haha i was just thinking about this but i couldn't really articulate it, of course there's an ilx thread.
it is annoying.
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 18:35 (one year ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Map_of_Tiny_Perfect_Things?wprov=sfla1
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:03 (one year ago) link
How many books have titles like this and the front cover is just large type white font with a background of interlaced CGI flowers
― omar little, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:08 (one year ago) link
this title convention is like a mash-up of grown-up YA, multicult Chick Lit, McSweeney's sincere-core and cutesy crime fiction.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:09 (one year ago) link
The God of Small Things (perhaps the book that kicked this off?)
Well, Thomas Berger published the western novel Little Big Man in 1964. It was a Dustin Hoffman film in 1970.
John Crowley published the fantasy novel Little, Big in 1981.
Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things came out in 1997.
So I get the annoyance with a twee cliché (tweeché?), but comic juxtaposition and cognitive dissonance are as old as literature. (Cf. Shakespeare, "Though she be but little, she is fierce.")
I don't know whom to blame but it seems unfair to blame Arundhati Roy.
Maybe giving atomic bombs cute names Fat Man and Little Boy was in poor taste.
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:29 (one year ago) link
of course there are antecedents but having worked in a bookstore from the late 90s to the late 00s there was a definite in titles like this in that era. The God of Small Things sounded kind of profound and cozy at the same time, which is the vibe I get from a lot of these.
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:36 (one year ago) link
One time when something bad failed to happen - like I dropped a glass and it didn't break - my girlfriend said "thank the thousand little gods."
I don't know where that came from but I found it charming and I married her.
Shit, maybe I'm the problem.
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:46 (one year ago) link
Also, Little Earthquakes rocks. Do not mess with 90s Tori.
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 19:48 (one year ago) link
Big Trouble in Little China?
― Ste, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 20:01 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KClygZtp8mA
― Alba, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 21:44 (one year ago) link
A little bit of Monica in my lifeA little bit of Erica by my side
― Andy the Grasshopper, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 21:57 (one year ago) link
Just saw this tweet and came to revive. Glad to see we're already on top of it.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the seventh thing with this title to have been released in the past five years pic.twitter.com/4E3jYU7y7j— Charles Bramesco (@intothecrevasse) April 5, 2023
― jaymc, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 23:19 (one year ago) link
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/13/be/fb13be08624cd5b136fa66951f715abb.jpg
― jmm, Wednesday, 5 April 2023 23:32 (one year ago) link
Damn, guess I need to retitle my forthcoming novel A Heartbreaking Work of Diminuitive Shiny Objects. Maybe I will call it Small Items that Are Actually Big instead.
Bummer because Wes Anderson was set to direct and Michael Cera had expressed interest.
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 23:41 (one year ago) link
It's actually part of a trilogy that is tentatively called Large Yet Small: the Quiet Loud Saga
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 5 April 2023 23:44 (one year ago) link
Extremely Big & Incredibly Tiny
― INDEPENDENTS DAY BY STEVEN SPILBERG (President Keyes), Thursday, 6 April 2023 00:00 (one year ago) link
Medium-Sized and Completely Reasonable
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 6 April 2023 00:08 (one year ago) link
Sadly I got no traction in Hollywood for my script of Nothing Nowhere All at Different Times.
― she loves me like a rock lobster (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 6 April 2023 00:14 (one year ago) link
Extremely Tiny, Shockingly Big, and Things
― Vinnie, Thursday, 6 April 2023 00:50 (one year ago) link
Sounds like a good movie, unfortunately I will probably be unable to hear or see the title without thinking about this https://t.co/TCGT63Oicp pic.twitter.com/BVN5WDXBrD— Jonathan (@jonathanmb32) February 15, 2024
― Alba, Friday, 16 February 2024 16:20 (two months ago) link
The End We Start From is a 2023 British survival film directed by Mahalia Belo and starring Jodie Comer, with Benedict Cumberbatch, Katherine Waterston and Mark Strong.
― visiting, Monday, 19 February 2024 04:19 (two months ago) link
Meant to find and bump this thread for Wicked Little Letters.
― emil.y, Monday, 19 February 2024 14:39 (two months ago) link
All Things Are Too Small by Becca Rothfeld review – bracing and brilliant essay collection https://t.co/JYIGT00JCW— Observer New Review (@ObsNewReview) March 25, 2024
All Things Are Too Small serves as comment on the whole phenomenon
― Alba, Monday, 25 March 2024 09:33 (one month ago) link
Sounds like an answer song to Blink 182
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 09:40 (one month ago) link
I thought the harpy was ok but I would never have picked it up if I knew the author had previously written something with a title as shit as “the end we start from”
― cozen itt (wins), Monday, 25 March 2024 10:24 (one month ago) link
"All the Light We Cannot See" is another egregious example of this. What about it????
― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Monday, 25 March 2024 10:58 (one month ago) link
Becca Rothfeld: ‘a philosopher, polemicist and wit’ - and author of an essay on Talking Heads , which cries out to be considered in "OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever"?
― Dr Drudge (Bob Six), Monday, 25 March 2024 11:49 (one month ago) link
Talking Heads connection is making me wonder if you could trace a line between this old David Byrne quote and the bad title phenomenon:
I try to write about small things. Paper, animals, a house…love is kind of big. I have written a love song, though. In this film, I sing it to a lamp.
― soref, Monday, 25 March 2024 11:58 (one month ago) link
to all the lights ive loved before
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 25 March 2024 12:05 (one month ago) link
All the Bruno we don't talk about
― nashwan, Monday, 25 March 2024 12:46 (one month ago) link
Little Creatures
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 13:36 (one month ago) link
he did an album with Eno in 2008 called 'Everything That Happens Will Happen Today' which feels in the same ballpark
― soref, Monday, 25 March 2024 13:43 (one month ago) link
A bold attempt to dethrone Blink-182 and Arundhati Roy in one book.
― jmm, Monday, 25 March 2024 13:52 (one month ago) link
i run a queer book club in my neighborhood and last month we read the acclaimed 2022 novel all this could be different. book was even worse than its title
― ivy., Monday, 25 March 2024 15:46 (one month ago) link
review- "pity it wasnt"
― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 25 March 2024 15:53 (one month ago) link
Current Indie Bookstore Bestsellers:
Incredibly Bright CreaturesThe Heaven and Earth Grocery Store
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 16:01 (one month ago) link
On the whole, is this phenomenon worse than the 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen' 'Shitting Lemons in Sicily' nonsense from the 00s?
― I would prefer not to. (Chinaski), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:11 (one month ago) link
House of Blank and Blank is another format I hate
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 19:15 (one month ago) link
House of Earth and BloodHouse of Sky and BreathHouse of Sand and FogHouse of Flame and ShadowHouse of Salt and SorrowsHouse of Ash and ShadowsHouse of Roots and RuinHouse of Lies and SorrowHouse of Bane and BloodHouse of Velvet and GlassHouse of War and BoneHouse of Ivy and Sorrow
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 19:26 (one month ago) link
there's a new show called Apple Never Falls
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:29 (one month ago) link
is it on Apple TV?
― President Keyes, Monday, 25 March 2024 19:30 (one month ago) link
I thought half of those "House Of" titles were made up! But they all seem genuine.
House of Words and RiversHouse of Mist and MemoriesHouse of Clocks and EaglesHouse of Ice and Conjury
Could do this all day really.
― I saw three hippies saving a whale (Matt #2), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:54 (one month ago) link
I hate the name Everything Everywhere All At Once, fwiw, which also makes me think of the two JSF novel titles I also hate: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Everything Is Illuminated.
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:55 (one month ago) link
Oh I guess two of those were addressed above
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:56 (one month ago) link
it makes me think of Everything, All At Once, Forever, because I am a Indie
― imago, Monday, 25 March 2024 19:57 (one month ago) link
I can go to the amnesty bookshop at any given time & find like 5 random novels that do the flaubert’s parrot/wittgenstein’s mistress thing: Adorno’s dildo, Hitler’s cufflinks, Proust’s GameBoy &c
― cozen itt (wins), Monday, 25 March 2024 20:20 (one month ago) link
Remarkably Bright Creatures
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 25 March 2024 20:32 (one month ago) link
haha just realized someone posted that one upthread but got the title was wrong, hence I didn't find it in ctrl f
https://images-us.bookshop.org/ingram/9780143127550.jpg?height=500&v=v2-a7d1aa0651c054931f75e188866634b8
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, 25 March 2024 20:33 (one month ago) link
and yet, and yet
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 25 March 2024 20:35 (one month ago) link