Monday, July 30, 2007

Tangled titles

At the RITA/Golden Heart awards ceremony held at the Romance Writers of America conference in Dallas a couple of weeks ago, I remarked to my hunk o' burnin love (who had accompanied me because I was a RITA finalist) on the comical juxtaposition of several book titles. For example, in the Best Short Historical category of the RITAs, the first finalist announced was Christina Dodd's The Barefoot Princess. The second was She's No Princess, by Laura Lee Ghurke. In the Best Long Historical category, the first book announced was Surrender by Pamela Clare. The second? Lady of Sin, by Madeline Hunter.

The same kind of joke is happening right here on my own bookshelf, where Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation is snuggled next to Lady Be Good by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. And just to the right of Mary Jo Putney's The Marriage Spell is Uncertain Magic by Laura Kinsale.

I'm wondering if this sort of thing universally funny, or if it's chuckle-inducing only to those of us with quirky imaginations. Have you noticed any odd juxtopositions of titles on your bookshelf?

3 comments:

Katie Alender said...

Well, now I can't wait to get home and look!

Katie Alender said...

Oh! If only I'd been smarter in my book arrangement, I could have had "Walking on Water" next to "Cross Creek"... alas, they are two degrees apart. Or "Finn" next to "Saving Fish From Drowning"!

Here are my best:

"The Blind Assassin" / "Black and Blue"
"About a Boy" / "Mere Christianity"
"Forever Liesl" / "Girl, Interrupted"
"Confessions of a Shopaholic" / "The Secret History"
"A Widow for One Year" / "The Member of the Wedding"
"Looking for Alaska" / "Catching Genius"

Never give an assignment like this to a compulsive person.

Brenda Coulter said...

As nobody else commented on this, Katie, I have to assume that you and I are oddballs for finding this stuff funny....
;-)