Review when a title stopped me in my tracks: I’m Glad My Mom Died . Written by Jennette McCurdy of iCarly fame, the memoir details her struggles as a child actor—a career forced upon her by her abusive mother, who died in 2013. Mother-daughter relationships are notoriously complicated, but this title takes it to a whole new level.

I imagine titling a book is tricky. It’s the first thing a potential reader sees, and there are no re-dos. So what makes a good book title? To me, the best ones summarize and sing. And like many things in life, there’s some luck involved. I once read that Peter Benchley titled his book Jaws because it was the only word he and his editor could agree upon. Of Mice and Men was originally titled Something That Happened (ha!). John Steinbeck changed it after reading Robert Burns’ poem, “To a Mouse.” Joseph Heller was initially devastated when he had to change his book title from Catch-18 to Catch-22.

Just for fun, I made a list of book titles I love. What would you add? Special prize to anyone who’s read every book on this list:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Sometimes a Great Notion

Love in the Time of Cholera

When Breath Becomes Air

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

As I Lay Dying

The Sun Also Rises

The Catcher in the Rye

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Behold the Dreamers

Go Ask Alice

Happy Spring,

Kate