This book think it's a whole lot funnier than it is. It's also possible it's getting laughs based on outdated slang I'm not familiar with. I think page 44 was the only one I got a good chuckle out of. That said, it also took me maybe five minutes to read, so it's got that going for it. ( )

One need not carve out a great deal of time for this slight browse, which presents a choice of book covers (and a few excerpts) from a bookshop which contains a subcollection of books with amusing titles, often double-entendres, or, less often, odd resonances in the juxtaposition of author and title. Some are amusing, some are headscratchers, and many, I suspect, are decipherable only to those with a working knowledge of British slang; I caught a few. It's a pleasant enough browse; I'd allow twenty minutes. ( )

A collection of book covers with double entendres. Some are funny, but most of them are very weak and far-fetched, and I must confess that for a few of them I don't get what the double entendre is supposed to be.

The full-colour illustrations are a nice touch, but in this genre I would rather recommend Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities by Russell Ash and Brian Lake. ( )

Michael Bell, an antiquarian book dealer from Lewes, England, presents fifty vintage books whose titles and content will either puzzle or amuse the contemporary reader. Here are double-entendres aplenty, from the titular Scouts in Bondage by Geoffrey Prout, to older children's novels such as Bertram Smith's Totty: The Truth about Ten Mysterious Terms and Bessie Marchant's How Nell Scored. Here too are the unintentionally hilarious non-fiction titles, like Stephen J. Williams' Welsh in a Week or Clare Goslett's Simple Hints for Mothers on the Home Sex-Training of Boys.

Good for a laugh, Scouts in Bondage and Other Literary Improprieties is a slim little book, and can be "read" in less than half-an-hour. Almost entirely given over to images, the reader will enjoy paging through, alternating between puzzled head-scratching and helpless giggling. Those who collect and read vintage children's books will probably find this little collection particularly amusing. ( )

This was probably more entertaining at its genesis as a series of shop window displays over time. In that setting, the double entendres and shifts in meaning would have seemed serendipitously found and wittily presented. As a collection of book covers, however, the humor quickly wears thin. This would best be read by placing the book on a stand and turning only one page a day for view. Like dessert, too much at once ceases to be a pleasure. ( )