Good gift for a word-nerd

Aardvarks After Dark
by Michael Gould    

Michael Gould says he has a condition identified as titleitis, and he has produced a book to prove it. Aardvarks After Dark contains lists of them.

    No stories – just titles! He says the chance of his ever writing a novel is unlikely, and a book of non-fiction just as slim, but if he does at least he’ll have the title ready.

    Most of the titles are 2 (Rattlesnake Cake) to 5 (The Turkey Man From Turkestan) words long, with the longest extending to 11 words (The Word of the Lord is Like A Biblical Umbilical Cord). These make the current trend of flash fiction look verbose. It is in the subtitle (Sex and Subtext in 1000 Curious Book Titles And How to Find the Right Title For Any and Every Occasion) where the Author is as loquacious as he gets.

    The titles are written with a sense of fun concentrating on the bizarre, and employing rhyme and alliteration. 

    If by any chance some of the suggested books do get written I’ll definitely avoid The Duchess Takes a Douche, Psychosis and Halitosis, Memoirs from the Abattoir, Scrotum of a Factotum, Repository of Suppositories, Caress My Carcass When I’m Gone, and many more.

    On the other hand, some might prove fascinating if anyone has a mind to try – Oysters in the Cloisters, The Hearse Driver’s Dress Rehearsal, the Monkey Played in One Key Only, Kissing the Toad at the End of the Road.

    In the case of a book like this it’s hardly possible to judge the writing. Let me just say I had no animosity to the verbosity, and spotted just one apostrophe catastrophe.
    A good gift for a word-nerd, perhaps.

Review by Kauri Wood

Aardvarks after Dark: Sex and Subtext in 1000 Curious Book Titles and How to Find the Right Title for Any and Every Occasion
By Michael Gould. Illustrations by Doug Allen
Publisher: Feel the Surreal Books (Wellington)
ISBN: 978-0-473-19624-0 (coil bound)
ISBN: 978-0-473-25307-3 (e-book)
Currently only available as an e-book:
Amazon Kindle, Kobo and meBooks (NZ)