I remember a book titled "Knobs and Knockers" which was about hardware for doors and not about human anatomy!

You are so good to shelve books without getting paid. It was my pet hate when I worked in libraries.

When I set a community library up in a developing suburb, I provided a Returns Shelf and hoped people would take books from there to save me having to sort and shelve them.

Some people preferred to browse that shelf for inspiration. Fine with me!

Those are funny, Kathy! I have a friend who could have written the first one!

Donna

Kathy,

When I'd set up book sales I would purposefully put several together whose titles related and were amusing to me :0) Doubt anyone else noticed .

I'm setting up a sale this Friday so I'll keep my eyes out for odd titles !

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in Night Time".

"A Round Heeled Woman".

"Too Late the Phalarope".

Two that have made me do double takes:

Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persuasion -- I had never associated judo with gentleness! I haven't read it.

Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller -- I have read this a couple of times. Fuller peppers her memoir of growing up in Africa generously with lively expressions like the title, some of which took me a while to figure out what she meant.

Speaking of meaning: Woodnymph, as memorable as the story is, I can't remember the significance of the title, Too Late the Phalarope. I looked up phalarope and see that it's a bird -- a small wading or swimming bird that is unusual among birds in the female having brighter colors than the male. Is that difference the key? I remember the narrator being female but she was relating the story about her uncle.

Is there a reference to a phalarope, much like there's only a brief reference about how "it's a sin to kill a mockingbird" in Harper Lee's book. If so, it didn't stick with me. I would appreciate enlightenment!

Been away a couple days -- These are good!

In "Too Late the Phalarope" (yes, it is a bird) the narrator is an elderly woman in South Africa who is narrating the story of her nephew, who was caught up in a secret scandal having to do with Apartheid. I highly recommend this work of Alan Paton, a tragic story with a fine narrative style. I own it and have read it several times. I will have to look at it again to pin-point the Phalarope reference. Perhaps she meant that the warning came too late to prevent the family tragedy.

Frieda, Alexandra Fuller is one of my favorite post-modern authors. I have read several other of her books about her early life and all are equally entertaining and unusual as the one you city.

Woodnymph, thanks for responding and setting me straight about the narrator's relationship to the Afrikaner policeman(?) -- aunt & nephew -- in the Phalarope book. I really should reread it. My memory is rather loose nowadays. When you find the reference, please let me know. :-)

I just thought of a series of titles by the late Stephen Jay Gould in his "Reflections in Natural History." Some that tickled me were The Panda's Thumb and The Flamingo's Smile and Dinosaur in a Haystack. There are others and I couldn't resist reading any of them. Gould was always reliable in making natural history interesting and accessible with titles like those. His passing left a huge hole in my reading.

Shelved books again today. The oddest nonfiction title was Poking a Dead Frog.

Donna - You have a friend who is a lightning strike survivor?

If Love Is Blind, Why Is Lingerie So Popular ? - Butler & Vincent

God's Middle Finger - Richard Grant

An Arsonist's Guide To Writers' Homes In New England - Brock Clark

Those ALL made me laugh, Yoyobon!

Yoyobon's list made me laugh, too. But the titles don't make me want to read the books! :-)

I don't know, Frieda...I'd be interested to know who/where is God's middle finger!

Ms.....apparently it's in the " lawless heart of the Sierra Madre ".

Ah! With the subtitle, my interest is piqued. Thanks for the addition, Yoyobon.

And so I had to find out what that third title was about !

Here's what I found :

Plot[edit]

The novel centers on a man who accidentally burns down the home of Emily Dickinson, and in the process, kills a couple who were making love in her bed:

"I, Sam Pulsifer, am the man who accidentally burned down the Emily Dickinson House in Amherst, Massachusetts, and in the process killed two people, for which I spent ten years in prison ... It's probably enough to say that that in the Massachusetts Mt. Rushmore of big, gruesome tragedy, there are the Kennedys, and Lizzie Borden and her ax, and the burning witches of Salem, and then there's me."[2]

During his years in prison, he and his family receive large amounts of fan mail asking that he also burn down other famous literary homes, such as those of Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne. After his release, someone unknown begins to do just that, with the hero being forced to find out who is trying to frame him by destroying the homes of celebrated writers.

Reception[edit]

The book received favorable reviews in the mainstream press on both sides of the Atlantic.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Kathy : here's the scoop on the Dead Frog book !!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR

Amy Poehler, Mel Brooks, Adam McKay, George Saunders, Bill Hader, Patton Oswalt, and many more take us deep inside the mysterious world of comedy in this fascinating, laugh-out-loud-funny book. Packed with behind-the-scenes stories—from a day in the writers’ room at The Onion to why a sketch does or doesn’t make it onto Saturday Night Live to how the BBC nearly erased the entire first season of Monty Python’s Flying Circus—Poking a Dead Frog is a must-read for comedy buffs, writers and pop culture junkies alike.

Thanks, Yoyobon. Looks like it's worth reading!

Not necessarily funny (at which many writers IMO try too hard and it doesn't come-off) but 'different'

The Man Who Was Thursday - G K Chesterton

Up to your Armpits in Alligators - John Paling

The Land of Green Ginger - Winifred Holtby

Vee.... referring to any dilemma, there was a popular saying :

"When you're up to your a** in alligators it's difficult to remember that your mission was to drain the swamp ! "

Nice one yoyo!

Those are good ones, Vee. I'm intrigued by the title The Land of Green Ginger.

I checked a little book out of the library titled How to Walk. I picked it up because the title seemed, well, a little overly simple and the book's size is most unusually small. Turns out it's about meditating while you walk. I think I'll read it.

When I was a teenager, (some 60 years ago) I was always fascinated by the title of a book on the library shelves: The Cypresses Believe in God. I have no idea what it was about.

Lacey......Spanish civil war

Some of Louis Grizzard's (pronounced gri-zard') books:

Shoot Low Boys, They're Riding Shetland Ponies,

My Daddy was a Pistol and I'm a Son of a Gun

If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Going to Nail my Feet to the Ground

Well, Butter My Butt And Call Me A Biscuit - Lori Plegge

LOL!!!!

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (pretty descriptive: when you can eat anything and everything, how do you choose what to eat?)

remember the grammar book, The Transitive Vampire? Legit grammar with, um, tasty examples.

Bon, yesterday an acquaintance told me she'd never been to a Cracker Barrel restaurant. Your book title would have been a perfect response!

Donna

Donna.....and then some !

If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino - a title as unusual as the contents of this postmodern classic.

Just finished setting up a book sale at our library and saw this :

New Uses For Old Boyfriends - Beth Kendrick

Good one, Yoyo!

Have you read it? Sounds like fun.