Top Ten Tuesday – Sometimes One Word is Enough: My Favorite One-Word Book Titles
Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Top Ten Tuesday has been one of my favorite memes ever since I started blogging, so huge thanks to Jana for taking over the hosting duties!
This week’s TTT topic is Books With Single-Word Titles. As someone who has always struggled to be concise with their writing, there’s just something so impressive to me about single-word book titles. It amazes me that authors are able to so perfectly capture the essence of the hundreds and hundreds of pages they’ve written with a single word. And I don’t know about you guys, but I often find those one-word titles to be way more powerful than their multi-word counterparts. In some cases, they perfectly capture the magic of a book, while in others, they succinctly convey the horrific vibe. And yet in still others, they are deliberately ambiguous so as to keep you guessing as to their meaning.
Anyway, enough of that. Below are ten of my favorite one-word titles.
(Sorry. I just watched The Princess Bride and can’t get this quote out of my head.)
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My Favorite One-Word Book Titles
(in no particular order)
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I agree! Single-word titles are much more powerful, especially more than some of those wordy fantasy titles. I just got Scythe from the library and can’t wait to read it!
I hope you love Scythe. I loved it and Thunderhead and just bought the last book in the series.
As much as I love a long complex title, you’re right, it IS powerful to just have one word to describe a book. I like the ones that are kind of dark, like Heartless and Vengeful!
I really like the dark ones too. They sound so ominous.
It doesn’t get much more concise than IT. A simple two-letter title, but for anyone who has read the book, it says it all.
And points for The Princess Bride gif. Such a classic – one I never get tired of. My husband and I quote it all the time. LOL
LOL! Yay for another Princess Bride fan. 🙂
Great list! I’ve seen Geekerella on quite a few lists this week – I think it’s a sign I should finally read it.
I think so too. 🙂
I love this list, I’ve also read several of these. And you’ve reminded me I still need to read Geekerella!
Such a fun book.
Oooh Great List!!! Uprooted is one of my favorite books <3 But I also loved Geekerella, and Pride! I didn't finish Vengeful, but I loved Vicious!
I still need to read Uprooted. Hopefully this year!
So many great books on your list! I do think it’s awesome how authors can limit their title to just one word sometimes.
-Lauren
Right? It’s so impressive!
It was a great choice! That book taught me to fear clowns. LOL.
My TTT .
LOL!
I am impressed, when the author can pick a single word title, and sum up the book. That’s not an easy task. Geekerella was a fun title. The combination of the inspiration with the retelling spin was fun.
Geekerella is definitely one of my favorites. It makes me smile every time I see it because it’s just so clever.
I really enjoyed Pride and Heartless too! I am very slowly making my way through It by King but really enjoyed it. And I was recently gifted Beloved for my birthday and cannot wait to read it ^.^ I was struggling to think of one word titles but you have a lot of good picks here!
I hope you enjoy Beloved. It’s a hard read but such a powerful one.
Vengeful and Scythe made it onto my list today as well! Such amazing reads 😍 I’ve heard so much about the Unsub and it totally sounds like my jam. I love Criminal Minds and it’s defo giving me those vibes. Great list 😀
I absolutely love the UNSUB series and highly recommend it if you’re into Criminal Minds.
Second comment to say: by amazing coincidence, not THREE DAYS AGO I was tooling around book lists and going, “Man, I would really love to find a book that reminds me of Criminal Minds.” Thanks for the rec!
You’re welcome!
You’re right, it is incredibly impressive that authors can capture their books in one word. I truly was certain that I hadn’t read that many books with one word titles, and I was so wrong!
I was the exact same way. Once I started thinking about it, I probably could have easily named 20 really good ones.
I am so with you on Caraval! 🙂
Scythe and Uprooted are on my TBR. I can’t wait to get to them. 🙂
I hope you enjoy them both!
Great List here Suzanne, and I love how you used a variety of genres and types of books! It is such a scary story. Geekerella looks super cute, and I love the cover of Heartless. I’ve been wanting to try out a book by Marissa Meyer. I’ve heard nothing but great things about her stories 🙂
I love Marissa Meyer’s books, especially her Lunar Chronicles series. It’s so much fun!
None of this are on my read or to-be-read lists, but they are all great examples of what you described in your opening paragraph. Speaking of which, I was almost disappointed it was only a paragraph — it felt like I was about to read a really cool essay, which is my long-winded way of saying, well said! (Brought to you by: my current headspace still being full of Ann Bogel’s “I’d Rather Be Reading” book of musings).
Thanks!
I still need to read Uprooted! It’s been on my Kindle forever. Thanks for reminding me. 👍✨
You’re welcome! 🙂