Books That Live Up to their Humorous Titles

A fad of my youth was to give books long titles that could be read as jokes, whether or not the books were funny, or even unintentionally funny. I don't remember the plots of several books with titles like Nobody Has to Stay a Kid Forever and Ask for Love and They Give You Rice Pudding that I skimmed, hoping they'd be funny, and returned to libraries, feeling that they were earnest and whiny. 

Mention should probably be made here of a young-adult novel my brother threatened to write, but afaik never did, about the special problems of being a Granola Green teenager, called All I Want Is to Eat My Date Seed in Peace. (In the 1970s some Granola Greens really did suck on date seeds as an alternative to chewing gum or smoking.)

Several of these books were aimed at readers in the early teen years, but I thought their content delivered what the titles promised. Oh, and not all of them come from the 1970s, though most do. 

The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams 

The titles of all five volumes in the Hitchhiker's Trilogy were funny at the time but are probably too familiar to everyone in cyberspace to raise a chortle any more. This was a standalone volume in which Adams proposed using real place names as words with meanings. 

Is There Life on a Plastic Planet by Mildred Ames 

Two teenagers who don't like each other much meet some people who seem like the perfect friends, except that they're not human. 

Miss Piggy's Guide to Life by Henry Beard 

The most popular character on "The Muppet Show" discusses topics like fashion, etiquette, and health. This book is totally 1980. Read it and, if you remember 1980, you're time-travelling.

Stop the World Our Gerbils Are Loose by Theresa Bloomingdale 

1970s mom-com. 

The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck 

1970s mom-com. Often bundled together with If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What Am I Doing in the Pits and other volumes of Bombeck's comedy columns. By this time cartoons of children's bare bottoms weren't considered funny; detailed reproductions of 1970s fashions were. 

On Getting Old for the First Time by Peg Bracken 

In which the retired humor columnist reflects on other people's aging processes and now, with fresh amusement, on her own. 

The Cat Ate My Gym Suit by Paula Danziger 

Marcy, who is overweight and hates gym, falls in love with a sympathetic teacher, Ms. Finney. Then Ms. Finney quits her job. 

If I Ever Get Back to Georgia I'm Going to Nail My Feet to the Ground by Lewis Grizzard 

Reprinted newspaper columns, mostly funny. Sometimes bundled together with other collections like Don't Bend Over in the Garden Grandma You Know Them Taters Got Eyes. 

How to Tame a Wild Bore by Kathy Grizzard Lewis

An ex-wife's stories about living with a man whose mother failed to teach him basic self-care skills like cooking, cleaning, and mending. 

This School Is Driving Me Crazy by Nat Hentoff

What's driving Sam crazy is having to go to the school where his father is the headmaster. He has more ordinary teen problems, and wants to solve them himself with no help from his father.

The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff 

Teenagers learn about censorship when local adults want to ban Huckleberry Finn. 

There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos by Jim Hightower 

Snarky humor about facts from early versions of debates still raging today. 

You Got to Dance with Them That Brung Ya by Molly Ivins 

She was a Democrat, but the tackiness of Bill Clinton made her ask herself why. 

Due to Lack of Interest Tomorrow Has Been Cancelled by Irene Kampen 

An empty-nest mother tries to go back and finish her college degree. 

Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman 

A teacher's first term in an urban high school, told mostly through messages on scraps of paper she receives from students and co-workers, with a few explanatory letters she writes to an old school friend in the evenings. 

Please Don't Eat the Daisies by Jean Kerr 

Early 1960s mom-com. Includes a cartoon illustration of the mother trying to spank tots fresh from the bathtub and observing that you couldn't have imagined how many bottoms a pair of twins seem to have. So younger readers may not like it, but I grew up with it and did and do. 

I'll Love You When You're More Like Me by M.E. Kerr 

Teenagers feel unloved by older people who disapprove of their choices. 

Nobody Is Perfick by Bernard Waber 

Graphic fiction. In the title story a boy called "Peter Perfect," who has never lost so much as a glove, motivates other kids to picket, waving signs like "Peter Perfect is perfectly horrible." 

Who Wants Music on Monday by Mary Slattery Stolz 

It's not about music. It's about what happens when the "pretty and popular" blonde sister and the "late-blooming" arty sister like the same boy. But it is funny.

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain 

This book could be said to have started the fashions for time travel fantasies and for long funny-or-at-least-ridiculous titles. A man finds himself transported through time and space to a world he can bedazzle with his superior knowledge of technology. 

Pardon Me You're Stepping on My Eyeball by Paul Zindel 

A snarky, funny boy and an earnest, love-starved girl make a romantic adventure of disposing of his father's ashes.