Green Nazis and tattooed mountain women
We all know about the Nobel Prize for Literature, but have you heard of the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year? It has been run by The Bookseller magazine since 1978, with odd titles selected by publishers, booksellers and librarians from across the globe. The usual lists are unlikely to be bestsellers, but who cares! This is the only literary prize where the content of the book doesn’t matter at all! LOL
Last year’s winner was People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It by Gary Leon Hill. This year’s nominees are:
I wonder if a romance novel has ever been nominated in this competition. As much as I lurve the genre, you gotta admit sometimes it has the stupidest, er, oddest titles evah. “Please, Touch Not the Puss,” “The Spy’s Rotten Lil Lollypop,” “The Billionaire’s Virgin Mistress and Mother of His Illegitimate Child”? Er... :/
What about you? Any “odd” titles you wanna share with us? *g*
Last year’s winner was People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It by Gary Leon Hill. This year’s nominees are:
- How Green Were the Nazis? edited by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller
- D. Di Mascio’s Delicious Ice Cream: D. Di Mascio of Coventry: An Ice Cream Company of Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans by Roger de Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher and Alan Wilkinson
- The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague
- Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie
- Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium edited by Robert J. Anderson, Juliet A. Brodie, Edvar Onsoyen and Alan T. Critchley
- Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar
I wonder if a romance novel has ever been nominated in this competition. As much as I lurve the genre, you gotta admit sometimes it has the stupidest, er, oddest titles evah. “Please, Touch Not the Puss,” “The Spy’s Rotten Lil Lollypop,” “The Billionaire’s Virgin Mistress and Mother of His Illegitimate Child”? Er... :/
What about you? Any “odd” titles you wanna share with us? *g*
Labels: bibliophile’s affair
People Who Don't Know They're Dead? LOL
I think Lilian Jackson Braun books have all odd titles. Those cat ones. LOL
3/20/2007 01:35:00 PM
LOL. Petra I agree about Braun's books! The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Turned On and Off, The Cat Who Sang for Birds... Are they even good?
3/20/2007 01:50:00 PM
Speaking of cats, Touch Not the Cat by Mary Stuart. LOL
3/20/2007 03:26:00 PM
I've heard about this. I think the titles are very funny, lol. My favorite is the ice cream one. Hahaha!
3/20/2007 04:40:00 PM
you know, these aren't so bad! It's obvious those people haven't browsed through the Harlequin site and never read "The Happy Hooker" or "Mile-High Escapades of the Stewardess with the Moustache"!
3/20/2007 05:07:00 PM
"The Happy Hooker" or "Mile-High Escapades of the Stewardess with the Moustache"? Trollop LMAO Those have got to be fake!
3/20/2007 05:15:00 PM
What about, Dear Dumb Diary: My Pants Are Haunted by Jim Benton. LOL I honestly didn't invent that one. Check it out on Amazon! :P
3/21/2007 04:58:00 AM
Trollop, LOL, love your Happy Hooker post!
3/21/2007 05:01:00 AM
There's an International Seaweed Symposium?
No offense to readers of romance novellas but most of those have funny titles :P. The usual titles include a wife, a virgin and a millionaire or a billionaire.
3/21/2007 06:00:00 AM
Those are some crazy titles. What exactly are these books about? I got to admit they make me curious, lol.
3/21/2007 08:53:00 AM
Happy Hooker and Virgin Mistress. LOL I have to agree about the novellas. They do have odd titles.
3/21/2007 10:13:00 AM
The Harm of Coming into Existence? That doesn't even make sense. I have to agree with the Lilian Jackson's books. What's up with all the cats?
Trollop, love the Happy Hooker and the Mile High Escapades, lol.
3/21/2007 12:52:00 PM
Have you heard of 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988? :p
3/21/2007 02:36:00 PM
wait wait wait wait wait.... The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification.....?
3/22/2007 12:20:00 PM
Talk about oddball titles. Trollop, Happy Hooker? OMG, lol!
3/22/2007 10:02:00 PM
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