Thursday, November 22, 2007

Guess the Title 5


The following are descriptions of ten books that can be found at Amazon.com. Each is accompanied by six titles, one of which is the actual title, and five of which are fakes submitted by the Evil Minions.


a. This self-help manual for female teens from age 14 up is a crash course covering every topic from puberty and sex to making friends and choosing colleges. Includes a detailed section on oral sex.

Am I Weird or Is This Normal?
Just Say 'Blow': A Girl's Guide to the Top
A Jaw-Dropping Guide to Teen Sex
For Girls Only: A Teenager's Survival Guide
The First Swallows of Spring Break
Making Your Parents as Miserable as You Are: What Every Teen Needs to Know


b. Devastated after being fired from her job at a Silicon Valley start-up and suffering a miscarriage, Devi feels she has strayed far outside the expectations of her traditional Indian family and attempts to commit suicide. However, her intrusive mother, a continual source of aggravation for Devi, saves her life. Devi then moves in with her parents, but she refuses to speak, taking up cooking instead.

From Here to Tandoori
It's Chapati, You Can Cry If You Want To
The Widgetmakers of Hindu Kush
Serving Crazy with Curry
Gosht Story
Joy of Cooking Tikka Masala


c. When Tori got lucky, she never imagined that her birthday fling would last longer than one night. But this papi chulo turns out to be "the one," and they quickly decide to elope. . . . Meanwhile, Sylvia has one of the hottest careers in town reporting on Miami's nightlife. But when Tori makes her shocking announcement over Monday-night mojitos with the girls, Sylvia decides it's time for some bold moves of her own . . .

Latino Chic
The Miami Welcome Mat
The Chicharrones Connection
The Devil Wears Tammy Apostol
Tori and Sylvia Do Little Havana
Sex and the South Beach Chicas


d. Wounding with words is the talent of this lopsided novel's heroine, so skilled at repelling her friends that she nicknames herself the Alienator. Unfortunately, the Alienator's powers work just as well on readers, who are likely to find her such unpleasant company that they won't stick around for the book's more satisfying second half.

Loathe Me and Leave Me
Full of It
Is There a Book Doctor in the House?
The Scathing: Yes, It's A Novel
How Jenny Came to Not Hate Everyone
Metamorphosis of a Miscreant


e. Julia, a hip salesgirl at Pelham's jewelry store, finds her social life turned on its head when she is asked to deliver a necklace to the store's young heiress, Lell Pelham, on Lell's wedding day. Beguiled by Julia's earnest cluelessness and her vintage-chic vibe, Lell and her gang adopt Julia, and "Eliza Doolittle" her into passing as the heiress to a Park Avenue family fortune, just for a laugh. Dazed by her new world, Julia is unprepared for the ardent advances of Lell's husband—or the vicious claws her new "friends" develop when they decide Julia is an ingrate, and demote her from society goddess to penniless cling-on.

Wolves in Chic Clothing
Breakfast at Wal-Mart
Cindy Adams, the Little Flower Girl and the taking of Pelham 666
Careful What You Wish For
My Phat Bitch
Prigmalion


f. A collection of tongue-in-cheek characterizations of men, organized by sign, for the date-weary hetero woman.

All Dressed Up and No One to Love
What's Your Sign? (And Other Pickup Lines of Assholes)
The Loser Zodiac
Never Date a Virgo on Thursday
How to Spot a Bastard by his Star Sign
Is That Your Planet Ascending, or Are You Just Happy to See Me?


g. Valuable insight into the way in which Latin America has been regarded and utilized by modern nations, governments, and corporations interspersed with Disney cartoons possessing ridiculous political implications: vultures representing Hegel and Marx, dogs dressed up like Che and Castro...

How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic
Goofy Presents: Poverty Incorporated and the Plundering of a Continent
Under the Mouse's Thumb
Uncle Scrooge, South of the Border
Yankee Go Home . . . Pluto, Stay
Shamrock Bones and the Cocaine Cartel


h. When a British writer, performer and musician makes a drunken bet that he can hitchhike through his country with an unlikely possession, he starts an unexpectedly wonderful adventure into the good-natured soul of the Irish people.

Travels With My Anteater
'Round Ireland with a Fridge
Have You Met My Potato?
Erin Go Brassiere
Caravaning In The Land of Bogs with Patty O'Swirly
Mick and Bono's Most Excellent Adventure


i. CALIFORNIA ENGINEER EXPERIENCES CONTACT WITH OTHER WORLDLY VISITORS screamed the headlines in the Las Vegas and LA papers after an engineer first reported his contacts with extraterrestrials. The space beings said they were from a planet which remains hidden behind our sun and that they had developed their civilization to the point where there was no war or crime. To date the author's rather shocking claims have NOT been disproved!

The Nerd's Guide to Doppelgangers
High in the Hollywood Hills
You Weren't There; I Was
Probed! The Carson Waggoner Story
You Won't Be Calling Me Crazy When the Sarkonn Fleet Arrives
Messages from the People of the Planet Clarion: The True Experiences of Truman Bethurum


j. It's the edgy gift book for every unmarried woman who's fending off her nudgy mother and overly concerned friend, who can't go to a holiday dinner, class reunion, shower or wedding without hearing the usual round of questions. Something like So, why aren't you married yet?

Well, Just Look at Me
The Un-Vagina Monologues for Single Girls
Even God is Single, So Stop Giving Me a Hard Time
Because Gay Marriage Is Illegal, Okay?
Actually, She's More Than Just a Friend
I Know Why I'm Not Married; Why Aren't You Divorced?


Fake titles supplied by Paul Penna, Dick Margulis, Dave F., anonymous, and EE


Actual Book Titles:



Am I Weird or Is This Normal?
Serving Crazy with Curry
Sex and the South Beach Chicas
Full of It
Wolves in Chic Clothing
How to Spot a Bastard by his Star Sign
How to Read Donald Duck: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic
'Round Ireland with a Fridge
Messages from the People of the Planet Clarion: The True Experiences of Truman Bethurum
Even God is Single, So Stop Giving Me a Hard Time


We still need fake plots for tomorrow's exercise. The titles are Zero Gravity, Late Nights on Air, Lauchlin of the Bad Heart, The Assassin’s Song, and The Architects Are Here.

7 comments:

Dave Fragments said...

I'll forgive it as an overbundance of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie but I wrote a few of those titles.

I made my own loaf of stuffing too.

Evil Editor said...

Are you forgiving me for not psychically realizing they were yours, or yourself for submitting them anonymously?

McKoala said...

'Loathe me and leave me'! Ha! Much better title.

Also: 'Because gay marriage is illegal' - wouldn't that shut the questioner up!

You've had enough pie now. Get back to your keyboards, I'm feeling lonely.

Chris Eldin said...

Did Dave submit *all* of them? Anonymously?

These are funny. And also sad because they're real.

Evil Editor said...

Actually, there were so few submissions I had to write 40% of the fakes. I certainly hope that won't be the case with exercises 2 and 3.

Dave Fragments said...

EE - probably both. I'm out visiting relatives and fighting off the "look this crazy stuff up on the internet," trying to avoid a dead battery and rushing posts, and looking up an essential newspaper article for my niece who's Mother-in-law passed away recently. My other niece and I have got the "stuff the turkey" down to 4 hands and 5 minutes between opening the wrapper and having the turkey stuffed with stuffing and ready to roast. It gives new meaning to "shove it."

So yes, you're forgiven for not being psychic,
I'm forgiven for not catching I was not logged on,
the world is forgiven for the 5000 calories we all consumed on Thanksgiving,
my battery is forgiven for dying out too fast,
my computer is forgiven for being such a dolt and not logging me in,
The newspapers are forgiven for printing Black Friday silliness,
And I generally forgive most old sins when I know I got a package of stuffing for leftovers.
That was my great wish for Thanksgiving - a package of leftover stuffing.

not new ones (wink).

Dave Fragments said...

And by the way, those fake titles are very good. Mine weren't too great this time.
Thanks EE.