the strangest book titles you have ever seen...

[duchess of malfi]

Here are some of the weirdest book titles I have run into recently. (If you do not believe me, check them out at Amazon).

Big Spankable Asses
Manaconda
Nights with Sasquatch
The Golden Penis


has anyone else run into anything as bad as these?

(as far as I know only the second one is actual erotica...the only one I have read is the third, and it was awful.)

[Montresor]

Nights with Sasquatch has to be the winner!

I once saw, in a second-hand book store, Enarmoured of an Ass.

Some others are:

Does She Suck? (a history of 1950s American houswives and vacuum cleaners). I came so close to buying that.
The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual.
The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification.

[Menolly]

Uhm...how about Oxford's

The Shorter English Dictionary
(a book so heavy it takes two people to carry)

yeah...I know of the multi-volume Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary, but the above still strikes me as unusual

Hypnerotomachia
rough translation, Dream Sex Struggle

[sgt.null]

“How To Good-Bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?”

had to google. but there you are.

[Chrysalis]

Living With Crazy Buttocks - Kaz Cooke

People Who Don't Know They're Dead - Gary Leon Hill

Bombproof Your Horse - Rick Pelicano

Love and Other Near-Death Experiences - Mil Millington (great book!)

[I'm Murrin]

Does a short story, rather than a book, count?

The Moby Clitoris of His Beloved, by Ian Watson and Robert Quaglia

It is a very strange story, as well. You can read it online here (Clarkesworld Magazine can publish some strange stuff, but it's always of good quality).

[Worm of Despite]

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

[CovenantJr]

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums.

Good grief. I needed a bookmark just for the title.

[Montresor]

[Lady Revel]

I used to work in a library, and we had a book called the Clitoral Truth.

[sgt.null]

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification

[danlo]

1. How to Avoid Huge Ships by John W. Trimmer
2. Scouts in Bondage by Michael Bell
3. Be Bold with Bananas by Crescent Books
4. Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself by Dale L. Power
5. The Flat-Footed Flies of Europe by Peter J. Chandler
6. 101 Uses for an Old Farm Tractor by Michael Dregni
7. Across Europe by Kangaroo by Joseph R. Barry
8. 101 Super Uses for Tampon Applicators by Lori Katz and
Barbara Meyer
9. Suture Self by Mary Daheim
10. The Making of a Moron by Niall Brennan
11. How to Make Love While Conscious by Guy Kettelhack
12. Underwater Acoustics Handbook by Vernon Martin Albers
13. Superfluous Hair and Its Removal by A. F. Niemoeller
14. Lightweight Sandwich Construction by J. M. Davies
15. The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes by Michel Pastoureaut
16. How to Be a Pope: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in the Vatican by Piers Marchant
17. How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

[aliantha]

8. 101 Super Uses for Tampon Applicators by Lori Katz and
Barbara Meyer

Oh gods.... I'm assuming that's a crafts book, too....

The last one on your list was serious, I think, danlo. Adler is some mucky-muck educator or something. And wasn't Van Doren involved in the quiz show scandal in the '50s? (I saw the movie a really long time ago...)

Here's one from me: "Phone Calls From the Dead". I actually owned this book. The author claimed, among other things, that phone hangups with really noisy lines are actually calls from the Great Beyond. Of course I got a hangup call while I was reading the book. Scared the hell out of me.

Nowadays, of course, we know that phone hangups and noisy lines are caused by crappy cellphone connections....

[danlo]

I love 1-3 & How to Make Love While Conscious. Is #10 Bush's autobio? (yes I believe that's the same VanDoren)

[sgt.null]

How to Avoid Huge Ships by John W. Trimmer
danlo - you have info on this one? it sounds fascinating.

[an Carraig]

Gun, With Occasional Music, jonathan lethem

[duchess of malfi]

We have racks of free donated paperbacks all over the place at work, and one of my buddies found a howler the other night:

Spanish Doctor Pregnant Nurse

We screamed with laughter over that one.

[Vraith]

Uhm...how about Oxford's

The Shorter English Dictionary
(a book so heavy it takes two people to carry)

I actually own a recent copy of "The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary"
It's now 2 volumes, so you'd need 4 people...2 more volumes, it will be a dead language [there's 2 jokes there...really]
I still love the title [and book] "Still Life With Woodpecker"
There's also "The End of the World: with Symposium to Follow." [actually a play..speaking of which:
"The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" affectionately known..or maybe just to save ink/breath...as Marat/Sade.

[duchess of malfi]

Another howler romance title we found in the donation racks at work:

Ruthlessly Bedded by the Italian Billionaire.

[sgt.null]

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, by Alisa Surkis & Monica Nolan

Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality, by Glenn C. Ellenbogen (Editor)

How Green Were the Nazis?:Nature, Environment, and Nature in the 3rd Reich, by Franz-Joseph Brueggemeier