Book titles

Would great books have become great if they’d been titled differently? Ben Macintyre says that the words that are the most important in any book are the ones that grace the front cover. Books, he says, live or die by their titles. Catch-22 would probably not have worked as the original Catch-18, and it’s a fact that in the book title department less is more.

Whether they intended to or not, these authors gave their books names that will make readers laugh or cringe before they even open the first page. From the list, classics like "How to Avoid Huge Ships", "Be Bold with Bananas" and "How to Be a Pope: What to Do and Where to Go Once You're in the Vatican"...

Titling your book is a bit like naming your child. Here are five rules for choosing a title that won’t get your baby picked on by other, bigger books.