It seems to have started with Joy of Cooking, but it eventually led to lots of other titles, including (via The Joy of Sex) to the webcomic The Joy of Tech and the baseball fansite The Joy of Sox.
The original:
Joy of Cooking, often known as “The Joy of Cooking”, is one of the United States’ most-published cookbooks, and has been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. It was privately published in 1931 by Irma S. Rombauer, a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri, who was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide the previous year. Rombauer had 3,000 copies printed by A.C. Clayton, a company which had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book. In 1936, the book was picked up by a commercial printing house, the Bobbs-Merrill Company. Joy is the backbone of many home cooks’ libraries and is commonly found in commercial kitchens as well. (Wikipedia link)
The cookbook lent its name to a band:
Joy of Cooking was an American folk-rock band formed in 1967 in Berkeley, California. It was led by two women, pianist Toni Brown and guitarist Terry Garthwaite (also known as Ruby Green). The rest of the band consisted of bass guitarist David Garthwaite (Terry’s brother), drummer Fritz Kasten and percussion player Ron Wilson. Keyboard player Stevie Roseman replaced Toni Brown for a time and bass players Happy Smith and eventually Jeff Neighbor replaced David Garthwaite on bass guitar. The music was a mix of “hippy” sensibility on blues and folk roots, and the lyrics often reflected feminist or environmental themes. (Wikipedia link)
Then came The Joy of Sex:
The Joy of Sex is an illustrated sex manual by British author Alex Comfort, M.B., Ph.D., first published in 1972. An updated edition was released in September, 2008.
… The original intention was to use the same approach as such cook books as The Joy of Cooking, hence section titles include “starters” and “main courses”. (Wikipedia link)
Which spawned:
The Joy of Gay Sex … a sex manual for men who have sex with men, written by Dr. Charles Silverstein and Edmund White. The book was first published in 1977.
It was followed by The New Joy of Gay Sex, published by Perennial in August 1993, and co-authored by Felice Picano. (Wikipedia link)
Then there were more food books:
Joy of Pickling, Joy of Kosher, Joy of Apples, Joy of Home Brewing, …
and some non-food books, mostly (but not entirely) with nominal gerunds in their titles:
Joy of Running, Joy of Sculling, Joy of Birding, Joy of Juggling, Joy of Bocce, …
Then from The Joy of Sex came the word plays in the webcomic title The Joy of Tech and the website The Joy of Sox for Boston Red Sox fans. And no doubt many more (The Joy of Six, The Joy of Sax, The Joy of Shacks, … ?).