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Shelf abuse ... your chance to mangle the titles of classic books. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Shelf abuse ... your chance to mangle the titles of classic books. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

Twitter names the #lesserbooks that didn't quite make the shelves

This article is more than 13 years old
Captain Corelli's Ukelele, The Pitcher of Dorian Gray, Murder On the National Express. Twitter fans are suggesting daft alternatives to classic titles. Can you do any better?

How about this for a way to while away Friday afternoon? The top trending topic on Twitter at the moment is #lesserbooks – reworkings of titles that don't quite cut the mustard. And the tweeting masses are coming up with some properly comic suggestions.

There are many variations on To Kill a Mockingbird ("To Slightly Maim", "To Injure") and The Great Gatsby ("The Not-as-shite-as-you-think", "The Fairly Good", "The Pretty OK") but I particularly liked:

@johncarneyau's Zen and the Art of Unicycle Maintenance

@HarryReginald's Things Stay Together

@AdGilmour's If on a Winter's Night a Quiche

And @yayforhome's Mr Correlli's Mandolin.

There's a lot of Lord of the Earrings, but I think the best ones I've spotted, for sheer simplicity, are @Sonofalink's Of Mice, and @robertoallen's 1983.

I've just been to scan my bookshelves and they've inspired me with A Hitchhiker's Guide to north London, As I Lay Slightly Unwell, The Year of the Leak, and The Golden Twig, but I'm hopeless at this kind of thing – if you're trying to distract yourself from the fact that the end of the day is still a couple of hours away, can you do any better?

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