It could be me but I’m not sure the Diagram prize titles are as funny as they have been. The annual award for most peculiarly-named books has announced a typically strange set of finalists ….You can find out more about the books or cast your vote for your favourite
The prize was originally conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford, co-founder with Bruce Robertson of publishing solutions firm The Diagram Group, as a way of avoiding boredom at the annual Frankfurt Book Fair. It has been administered every year by The Bookseller and Horace Bent, the magazine’s diarist.
The first winner of the prize was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. Other winners throughout the years have included How to Avoid Huge Ships, Cooking with Poo, and last year’s Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop.
Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers was the winner of Diagram of Diagrams Prize in 2008, marking the 30th anniversary of the award.
Yeah it was, far better than any of the titles this year. It had some fantastic illustrations in it too. Very very funny, although in another way it’s so deadpan that it’s impossible to tell whether or not the guy who wrote it actually believes all the stuff he’s talking about. He’s clearly a raving eccentric in any case. It’s a real curio, well worth a look.
I bought Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop as a birthday present for my wife last year. It’s every bit as barmy as the title suggests.
That was a good title !!