Time to talk titles of novels again! The names of books are very important, of course, and can be good in a utilitarian sort of way or very memorable. Today, I’m going to focus on the latter.
This topic occurred to me last week as I read The Late Show by Michael Connelly. It’s a page-turning start of a series featuring Renee Ballard, a Los Angeles police officer of Polynesian descent who deals with crime on her beat and sexism within her department. The novel’s title is perfectly fine — Ballard works the night shift in the 2017 book — but not one for the ages.
What are some titles for the ages? Looking at my list of novels I’ve read since starting this blog in 2014, here are a number of those that stood out:
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami’s 2013 novel starring a Japanese railroad engineer. A many-worded title that’s almost guaranteed to spark a reader’s curiosity.
There’s also Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (2009), Jamie Ford’s poetically named historical novel that hinges on the U.S. government’s disgraceful internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared! That title of Jonas Jonasson’s 2009 novel is unusually long, and descriptively grabs one’s interest. A bit clunky, too, but…
Then there’s The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken (2012), one of the India-set novels in Tarquin Hall’s series featuring private investigator Vish Puri.
The title of Jesse Walter’s The Financial Lives of Poets (2009) gets readers’ attention as they contemplate the left-brain/right-brain thing.
How about My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry (2013)? Fredrik Backman, who is most famous for authoring A Man Called Ove, doesn’t need to apologize for his intriguing nine-word title.
Also in 2013, Fannie Flagg created quite a title with The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion — whose characters include a woman who was a World War II aviator.
The alluring and alliterative title of Jane Smiley’s Perestroika in Paris (2020) throws readers a curve because it’s not about political reform a la late-1980s Soviet Union but about an interesting horse.
Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead takes the oft-used route of naming a novel after its title character, but what an unusual name that character has! A name that riffs on David Copperfield, star of the 1850 Charles Dickens classic that served as a quasi-template for Kingsolver’s 2022 book.
And lest we focus only on 21st-century novels with noteworthy names, there’s Janet Frame’s Yellow Flowers in the Antipodean Room (1969), about a supposedly dead man who turns out to be very much alive.
Some of the more memorably titled novels you’ve read?
Misty the cat says: “My college human is home for Thanksgiving weekend and majoring in Walking Me.”
My comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )
This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂
I’m also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…
…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more, including many encounters with celebrities.
In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — containing more news about my school district’s huge deficit amid pizza-for-Thanksgiving comedic content 🙂 — is here.
Dave Astor on Literature 