The 2009 Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year
The winner of the 2009
Diagram Prize has now been announced
Crocheting Adventures with
Hyperbolic Planes by Dr Daina Taimina (A K Peters) has won the 2009 Diagram
Prize, having received the majority of the public vote for the oddest titled
book of the year at thebookseller.com.
Taking 42% of the votes cast, it beat off competition from What Kind of Bean
is this Chihuahua? By Tara Jansen-Meyer (Mirror), which took 30% and
Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich by James A Yannes (Trafford), with
11%.
Horace Bent of the Bookseller magazine’s said: “Crocheting Adventures with
Hyperbolic Planes proved to be the initial front runner. It defended its
poll-topping position despite strong support for the spoon-carrying Third Reich,
once again attempting to muscle in on someone else’s territory. But the public
proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework proved too great for the Third Reich
to overcome. If only someone had let the Poles know in ’39.
Bent added: “I confess that when the credit crunch began to bite British
publishing, I feared for the future of this most prestigious of literary awards.
Surely oddly-titled books would suffer in a climate that was prompting
publishers to focus on more bankable works—like frankly lamentable biographies
of Z-list ‘celebrities’ and those depressing white books with doleful children
on the cover.
“But I am delighted that I was being overly pessimistic and that oddly-titled
books proved recession-resistant. I believe Crocheting Adventures with
Hyperbolic Planes is a worthy champion to stand alongside the likes of Greek
Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers and Living with Crazy Buttocks as
winners of this distinguished award.”
It looks like it's going to be another strong year.
My favourite competition of the year is run by
columnist Horace Bent in the Bookseller
(the UK book trade weekly) with input from dedicated odd title hunters from
all over the world. He received a record number of submissions in 2009, with 90
books suggested to 2008’s 32 The
prize, set up in association with the Diagram Group, has been running since
1978 and is a joyous celebration of the barmy side of publishing.
So here's the shortlist:
* David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter (Glenstrae Press)
* James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich (Trafford)
* Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes (A K Peters)
* Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (CRC Press)
* Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel
Disease (SLACK Inc)
* Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? (Mirror)
Read more at
www.thebookseller.com.
The winner will be announced on 26th March.
© Chris Holifield
2010
