Buy the book!

SUBMISSIONS: email Dan Wilbur
at dwilbs [at] gmail [dot] com

Visit danwilbur.com

Theme by Conkers. Redesign by Anya Garrett.

 
Save the date! Wednesday, June 6th @ 8:30 PM at Union Hall (702 Union St. Brooklyn). Comedians with Books features the funniest authors in NYC doing anything but reading from their own boring books! Come see a night of great stand-up comedy from humorists who have all penned novels, memoirs, and gift books you got for mom last Mother’s Day. Hosted by Better Book Titles creator, Dan Wilbur. Sponsored by Perigee books and Community Bookstore in Park Slope. Join Community Bookstore (143 7th Ave) for a pre-show BBQ at 6:00 PM. Free and open to the public, but BEA attendees can expect some special gifts! RSVP here. Lineup TBD. More book covers to come!

Save the date! Wednesday, June 6th @ 8:30 PM at Union Hall (702 Union St. Brooklyn).

Comedians with Books features the funniest authors in NYC doing anything but reading from their own boring books! Come see a night of great stand-up comedy from humorists who have all penned novels, memoirs, and gift books you got for mom last Mother’s Day. Hosted by Better Book Titles creator, Dan Wilbur.

Sponsored by Perigee books and Community Bookstore in Park Slope. Join Community Bookstore (143 7th Ave) for a pre-show BBQ at 6:00 PM.

Free and open to the public, but BEA attendees can expect some special gifts!

RSVP here.

Lineup TBD.

More book covers to come!




  
I wrote a book version of Better Book Titles called How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life that will be published by Perigee (Penguin Imprint) on September 4th, 2012! You will be able to buy it anywhere you find books (for tips on where that is, buy the book!) but I also want to let you know you can buy the book from me personally at the store where I am currently a bookseller: Community Bookstore in Park Slope (143 7th Ave Brooklyn, NY). Not only will I sign every book bought from Community Bookstore, but I will also redesign (by hand!) a better book jacket for my own book! And that cover can be whatever you want, such as “Super Sad True Bookstore Jokes” or, if you’re a dick: “Dan Wilbur Got Fat Since High School, so I Bought This Book Because I Felt Bad for Him.” Visit the Community Bookstore link below to find out how to pre-order a copy with a custom book jacket: Community Bookstore Website You can also pre-order the book from any of the following: Powell’s Indie Bound Amazon Barnes and Noble Penguin’s websiteFor booksellers: Order you 200 copies here! (There’s even a counter unit!) ABOUT THE BOOK:How Not to Read helps readers—make that former readers—master literature without ever needing to read another book ever again! The book includes:• Tips for getting through anything you have to read by just reading every third word—so “Call me Ishmael” becomes simply “Ishmael” and One Hundred Years of Solitude becomes “Many as the Colonel was, that when him ice” Wow! It’s like a Gertrude Stein poem only more comprehensible!• How to fake it through a conversation about a book you haven’t read• How to use literary insults to make yourself sound smarter like “The only thing sadder than you is a Joycean epiphany!” or “Your Mama’s so fat, her Dewey Decimal number must be in the 521s… for Celestial Mechanics!” 176 pages of literary jokes! Plus 32 full-color favorites from Better Book Titles.ABOUT DAN:Dan Wilbur is a bookseller and stand-up comedian living in Brooklyn. His writing has been featured on Collegehumor.com, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and The Onion News Network. See more of Dan here.

I wrote a book version of Better Book Titles called How Not to Read: Harnessing the Power of a Literature-Free Life that will be published by Perigee (Penguin Imprint) on September 4th, 2012!

You will be able to buy it anywhere you find books (for tips on where that is, buy the book!) but I also want to let you know you can buy the book from me personally at the store where I am currently a bookseller: Community Bookstore in Park Slope (143 7th Ave Brooklyn, NY). Not only will I sign every book bought from Community Bookstore, but I will also redesign (by hand!) a better book jacket for my own book! And that cover can be whatever you want, such as “Super Sad True Bookstore Jokes” or, if you’re a dick: “Dan Wilbur Got Fat Since High School, so I Bought This Book Because I Felt Bad for Him.”

Visit the Community Bookstore link below to find out how to pre-order a copy with a custom book jacket:

Community Bookstore Website

You can also pre-order the book from any of the following:

Powell’s

Indie Bound

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Penguin’s website
For booksellers: Order you 200 copies here! (There’s even a counter unit!)

ABOUT THE BOOK:
How Not to Read helps readers—make that former readers—master literature without ever needing to read another book ever again! The book includes:
• Tips for getting through anything you have to read by just reading every third word—so “Call me Ishmael” becomes simply “Ishmael” and One Hundred Years of Solitude becomes “Many as the Colonel was, that when him ice” Wow! It’s like a Gertrude Stein poem only more comprehensible!
• How to fake it through a conversation about a book you haven’t read
• How to use literary insults to make yourself sound smarter like “The only thing sadder than you is a Joycean epiphany!” or “Your Mama’s so fat, her Dewey Decimal number must be in the 521s… for Celestial Mechanics!”

176 pages of literary jokes! Plus 32 full-color favorites from Better Book Titles.

ABOUT DAN:
Dan Wilbur is a bookseller and stand-up comedian living in Brooklyn. His writing has been featured on Collegehumor.com, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and The Onion News Network. See more of Dan here.




  

This week, Better Book Titles turned 2 years old: 5 Million visits, over 400 book titles, and there will soon be a book version! Thank you everyone for the positive feedback and all the great submissions.

I wanted to share a related blog I started with my friend Robert Dean, called Unquotables. Here are some of my favorites.

Happy Fourth of July!



  
Dearest Better Book Titlers, We’re nearing the release of How Not to Read  (September 4th) and I want to see what others come up with as a better book title for the Better Book Titles book. All you have to do is write an e-mail to betterbooktitlebook@gmail.com with a new funny title and I’ll announce the winner next Friday (8/24) and post my favorite ones here. The people who submit the best re-titles will receive a FREE ADVANCE COPY of How Not to Read! The book includes my favorite covers, tips on avoiding terrible books and the terrible people who read them, and summing up whole genres of literature in a single sentence. Examples of my favorite re-titles include: Abridged Too Far, The Secret (but with More Jokes about Drugs and Poop), and Daniel Deronda with Fewer Jews. Happy writing! Dan

Dearest Better Book Titlers,

We’re nearing the release of How Not to Read  (September 4th) and I want to see what others come up with as a better book title for the Better Book Titles book.

All you have to do is write an e-mail to betterbooktitlebook@gmail.com with a new funny title and I’ll announce the winner next Friday (8/24) and post my favorite ones here. The people who submit the best re-titles will receive a FREE ADVANCE COPY of How Not to Read!

The book includes my favorite covers, tips on avoiding terrible books and the terrible people who read them, and summing up whole genres of literature in a single sentence. Examples of my favorite re-titles include: Abridged Too Far, The Secret (but with More Jokes about Drugs and Poop), and Daniel Deronda with Fewer Jews.

Happy writing!

Dan




  

The best Comics and Graphic Novels on Better Book Titles.

Better Book Titles will be in BOOK FORM (“How Not to Read”) on 9/4!



  

The winners of the unnamed “name my book” contest are: Joshua Herman and Jesse Nussbaum. Congrats!

I hope Joshua is incorrect, but his title made me laugh. There are so many books left to cover. More Better Book Titles to come! Thanks for all the entries. The runner-up was from Gino’s “The Red Badge of Smugness.”

If you’d like a copy of HOW NOT TO READ with a custom cover click here to find out where to pre-order it!



  



  

Part 1 of How to Survive a Book Club. Brought to you by Better Book Titles.

Buy the book here!



  

Part 2 of Surviving a Book Club: How to Pretend You’ve Read a Book

Buy the book here!



  
This Tuesday 9/4 at Housing Works Bookstore. Free beer and wine and comedy! Copies of “How Not to Read” will be available! RSVP HERE Co-sponsored by Tumblr, Community Bookstore, and Perigee. Flyer by Anya Garrett. Where you can see Dan if you can’t make this show.

This Tuesday 9/4 at Housing Works Bookstore.

Free beer and wine and comedy! Copies of “How Not to Read” will be available!

RSVP HERE

Co-sponsored by Tumblr, Community Bookstore, and Perigee. Flyer by Anya Garrett.

Where you can see Dan if you can’t make this show.




  
Every bookstore should look like Community Bookstore today.  Thanks, everyone! Here’s where you can get the book.

Every bookstore should look like Community Bookstore today. 

Thanks, everyone! Here’s where you can get the book.




  
Posts worth reading…

Hello Better Book Titlers!

I wanted to take a moment and share some stuff I wrote in the past week I think you’ll like:

Huffington Post: 10 Books That Taught Me Reading Books is Bullshit

Powell’s Blog: How Rude Customers See Indie Bookstores

Powell’s Blog: A Missing Page from My Book

Powell’s Blog: YELP Reviews are the new novels

And for non-readers, here’s some stand-up…

If you enjoy any of this (or even if you don’t) please consider my book, “How Not to Read”!

Dan