Happy Independence Day, my American friends! Here’s a word game you can play in the comments, or with your families. We play it with book titles and authors, but it can be easily adapted to movies and directors if you’re more a movie buff than a reader.
The game is simple. You put the name of a book before the name of its author. Funniest combination wins. The inspiration (per Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books, who credits author Gardner Dozois) was The Man Who Melted by Jack Dann: hence The Man Who Melted Jack Dann.
Nielsen Hayden’s favourite is Two Sisters Gore Vidal. A few more of my favourites quoted by Nielsen Hayden include A Time to Kill John Grisham, The First Wives Club Olivia Goldsmith, The Complete Guide to Home Canning, Preserving, and Freezing The U.S. Department of Agriculture, and on a more disgusting note, Eaters of the Dead Michael Crichton.
The best one I came up with myself the last time I played was probably Oliver Twist Charles Dickens. If not for the pesky apostrophe it could have been Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone J.K Rowling.
Have fun!
