Another year brings another shortlist of stunning book titles for Bookseller magazine's annual Diagram Prize for “oddest book title of the year.” Created in 1978, with Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice taking top honors, the Diagram Prize has become a yearly hi-spot providing guaranteed entertainment to us book folks. This years nominees are: Nature's Nether Regions by Menno Schilthuizen (published by Viking). Advanced Pavement Research: Selected, Peer Reviewed Papers from the 3rd International Conference on Concrete Pavements Design, Construction, and Rehabilitation, December 2–3, 2013, Shanghai, China edited by Bo Tian (Trans Tech). The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year...
One more for the Oddest Book Title Hall of Fame
The Bookseller magazine has been handing out the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title since 1978. Year after year we continue to be amazed at how some of these titles ever see the light of day.In 1990 the winner was Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual. Also published in 1990 and unfortunately passed over, was Unregulated Chicken Butts and other stories by Hungarian writer Illyas Hali which I humbly nominate for lifetime membership in this illustrious group.Of course, Unregulated Chicken Butts and other stories is not to be confused with the 1980 winner The Joy of Chickens by Dennis Nolan.Here's a list...
"Cooking With Poo" Again
And the winner of The Bookseller magazine's Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title for 2012 goes to Cooking with Poo, by Saiyuud Diwong. Poo is the author's nickname, it also happens to the Thai word for crab.From the author's website: Khun Poo is thrilled to be launching her first cookbook ‘Cooking with Poo’ which includes over 100 pages of her delicious recipes, glossy pictures and also wonderful stories about her neighbours and the Klong Toey community.Online voters chose the winner from a competitive field that included titles such as: Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935The...