If you’re writing a book and want to title it some iteration of The Man Who…, that makes you the man or woman who titles your book like everyone else. That’s because typing in “the man who” into a Goodreads search yields 2,567 results–and that’s not including titles that being with “the man in” (The Man in the High Castle, The Man in the Iron Mask). The only title template more common is “_____ & _____” (War & Peace, Sense and Sensibility). But PWxyz will admit a soft spot for a book named The Man Who Loved Clowns.
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers
The Man Who Walked Through Time
The Man Who Traveled In Elephants
The Man Who Walked Like a Bear
The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away
The Man Who Killed His Brother
The Man Who Pulled Down the Sky
The Man Who Risked His Partner
The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Man Who Loved Pride & Prejudice
The Man Who Loved Women to Death
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much
The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
The Man Who Forgot How to Read
The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz
The Man Who Lied to His Laptop
The Man Who Turned Into Himself
The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes
The Man Who Doesn’t Take Off His Clothes
The Man Who Wore All His Clothes
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
The Man Who Watched Trains Go By
I wonder how many books there are titled “The Woman Who…,” in comparison… I somehow doubt it is nearly as many.
Hah! I went through a spell of reading “The Man Who…” books way back in 1976. It was a lot of fun, and I found several books I would not have come across otherwise. Most of the ones I read are probably no longer in print (not many of these titles look familiar to me), but my favorite was The Man Whose Name Wouldn’t Fit. The protagonist’s name had too many letters to fit on a computer card, and this was such an affront to him that he took it out on every computer or computerized system he could get to. Quite delightful!