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The birth of a Twitter trend: #replacebooktitleswithbacon

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It could have been movies. Around 2 p.m. Wednesday, Elissa Schappell was on Twitter and made up a silly movie-related hashtag. I follow Schappell because she once saved me: My shoe broke on a rainy awards night in New York, and she found a way to fix it. Also, she’s got a very quick wit, writes for Vanity Fair and has a new serious collection of short stories coming out Sept. 6, ‘Building Blueprints for Better Girls’

Schappell tweeted, ‘Pretty in Bacon: #replacemovienameswithbacon.’ And I thought, that’s funny. Could it work for books?

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I tweeted, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Bacon #replacebooktitleswithbacon.’ Then a moment later, followed with ‘The Thousand Bacons of Jacob De Zoet #replacebooktitleswithbacon.’ I was hooked.

I tried recruiting the Washington’s Post’s Ron Charles, who in his role as the video-ready Totally Hip Book Reviewer has worn bacon on his head. Charles was otherwise occupied.

But Sarah Weinman, former L.A. Times contributor and one of publishing’s Internet movers and shakers jumped in. ‘In Search Of Lost Bacon; A Handful of Bacon; Bacon Revisited; The Call of the Bacon; The Savage Bacon,’ she added to the hashtag. Galleycat and Farrar, Strauss & Giroux got in on the action too. The Seussian ‘Green Eggs and Bacon’ was thrown out by many.

And the game was on, with the help of Time magazine, which tweeted, ‘What we’re playing RT @radhikajones: War and Bacon. Out of Sheer Bacon. Bacon and Sensibility. #replacebooktitleswithbacon’ to its 2.8 million followers. By the time evening rolled around, #replacebooktitleswithbacon was a trending topic on Twitter nationwide, proving everyone loves books ... with bacon.

Here are some favorites:

hujane: ‘The Bacon of Wrath,’ ‘To The Bacon,’ ‘Brave New Bacon,’ ‘Tender is the Bacon,’ ‘Bacon in Love’ jaelmchenry: ‘The Particular Sadness of Bacon Cake’ slakemedia: ‘Something Bacon This Way Comes’ MattMarcotte: ‘We Need to Talk About Bacon’ TheoTypes: ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Bacon’ slaughter90210: ‘One Hundred Years of Bacon’ AClarkComedy: ‘Bright Lights. Big Bacon’ samanarama: ‘Sisterhood of the Bacon Pants’ Kate_M_Holden: ‘Guns, Germs, and Bacon: The Fates of Human Societies’ LBbooks: ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bacon’ patricknathan: ‘Bacon and Nothingness,’ ‘The Critique of Pure Bacon,’ ‘An Enquiry Concerning Bacon Understanding’ KngdmfShamballa: ‘Children of Bacon,’ Heretics of Bacon,’ ‘Godemperor Bacon’ heliolithic: ‘The Bacon Stain’ lisatuber: ‘Portnoy’s Bacon’ robspill: ‘Jesus’ Bacon’ scottiegarand: ‘Eat, Bacon, Love’ seanpaulkelley: ‘The Power of Positive Bacon,’ ‘I’m Okay, You’re Bacon,’ ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bacon’ SpeedyEdits: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bacon Sings’ molleeeeee: ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Bacon’ MaryRocco: ‘Like Bacon for Chocolate’ donnalethal: ‘Bacon in the Rye’ MDorna: ‘The Lord of the Bacon’ BetsyBrownWrite: ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Bacon’ JESilverstein: ‘I Have No Bacon and I Must Scream’ manticore_night: ‘Confessions of an English Bacon Eater’ LauraEmilyPDX: ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Bacon’ crimsonsneakers: ‘The Bacon of Alice B. Toklas,’ ‘The Bacon Mystique,’ ‘I Am Bacon (And So Can You!),’ ‘The Heart is a Bacon Hunter’ alanawilcox: ‘Charlotte’s Bacon.’ Sniff. obasZ: ‘Bacon in August’ tealeaves_: ‘A Farewell to Bacon’ BronwenRolands: ‘Bacon’s End’

Here is the same list, adding the actual book titles before they were baconized.

hujane: ‘The Bacon of Wrath,’ ‘To The Bacon,’ ‘Brave New Bacon,’ ‘Tender is the Bacon,’ ‘Bacon in Love’ (John Steinbeck’s ‘The Grapes of Wrath,’ Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse,’ Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World,’ F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘Tender is the Night,’ and D.H. Lawrence’s ‘Women in Love,’ I think) jaelmchenry: ‘The Particular Sadness of Bacon Cake’ (Aimee Bender’s ‘The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake’) slakemedia: ‘Something Bacon This Way Comes’ (Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked this Way Comes’) MattMarcotte: ‘We Need to Talk About Bacon’ (Lionel Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’) TheoTypes: ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Bacon’ (J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’) AClarkComedy: ‘Bright Lights. Big Bacon’ (Jay McInerney’s ‘Bright Lights, Big City’) samanarama: ‘Sisterhood of the Bacon Pants’ (Ann Brashares’ ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’) Kate_M_Holden: ‘Guns, Germs, and Bacon: The Fates of Human Societies’ (Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’) LBbooks: ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bacon’ (Dave Eggers’ ‘A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius’) patricknathan: ‘Bacon and Nothingness,’ ‘The Critique of Pure Bacon,’ ‘An Enquiry Concerning Bacon Understanding’ (Jean-Paul Sartre’s ‘Being and Nothingness,’ Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ David Hume’s ‘An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’) KngdmfShamballa: ‘Children of Bacon,’ Heretics of Bacon,’ ‘Godemperor Bacon’ (Frank Herbert’s ‘Children of Dune,’ ‘Heretics of Dune’ and ‘Godemperor Dune’) heliolithic: ‘The Bacon Stain’ (Philip Roth’s ‘The Human Stain’) lisatuber: ‘Portnoy’s Bacon’ (Philip Roth’s ‘Portnoy’s Complaint’) robspill: ‘Jesus’ Bacon’ (Denis Johnson’s ‘Jesus’ Son’) scottiegarand: ‘Eat, Bacon, Love’ (Elizabeth Gilbert’s ‘Eat, Pray, Love’) seanpaulkelley’s self-help themed ‘The Power of Positive Bacon,’ ‘I’m Okay, You’re Bacon,’ ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bacon’ (Norman Vincent Peale’s ‘The Power of Positive Thinking,’ Thomas A. Harris’ ‘I’m OK--You’re OK,’ Stephen R. Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’) SpeedyEdits: ‘I Know Why the Caged Bacon Sings’ (Maya Angelou’s ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’) molleeeeee: ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Bacon’ (Michael Chabon’s ‘The Yiddish Policemen’s Union’) MaryRocco: ‘Like Bacon for Chocolate’ (Laura Esquivel’s ‘Like Water for Chocolate’) donnalethal: ‘Bacon in the Rye’ (J.D. Salinger’s ‘The Catcher in the Rye’) MDorna: ‘The Lord of the Bacon’ (William Golding’s ‘Lord of the Flies’) BetsyBrownWrite: ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Bacon’ (Welles Tower’s ‘Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned’) JESilverstein: ‘I Have No Bacon and I Must Scream’ (Harlan Ellison’s ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’) manticore_night: ‘Confessions of an English Bacon Eater’ (Thomas De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’) LauraEmilyPDX: ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Bacon’ (Raymond Carver’s ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Love’) crimsonsneakers: ‘The Bacon of Alice B. Toklas,’ ‘The Bacon Mystique,’ ‘I Am Bacon (And So Can You!),’ ‘The Heart is a Bacon Hunter’ (Gertrude Stein’s ‘The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas,’ Betty Friedan’s ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ Stephen Colbert’s ‘I Am Bacon (And So Can You!)’ and Carson McCullers’ ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’) alanawilcox: ‘Charlotte’s Bacon.’ Sniff. (E.B. White’s ‘Charlotte’s Web’). obasZ: ‘Bacon in August’ (William Faulkner’s ‘Light in August’) tealeaves_: ‘A Farewell to Bacon’ (Ernest Hemingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’) BronwenRolands: ‘Bacon’s End’ (E.M. Forster’s ‘Howard’s End’)

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As of Thursday morning, #replacebooktitleswithbacon was still trending. Tweet your own!

-- Carolyn Kellogg

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