I have a feeling that the author didn't intend for the title to sound funny.

Pittsburgh Press - Jan 18, 1985
We previously met Suellen Robinson as
Miss Biological Research. Here she's posing by a stack of books that represents the number of books an average coed supposedly would read (back in the 1960s) during her four years at college. The number is 376.
Officials of the Renault car company somehow arrived at this figure when they decided to sponsor a National College Queen Contest.
To read that many books a student would need to finish two books a week during the school year, and a book a week during Summer break.
I'm skeptical that the average college student (either back in the 1960s or now) reads anywhere close to that number. Perhaps they're assigned that many (though even that seems a bit high), but they're not reading them.

Orlando Evening Star - Apr 29, 1964
Gilbert Young first came to the attention of the British press in the 1960s as a crusader for a single world government. He ran repeatedly for various political offices but never won an election.
Below is an ad he placed in the papers seeking new members for his "World Government Party."

Bristol Daily Press - Jan 29, 1964
But his real claim to fame came in the mid 1970s when the editors of the Guinness Book of Records learned that, for years, Young had been trying to get his book published but had only received rejections from publishers. His book,
World Government Crusade, had, by 1974, been rejected 80 times. So Guinness listed him in its 1975 edition as the record holder for the "greatest recorded number of publisher's rejections for a manuscript."

Bristol Daily Press - Sep 26, 1974

Guinness Book of Records 1975
For over fifteen years Guinness continued to list him as the holder of this record. Every few years it would update the number of his rejections. By 1990 his book had been rejected 242 times.

Guinness Book of Records 1991
I thought that perhaps Young's book would now be available to read or purchase somewhere on the Internet. But no, as far as I can tell it's still unavailable.
Wendell Levi's book is about how to make make money raising pigeons. Not about getting revenge on them. Though the latter would doubtless be a more interesting book.
You can read the entire book for free at the Internet Archive.
Browsing through his book, I learned that squab is the term for pigeon meat. (I'm sure most WU readers knew this already, but it was news to me). I've never eaten squab. Nor can I recall ever seeing it for sale in a supermarket, or on a restaurant menu. But it's readily available online, such as at
squab.com.
The famous children's librarian
Anne Carroll Moore was wont to tote around a doll named Nicholas and make people interact with it.
She eventually wrote a whole book (300+ pages) about Nicholas:
Nicholas: A Manhattan Christmas Story.
You can read the book here.
I have tried in vain to find a real photo of Nicholas. However, here is his depiction from the book.
Jessica Krane was the inventor of "face-o-metrics." This was a technique for removing wrinkles by stroking your face. At least, Krane claimed that wrinkles would disappear.
I like that the blurb on the jacket of her book declares, "BASIC WOO is for you— and so is EXTENDED WOO!"
'Basic Woo' was one of her wrinkle-removal techniques, but of course 'woo' can also mean bunk, poppycock, etc. Was the highlighting of this word some kind of surreptitious message to readers from a copywriter?
My Macbook's dictionary notes that the meaning of 'woo' as bunk originated in the 1970s "probably in imitation of a wailing sound traditionally attributed to ghosts and humorously associated with mysticism and the supernatural." So, since Krane's book was published in 1969, 'woo' wouldn't have yet had it's modern meaning. Still, an odd coincidence.
You can read Krane's book online at archive.org.
I'm sure Hippensteel's new book (
Sand, Science, and the Civil War) is quite interesting (especially if you're a Civil War buff), but the extreme narrow focus of his argument made me laugh.
From a review:
It "describes the influence of sedimentary rocks and sediments on the tactics employed by both armies during the Civil War and the effects of these materials on the weapons, fortifications, and landscapes from the conflict". Hippensteel believes that "sedimentary geology and sedimentary rocks were important on far more battlefields than either igneous or metamorphic rocks," and that this influence "has been underappreciated by historians."
More info:
University of Georgia Press
A profound theological puzzle. First published in 1980.
Lorraine Peterson is also the author of
Why Isn't God Giving Cash Prizes?.