I thought that dissertation titles were often unnecessarily long-winded, but these book titles take the cake. You can vote for your favorite one here. In the running this year:

''How Green Were the Nazis?'' by Thomas Zeller, Franz-Josef Bruggemeier and Mark Cioc.

''The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification,'' by Julian Montague. (This one is my personal favorite.)

''Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan,'' by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie. (Spoon boxes!)

''Di Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream, Di Mascio of Coventry, an Ice Cream Company of Repute, With an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans,'' by Roger De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher, and Alan Wilkinson. (Let's not kid ourselves, it's all about how cool your ice-cream van is.)

''Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium.'' (Really? They've needed to meet 18 times to discuss seaweed? I guess it's true that it can really gunk up your motor...)

''Better Never To Have Been: the Harm of Coming Into Existence,'' by David Benatar. (You think he's related to Pat Benatar? Maybe he's jealous of her success, and wishes he never was.)