‘Crazy Buttocks,’ ‘Nude Mice’ vie for Oddest Book Title award

The Bookseller of London announced the contest of contests to mark the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title, the trade magazine said on its Web site today. The public will choose the all-time oddest title by casting votes online for previous winners.

The annual award was originally conceived by Bruce Robertson, who runs the Diagram Group of publishers, as a way to pass time at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Titles are nominated by publishers, booksellers, authors, agents and librarians.

The inaugural winner in 1978 was “Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.” The latest victor was “If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs.”

The Diagram of Diagrams will be announced Sept. 5.

The person who spotted the winning title will receive “a magnum of (fairly passable) claret,” said Philip Stone, an editor at the Bookseller, in an e-mail. As for the authors, they get publicity and often a boost in sales, Stone said.

“That’s something that money can’t buy,” he said.

Many winning titles are ribald or off-color, such as “Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality” or “The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition.”

The contest also revels in niche books. Winners include “The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today.” And don’t forget “Highlights in the History of Concrete” and “Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers.”

In conjunction with the Diagram of Diagrams prize, Aurum Press plans to publish “How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books,” a collection of some of the more curious winners and nominees over the years.

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