FF Summer Contest Round 2: And the Winner Is...

Written by David Frum on Sunday August 1, 2010

Our Hitchens-Rushdie contest (where the assignment was to wreck a great book title by changing a single word) brought out the genius in our readers.

The Hitchens-Rushdie contest brought out the genius in our readers. There were many brilliant entries that there must inevitably be some arbitrariness to the outcome. On our panel of judges: Meghan Gurdon of the Washington Examiner, plus the usual suspects: Meghashyam Mali, Noah Kristula-Green, Tim Mak, Danielle Crittenden Frum, and myself as collator and tie-breaker.

As you’ll remember, the assignment was to wreck a great book title by changing one single word, as in our friend Anne Applebaum’s suggestion, “Small Women.”

Now the honorable mentions:

“Paradise Misplaced” by John Milton. Submitted by reader: “verner”

“Bags of Grass,” by Walt Whitman. Submitted by reader: “mid1980”

“The Art of British Cooking,” by Julia Child. Submitted by reader: “lindad”

“God and Man at Dartmouth,” by William F. Buckley. Submitted by reader : “verner”

“The Red Wagon of Courage,” by Stephen Crane. Submitted by reader: “LFC”

“The Canadian Patient,” by Michael Ondaatje. Submitted by reader: “sgath”

“An Overpass Too Far,” by Cornelius Ryan. Submitted by reader: “katejennings”

“100 Years of Solitaire,” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Submitted by reader: “lindad”

“On the Start of Species,” by Charles Darwin. Submitted by reader: “verner”

Meghan Gurdon additionally proposed a special honorable mention for alterations that produce an unexpectedly enticing alternative to the famous work:

“When Wives Collide,” by Philip Gordon Wylie and Edwin Balmer. (Submitter Being Determined)

“The Volcano Admirer,” by Susan Sontag. Submitted by reader: “verner”

Plus two by Salman Rushdie himself: “The Enchantress of Cleveland” and “The Satanic Purses.” Submitted by readers “hexag1” and “clamps”

And now the winners, who will each receive one of our famous FrumForum “Who Are You Calling a Rino?” t-shirts plus a copy of "Hitch-22" signed by Christopher Hitchens:

The Bronze: “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Proctologist,” by John Le Carre. Submitted by reader: “LFC”

The Silver: “A Streetcar Named Irv,” by Tennessee Williams. Submitted by reader: “dgkerns”

And … drum roll please …

The Gold: “The Protocols of the Elders of Narnia” (Anonymous). Submitted by reader: “adamtglass”

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