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Top Ten Unique Book Titles
1 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorcerer’s Stone
This is a unique title because back in the day (mid 90s) you didn’t get a lot of ‘So and so and the magical item’ titles. It’s not that unique now, but it certainly is recognisable, to the point where an author of a textbook I read for my university course wanted to call it ‘Harry Potter and the Ivory Tower’ but couldn’t, because people might have mistaken it for a book in the fiction series. She had to rename it The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter’. Also, anyone using the ‘name and the magical item’ nowadays is basically just trying to cash in on the Potter phenomenom.
2 The Hunger Games
It sure was a catchy title when it was first published. Why would anyone play a game about being hungry? But it worked.
3 Twilight
A book about a vampire romance named after a time of day? How was that supposed to work? But it did.
4 Simon v the Homo Sapiens Agenda
This is so catchy and a little weird. Why would a presumably homo sapien be working against the agenda? What IS the agenda? But it works, and I’ve seen quite a few ‘name vs something’ titles spring up.
5 The Fault in Our Stars
I’m not a huge fan of the book but I love the title because I love Shakespeare, and this is inspired by a Shakespeare quote, even if it means literally the opposite of what the quote says.
Cassius:
“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”Julius Caesar (I, ii, 140-141)
Cassius is trying to convince Brutus to betray beloved Caeser, by convincing him that all men are born equal and they choose their own fate. The book title literally says that people do not choose their own fate, that the fault of their illness is up to fate
6 Divergent
Before reading this, you might ask, What the heck does that even mean? It’s a word not used very often and as a one word title it works.
7 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
I couldn’t even remember this one, I had to google ‘potato peel pie’, but that just demonstrates how unique the title is.
8 Paranormalcy
It combines Paranormal with Normalcy and it works to give you a very basic idea that this is a book about the paranormal and that’s pretty normal to the main character.
9 Sabriel, Lirael, Clariel etc
Most of the Old Kingdom books are named after the women in the lead role, so they’re pretty easy to identify.
10 Memoirs of a Geisha
So it’s not an actual memoir, it’s fictional, but it’s so well written and the title is pretty clever that a lot of people think it actually is a true story.