10 Books [besides 50 Shades of Grey] that should be sold alongside mine.

So many of you will know by now that i wrote a book.

My buddy Brad went online yesterday to buy a copy from the UK Amazon store. Did i mention that my book is called ‘i, church’ and, somewhat strangely enough, it is about the church?

What was surprising to Brad, and later to me, was that alongside my book in a if-you-buy-this-you-should-probably-also-buy-this kind of way was ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, the erotic romance novel which i dare to believe is probably not about church.

Which got me to thinking? If Fifty Shades of Gray is an obvious choice, then what other books should be sold alongside mine? And these are the top 10 i came up with [with thankx to Brandon Jones for the suggestion]:

[10] Does God ever speak through Cats? by David Evans. Clearly it’s a classic and i don’t think one more word needs to be said about this. Sometimes the title says it all.

[9] Further Reflections on the Conversations of Our Time by Judith Butler which contained this award winning sentence:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

i should probably mention the prize it one was for worst sentence, awarded in the Fourth Bad Writing Contest held by the scholarly journal, ‘Philosophy and Literature’.

[8] Good-bye, Testicles by Anne Welsh Guy – it is like you can’t make this stuff up. Mainly because you can’t. This is an actual book and it is a travesty that when you try to buy my book online, they do not have this one propped up besides it…

Okay, to be fair, having done quite a bit of research “just to make sure” it looks like ‘Good-bye, Testicles’ may not be a real book and is actually just a manipulated version of the well-known classic, ‘Good-bye tonsils’ which is possibly almost as bad and should be sold alongside my book and WHAT IS IN THAT BUCKET that those kids are taking to the well?

[7] Revelation Road: Hope beyond the Horizon by Bill Salus

While it may seem to some, that the ‘Hope’ referred to in the subtitle appears to resemble a double nuclear mushroom cloud, we are going to have to trust the ‘Helpful Commentary’ that is included by Bill to make sense of this one.

[6] The book that Ali Kawashima would have written if she had completed this incredible romance novel which won the Bulwer-Lytton prize for Worst Opening Sentence in the Romance category for:

As the dark and mysterious stranger approached, Angela bit her lip anxiously, hoping with every nerve, cell, and fiber of her being that this would be the one man who would understand – who would take her away from all this – and who would not just squeeze her boob and make a loud honking noise, as all the others had.

[5] It’s not going to get any better when you grow up – by Drew Bledsoe. Wow, Drew, bit of a downer there, but at least you are being a little more honest to us than Bill was, cos frankly that little ‘Don’t-worry-about-the-mushroom-cloud’ thing was a little bit too much.

i’m not going to lie, it’s as if every day that feels a little more true. Definitely if it was called ‘It’s not going to get an Easier when you grow up’ cos Better and Worse feels a bit like a Rollercoaster but complicated is on the up. Excuse me while i go add this book to my wishlist…

[4] The Long Journey of Mister Poop by Angèle Delaunois – as stated earlier, you just can’t make this stuff up. Although the title does seem to be a bit misleading as ‘The Journey of Mr Long Poop’ seems to be a bit more on key, given the illustration. i think my favourite part of this whole book is that it is in Spanish too. And let’s be honest, the Spanish title sounds a lot more fun: El gran viaje del Señor Caca [i’m not gonna lie, i could amuse myself for hours by repeating El gran viaje del Señor Caca to myself].

What’s it about? Well according to Amazon, A smart wolf in a lab coat leads kids on a journey through their digestive system – following the path of an apple that gets eaten and goes through the digestive system ending with: ‘and finally . . . well, you know. Hint: It doesn’t smell like roses here.’ A must read.

[3] Amish Vampires in Space by Kerry Nietz – words completely fail me, except to question why this book is not being recommended when people purchase mine?

Although, wait now. The book description starts: ‘Jebediah has a secret that will change his world forever and send his people into space’ – last time i heard, the Amish could not even use telephones… How are they doing all this ‘getting into space’ stuff? Is Jebediah’s secret that he embraces technology? Maybe this book is more worth reading than i thought.

[2] Knitting with Dog Hair by Kendall Crolius and Anne Montgomery – This isn’t such a dramatically amazing book title but it’s the subtitle that gets me: ‘Better a sweater from the dog you know and love than from a sheep you’ll never meet.’ If you look even closer you’ll see there’s an even smaller blurb urging you to ‘Stop vacuuming and start knitting.’

So there you have it. If Amazon runs out of ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ copies, these are the nine books they should recommend alongside my book, which all are pretty much natural companions. Oh wait, i did say ten though. And i will be devastated if someone doesn’t find some reason to complain about this, but when i googled ‘Bad Book Titles and Covers’ and saw this, it was an instant number 1 because WHAT? WHAT? Um… WHAT?

[1] The Big Coloring Book of Vaginas by Morgan Hastings

While i literally do have absolutely no words [and yes, i really seems like this is really a real book] the book itself does: 30 pages of illustrated vaginas with games such as word search, connect the dots, and an “all about my vagina” section.

Connect the dots?

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, 10 books [besides 50 Shades of Gray] that should be sold alongside mine…

Any others you would recommend?

[If you enjoyed this you might like 10 Ways to ask for a Demotion or a Pay-Cut, click here]