The 13 Most Baffling Book Titles
We've all heard the old adage: never judge a book by its cover. But judging it by its title? Hell yeah.
Can just those few words tell us whether a book is worth reading? Probably not. Can they make us wonder if the author was batshit insane? Definitely. Especially if it has a title like...
"Pornogami" by Master Sugoi
According to Amazon.com, 76% of the people who stumble upon "Pornogami" ultimately buy it. So who knows, maybe there's a marketing genius at work here. One that realizes there is a sexual fetish that requires a basic understanding of geometry and ultimately results in paper cuts in places you'll instantly regret.
"The Cookie Sutra" by Edward Jaye
"The Cookie Sutra?" you're probably saying, "Ha! I bet it's about two cookies fucking in various ways!"
And, you'd be right. So, say what you want about the title, but at least it's accurate.
It's hard to know what the point of this book itself is, unless these pictures are to serve as templates for the amateur bakers out there to create the most awkward conversations in Christmas history. "Look, Grandma! You bit off his little erection!"
"Scouting for Boys" by Baden Powell
Don't look at us like that. It wasn't our idea to call the book "Scouting For Boys" and to have a cover that portrays a boy, resting unaware on a rock, while we silently creep behind him.
This is actually the original Boy Scouts of America manual. Was there really no pedophilia back in the day? Were those such innocent times that you could get away with any boy love innuendo, no matter how blatant?
"Scouts in Bondage" by Geoffery Prout
Apparently so.
"How to Avoid Huge Ships" by Captain John W. Trimmer
No innuendo here, just a premise for a How-To book that seems almost criminally retarded. However the author is a Captain, as the cover so proudly notes, so we'll assume he's a wise man who's yet to sink a raft of Cuban refugees.
Our favorite part is the "Second Edition" note on the cover. Really, you needed to update a book whose only page should read "Move right or, if unable to, move left?" What could be less useful?
"How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler
Ah, that would probably do it.
"277 Secrets Your Snake (and Lizard) Wants You to Know" by Paulette Cooper
As a general rule of thumb, secrets are only interesting if they're useful, and we're really doubtful that your garter snake knows the identity of the Zodiac Killer, so it's safe to assume this is a pretty dull read.
An excerpt from this tome of knowledge gives us one such secret: "The most popular name for a pet python is Monty." We're more than curious how many of the 277 "snake secrets" Paulette had to run through before she pulled that one out of her ass.
"Bombproof Your Horse" by Rick Pellicano
If Bombproof Your Horse could actually deliver on the promise of the title, it would be one of the most bad-ass things ever made by the hands of men.
Sadly, this book cannot teach you how to ride a horse through a torrent of flame and the hail of machine gun-fire. If it could, the horses would have gotten ahold of it and taken over the world by now.
"Old Tractors and the Men Who Love Them" by Roger Welsch
Oh, so we're back to this again? Is there no sexual perversion you aren't willing to explore, Poorly-Worded Book Title Innuendo?
Look at it. You can try to convince us that this isn't a book about Southern men having unprotected sex with rusty farm equipment, but the face of that guy on the cover just implies a broken marriage and a series of tetanus shots.
"The Great Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories" by Alisa Surkis and Monical Nolan
Now we're sure about this one. It's clearly catering to at least one sexual fetish (unless it's just Old West stories that take place on the island of Lesbos) but we aren't sure exactly which one.
We'd look into it a little deeper but we don't really want to know what sounds lesbian horses make during sex and what kind of apparatus they use.
"Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power: How to Use the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts " by Donald Wilson
We're going to come out right now and say that the power of positive thinking is not enough to increase anyone's bust size. If it was, guys would have been abusing this sexy yet potentially hilarious flaw in God's design well before this book was published in 1979.
"Celtic Sex Magic" by John G. Hughes
We aren't entirely sure what sex magic entails, let alone Celtic sex magic. But if this book teaches you to pull a rabbit out from anywhere other than your hat--especially if it requires you have Larry Bird nearby--please keep that trick to yourself.
Still, it's nice to have a book that's actually about weird-ass sex practices, instead of some kind of crude misunderstanding based on a poorly thought-out title.
"Cooking with Pooh"
Oh, come on!
Do yourself a favor and check out Michael Swaim's look at The 10 Most Devastating Insults of All Time. And if you took a Thanksgiving holiday from Cracked over the long weekend (we'll let it slide THIS TIME) don't miss The 7 Most Ingenious (And Insane) Smuggling Techniques, our look at 6 Ways World of Warcraft is Worse Than Real Life and the latest from around the web and The Mirth Canal in our new Top Picks Section.
