Thursday, December 2, 2010

3 Best Book Titles + A New Contender

I've always thought that the three best book titles ever are:
  1. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
  2. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
  3. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
Each one has rhythm and each one has a kicker after caesura that elevates the title to greatness.  And each book is a serious work; the titles aren't intentionally funny. In fact, I don't find them funny at all, just marvelous sequences of words, veritable one line poems.

Now I've found a new title to add to this list. It is in a series of books published by Oxford Press, so it has a clipped English feel to it:

         Nothing A Very Short Introduction. 

I like that they don't bother with a colon in the title.  This book answers the question, "Why is there something instead of nothing." The short answer in the short book is that "nothing" creates "something." As the book says, the universe is the ultimate free lunch.

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