Book Titles Get a New Look Thanks to Trump the Crook

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Friday’s edition of The New York Times. (Photo by me.)

With the corrupt Donald Trump deservedly convicted this past Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened his ultimately successful 2016 presidential campaign, it’s time to change some book titles!

The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee — history’s first former Oval Office occupant to ever be convicted — also faces three future trials for taking home classified documents and fomenting the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol building after falsely claiming he won the 2020 election he clearly lost.

Anyway, on to the revised titles…

Portnoy’s Complaint becomes Stormy’s Complaint. (As in Stormy Daniels, the woman with whom the married Trump had sex and then paid off to keep silent.)

Death Comes for the Archbishop becomes Seth Comes for the Archvillain. (If Seth was one of the jurors’ names.)

Their Eyes Were Watching God becomes Jury’s Ayes Were Splotching Don. (From Hurston to hurts him.)

The Age of Innocence becomes The Age of Guiltiness. (Hmm…we have Edith Wharton, even as Trump is a Wharton School alum.)

Gone with the Wind becomes Don Who Has Sinned.

The Secret Life of Bees becomes His Overt Life of Sleaze.

The Shipping News becomes The Stripping News.

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands becomes Donald Flawed and His Three Wives. (Plus many paramours.)

Don Quixote becomes Don’s Felonies.

The Count of Monte Cristo becomes The 34 Counts of Don T.: Bozo.

Fahrenheit 451 becomes Fahrenheit 34.

Catch-22 becomes Catch-34.

The Catcher in the Rye becomes He Was Caught in the Lies.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man becomes A Portrait of the Adulterer as a Con Man.

The Book Thief becomes The Crook Chief.

A Painted House becomes A Tainted Louse.

Devil in a Blue Dress becomes Devil in a Blue Suit.

A Clockwork Orange becomes A Clocked Jerk, Orange. (Referring to Trump’s makeup color.)

The Mill on the Floss becomes A Chill on the Boss.

Winesburg, Ohio becomes Whines Big, Anywhere.

The Old Man and the Sea becomes The Old Man and the Glee. (Yes, many are happy with the verdict against the 77-year-old Trump.)

Crime and Punishment becomes Crime and Hopefully Major Punishment.

A Passage to India becomes A Passage to Incarceration. (If only…)

A Gentleman in Moscow becomes A Charlatan in Hoosegow. (Slang for jail. If only…)

One Hundred Years of Solitude becomes A Few Years of Solitary. (If only…)

From Here to Eternity becomes From Here to Uncertainty. (Trump’s 2024 presidential prospects.)

Any other revised titles you’d like to suggest?

Dave’s literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writes the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about topics such as a too-big project approved again — is here.

114 thoughts on “Book Titles Get a New Look Thanks to Trump the Crook”

  1. Let’s see:
    A few revised Arthur C. Clarke titles:
    Riled Hood’s End
    Inferior Girth
    A Felon Goon’s Bust
    The Nine Billion Ways He’s Odd

    Some Isaac Asimov:
    Clown Nation/ Clown Nation and Empire/ Wretched Clown Nation
    To Crave a Feel
    The Robots of Don
    The Goods He Sells

    And Robert A. Heinlein:
    Deranger in a Deranged Land
    The Numbness of the Fleeced
    Boob: A Comedy of Justice
    The Door to the Slammer

    Listening to Asimov and Heinlein talk about the Turnip (with Clarke in the middle rolling out droll jabs) would have been entertaining and maybe frightening.

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    • Thank you, Don! Excellent and funny sci-fi title changes! Many favorites, but “Deranger in a Deranged Land” might be the best of the best. Not that the U.S. is all deranged, but certainly partly so. 🙂 😦 And, yes, I don’t think many novelists — sci-fi or otherwise — would be fans of someone like Trump.

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  3. Gosh Dave, I love this post.

    Lets’ see…. hmmm

    Fear and Loathing in Mar-a-Lago

    Trump Flew into the Cuckoo’s Nest

    Trumpenstein

    Donnie’s-Dick ( a tale about a wee tiny fish)

    Withering Plights

    Trumped on Hot Tin Proof (oops that’s a play)

    The Traipse of an Ass

    To Catch a Thief… hmmm can’t improve on that, but it was written by a Mr. Dodge.

    STOP ME!

    I’m having more fun than 1 person aught to be allowed in a day.

    I think the original book titles are obvious, but let me know if not!

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    • Thank you, Resa! A VERY fun and excellent sampling of changed titles! Trump creates so much misery that we deserve to have some fun at his expense. (Despite him being cheap enough not to fund our fun…)

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  6. Oh Dave, this entire post is a disgrace, and it’s rigged, and it’s a rigged disgrace, and you’re allowing all the migrants to ruin your constitution. Or something. Or is it that there are no fair trials anymore because witnesses are being crucified? That seems extreme. Or maybe Donny told some “Big, Big, Lies” and thought there would be “Crime and No Punishment” but instead finds himself in “The Age of Guiltiness” (I had to borrow that last one from you as it’s my personal fave). I love the pic you’ve shared this week. I may have to keep coming back to this if I feel like I need a happy fix. Thanks ❤

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    • LOL, Susan! 😂 The start of your comment is hilarious. 🙂 As is the rest of it. 🙂 Your “Big, Big, Lies” take on Liane Moriarty’s “Big Little Lies” is a great title change!

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  10. Excellent timely coloumn Dave

    A liberal like myself living in OH , is a different feeling. But I am friendly and open my mouth more because I am not employed. But so far no one has harassed me. The sandwich shop I go to weekly has one 80 yr old lady worker there who rides in a bus and tells me no one could be any more liberal than her. I am looking forward to seeing her when I visit the shop this week.

    Dave , I wrote this elsewhere….

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    • Thank you very much, Bebe! 🙂 That older woman you mentioned sounds nice. An independent thinker! It can be tricky for people like you and her to be a liberal in a less-liberal state.

      I remember when Ohio leaned blue, but it now of course has moved into the red-state realm. U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown remains a Democratic holdout, and I hope he wins reelection. I met him once, at the 2018 National Society of Newspaper Columnists conference in Cincinnati (!), and he seemed like a nice guy. Married to Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Connie Schultz.

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      • Thanks Dave, yes I remember well you have mentioned before of meeting  Sherrod Brown before.

        The lady I mentioned did not care who listens to her. Strong minded ,a widow, rides the bus to work.

        These days Dave i open my mouth even to the grocery store but no one has attacked me. Lived in Nashville before moving in here .Now also have become a DT loving State.

        BUT…I strongly believe, the rubbish speaking past President might not even win even if he does won’t last too long holding the officer.

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  11. 😆😆 Poor Donald Trump’s world is in shambles. This racist pig said to the Central Park Five to give them the death penalty when they were accused of raping a white woman back in 1989. When they were innocent, he didn’t even apologize. This arrogant guy has too muck pride.

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    • Thank you, RoseAcademy 11! I totally agree — what Trump did with his statements about the innocent Central Park Five and never apologizing for that were among the many horrible, racist things he’s done in his sordid life.

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  12. The Gift Of The Magi becomes The Grift Of The Maga, Dandelion Wine becomes Don And His Lies, The Shining becomes The Whining. Enjoyed all the posts. Thanks Dave. And let me close with this: Vote Blue!!! Susi

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    • Thank you, Susi! These are terrific! 😂 “The Grift of the Maga” — SO on target. 🙂 And appropriate to have a Stephen King one; that author has public slammed Trump on many occasions.

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  15. Looked over your revised titles, Dave, and am happy our minds do not run on the same paths– this way, the site is richer for having more of them:

    Sometimes A Great Nation– a history they can’t teach or shelve in FL

    Huckleberry Fiend– unauthorized bio of Lindsay Graham

    The Scum Also Rises–MAGA comes out on top

    Tender Is The Knife– the story of Stephen Miller

    The Soundbite and Fury– a Trump biography, volume 1 of 3

    The Gripes of Wrath–volume 2

    The Gilded Rage–volume 3

    Under Three Flags– The Alitos at homes

    It Can Happen Here– a reappraisal

    Books I’d like to read:  Uncle Tom’s Carbine and The Pentagon Paupers

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    • Thank you, jhNY! These are GREAT. 😂 Kesey, Twain, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Steinbeck, etc.! I’m sure Trump has read all of them, given how he’s quite the bibliophile. 🙄 🙂

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    • Delighted to see someone else with an appreciation for Sinclair Lewis’s overlooked masterpiece of prognostication.
      Though I wonder if the revised title shouldn’t be: It DID Happen Here.

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      • Thank you for the comment, Don! Yes, “It Can’t Happen Here” IS a great book — definitely prescient, and the best Sinclair Lewis work after that author’s amazing 1920s run of excellent novels. Yes, in a lot of ways, “it” has already happened. 😦

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        • Presience indeed, flatulence foretold,what with the name ‘Windrip’ attached to the populist at the center of the Lewis book, and the malodorous cloud recently overhanging that Manhattan courtroom.

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        • For me, the telling thing about the book is that most of the danger for the protagonists comes not from the dictatorship in relatively far-off Washington, but from the local toadies, hangers-on and thugs who see in Windrip a chance to claim the “respect” and the share of the booty they feel they’ve been wrongly denied. Who among us can’t claim to know some real-life analogues of Shad LaDue, Effingham Swan or Aras Dilley?

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  18. Let’s see. How about these:

    Alice in Wonderland becomes Jury in Bizzaroworld
    The Loved One (Evelyn Waugh) becomes The Reviled One
    The Bonfire of the Vanities becomes The Conflagration of the Megalomaniac
    The Lion in Winter becomes The Whiner in Spring

    For Whom the Bell Tolls will remain unchanged.

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  19. 12 Years A Slave=34 Counts A Convicted Felon

    I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings=

    I Would Like The Dodo Bird To Go To Sing Sing

    Prince of Tides=Prince of Lies

    Singing And Swinging And Getting Merry Like Christmas, Maya Angelou.

    heck that’s how I felt after hearing verdict this past Thursday!

    Michele

    E & P, way back

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  21. The Road to Wigan Pier will be The Road To Wicked’s Prison. To the Lighthouse will be To the Workhouse. Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull will be The Denial of the Lowlife Donald Trump. Great Expectations will be Great Expectations?

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  22. I’m not a particularly partisan person, but I have the feeling after this verdict that Biden will win the popular vote but Trump will win the electoral college because he’s too far ahead in most of the swing states. I’m more conservative than the Democrats on social issues but I’m uncomfortable with Trump mainly because I’m not white.

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    • Thank you, Tony! The very flawed Biden could indeed win the popular vote while the EXTREMELY flawed Trump wins the Electoral College, as was the case with Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016. And, yes, Trump makes a lot of people uncomfortable. 😦

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      • Now, I don’t think that Biden will win the popular vote because of Hunter Biden’s legal and ethical troubles (he has two trials coming up which can destroy his father’s campaign). Biden’s supporters are much less loyal than Trump’s.

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          • If Taylor Swift ran for president in 2028, I’d consider voting for her! I like her music, and she seems like a good and charitable person.

            The corrupt Hunter Biden’s legal troubles could hurt his father, but of course it’s the son who’s corrupt, not so much the dad. Trump is corrupt himself, and also has corrupt sons and a corrupt son-in-law. But, yes, Trump’s supporters are much more loyal than Biden’s.

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    • I’m fairly certain that Taylor Swift is not interested in running for president or any other political office for that matter. Elon Musk is probably the best known Republican celebrity at the present time (although he is an industrialist rather than an entertainer), however he is not a native born American citizen so he cannot run for president.

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      • I’m sure you’re right about Taylor Swift. With the life she has, why make it worse by holding political office? 🙂

        And thank goodness Elon Musk isn’t eligible to run for president. He’s a nasty egomaniac.

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  24. Dave – you have the most amazing wit. Your reminded me of some of the most famous fiction novels written about bad behavior in US politics, which include “All the King’s Men” by Robert Penn Warren, “Advise and Consent” by Allen Drury, “Primary Colors” by Joe Klein, and “The Manchurian Candidate” by Richard Condon. These novels delve into themes of corruption, power struggles, and unethical behavior within the political landscape of the United States.

    We live in interesting times!!

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    • Thank you very much, Rebecca! 🙂 Great observation that bad behavior in politics has been the subject of a number of memorable novels. Of the ones you mentioned, I’ve read “All the King’s Men,” which was quite gripping. The protagonist — Gov. Willie Stark — was obviously flawed but wasn’t an all-bad guy, at least at first, which differs from Donald Trump not having a shred of decency. Very interesting times indeed!

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  30. Ha ha, excellent, although you’ve already used my first thoughts. How about ‘Lack of Persuasion’ (Jane Austen) and ‘Le Miserable’ (Victor Hugo)? Then there’s ‘To the Big House’ (Virginia Woolf) and ‘Breakfast at Fulsome’ (Truman Capote), ‘Another Country (please!) by James Baldwin and ‘Fear and Loathing in New York’ (Hunter S Thompson) with ‘The Satanic Lawsuit (Salman Rushdie) for good measure. Great fun. 🙂

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