Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year

Format

Nominees were originally limited to just books at the Frankfurt Book Fair, but this was extended to submissions sent in by The Bookseller magazine's traditional readership of librarians, publishers, and booksellers in order to decrease the risk of no award being given. In 2009, submissions could be sent to either Bent's or The Bookseller's Twitter accounts.^[1] People cannot nominate their own works, nor can they select books they publish themselves. Titles that are deliberately created to be funny are normally rejected.^[20] Also, nominators, judges and voters are actively discouraged from reading any of the nominations, "for fear that becoming too close to the work may cloud their judgement in declaring the text's title 'odd', especially considering the prize champions 'odd titles' and not 'odd books' (see the Man Booker for the latter)".^[1] The winner was originally voted for by a panel of judges, but since 2000 the winner has been voted for by members of the public via the Internet. Bent resisted this move and threatened to resign, but he later reconsidered and now creates the short list of finalists.^[5] Also, the title of the book must be in English, although the language in the book can be any language.^[10]

Books about the prize

In September 2008, a book about the Diagram Prize was published by Aurum Press entitled How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books. With an introduction written by Joel Rickett, the book was released to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the prize. It featured a collection of book covers from winners and runners-up from previous years.^[21] A follow-up book was released in October 2009, entitled Baboon Metaphysics And More Implausibly Titled Books, including an introduction by Bent.^[22]

Controversy

There have been two occasions on which no award has been presented. Bent did not offer a prize in 1987 and 1991, as he felt there was no title that was odd enough to deserve the prize.^[5] The prize has become noteworthy enough that, in 2004, The Bookseller castigated publishers for choosing titles with a view to winning it, saying, "There were too many self-consciously titled entries – presumably in a bid to emulate the 2003 champion, Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories".^[6] Bent has also expressed his dislike of people voting for ruder titles, stating that he himself would not have voted for the 2007 winner If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs.^[7]

In 2009, the choice of The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, by Philip M. Parker, was controversial, as Parker did not write the book himself, but used an automated authoring machine which produces thousands of titles on the basis of Internet and database searches.^[8] Philip Stone, charts editor and awards administrator at The Bookseller, commented by saying: "I think it's slightly controversial as it was written by a computer, but given the number of celebrity memoirs out there that are ghostwritten, I don't think it's too strange."^[23]

In 2018, one of the nominations, Joy of Waterboiling, was controversial because the book was written mostly in German, but the rules of the prize state that only the title needs to be in English in order to qualify for nomination.^[10]

Diagram of Diagrams

Two special anniversary awards known as the "Diagram of Diagrams" (the name reflects the "Booker of Bookers")^[2] have been presented to honour both the 15th and the 30th anniversaries of the Diagram Prize. The nominations of the prizes were all of the previous winners up to that point in time. In 1993, the winner of the 15th anniversary award was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, the winner of the first Diagram Prize.^[24][25] The second "Diagram of Diagrams", announced on 5 September 2008, was Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, the 1996 winner.^[25]