A year after Marisha Pessl became the Hot Young and Overeducated Literary Chick with Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Galleycat reports that there’s a new Hot Young and Overeducated Literary Chick in the making named Rivka Galchen, who has a book called Atmospheric Disturbances and Other Sad Meteorological Phenomena.
Call me crazy, but there’s a title trend here, which I suppose would make this blog post a “trend piece” or perhaps a “trend blog post.” Since I am a philanthropist and I greatly desire to see more women in literary fiction, I hope to help all future Hot Young and Overeducated Literary Chicks get their book deals. With this spirit in mind, I have assembled a helpful list of future titles that might be used to acquire additional book deals:
Naughty Novelties in Quantum Mechanics
Geophysical Undercurrents in Close Proximity
Seismic Shifts and Other Assorted Miracles on the San Andreas Fault
Astronomical Gastronomy and the Burden of Astral-Intestinal Alignments
Zoological Bliss in the Existential Biosphere
Newton’s Ventricles and Ancillary Universal Gravitations
Metaphysical Heartbeats and the Critique of Pure Reason
I would definitely read Zoological Bliss in the Existential Biosphere. Quick, somebody write it.
I know you can’t copywrite a title, but for nine years now I’ve been hard at work on a novel entitled Newton’s Ventricles and Ancillary Universal Gravitations. Now I feel like all of that effort has been wasted. It’s not fair. Would you consider replacing MY title in your otherwise fine list with one of the following: String Bikini Theory; Neuroparticles and Waves; I Fell in Love with Him in Planck Time; or Galatea 2.2. Thank you for your consideration.
right
That can’t really be the title of her book, can it? Really?
you’re an idiot. get your “humanity unlimited” published, and then you can make fun of other titles
That tiny tree falling in an infinitesimal forest that nobody hears or notices? That’s Fred’s sense of humor departing into the ether.
I stumbled on your site searching for Rivka Galchen after seeing her story in the New Yorker. I knew her from childhood.
Would you be more forgiving of the title if you knew her father was a meteorology professor who specialized in said phenomena?