Millions of contemporary readers are ignoring great books, turned off by titles that strike them as inaccessible, politically incorrect, or hopelessly retro. The classics can remain relevant to the Facebook generation—but only if editors muster the courage to make minor but necessary revisions such as the following titles suggest:
The Heart Is A Lonely Tweeter
Uncle Tom’s Condo
Tobacco Free Road
The Catcher in the Cannabis
Zen and the Art of Facebook Maintenance
Finnegan’s Cremation
As I Lay Frozen (with a preface by Ted Williams)
A Rolex Orange
Fed-X Only Knocks Once
Topper Takes a Carnival Cruise
Gone With Solyndra
Death of a Hedge Fund Trader
Bartleby the Occupier
Meth in Venice
Jude the Publicity Wonk
Franny and Zuckerberg
The Sisters Kardashian
Go Tell It on the Maddow
Depravity’s Rainbow
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Wed
X-Rated Makeovers:
A Tale of Two Titties
Moby’s Dick
Lord of the Thighs
The Old Man and the Semen
Butch Assidy and the Bundance Kid
The Celebrated Humping Frog of Calaveras County