The Diagram Prize

[Ian Wolf]

I thought it might be to create a thread about this, as this year Japan is involved.

For those who don't know, The Diagram Prize (or the "Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year") is the award given every year to the book with the oddest title in the world. Previous winners include Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais and Highlights in the History of Concrete.

The winner is decided by a public vote. This year there are three Far-Eastern related nominations - one Japanese, one Thai, one Singaporean. The nomiations are:

* A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two
* Cooking with Poo
* Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World
* The Great Singapore Penis Panic: And the Future of American Mass Hysteria
* Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge
* A Taxonomy of Office Chairs
* The Mushroom in Christian Art

You can vote for the winner here.

On releated notes, has anyone else come across an odd book title, or perhaps an odd titled manga or anime?

 

[ayase]

Penis Panic and Chicken Sexer actually sound like legitimately interesting reads. Love this excerpt:

"January 8, 1935 (Tuesday): It was pretty cold. Would you believe one of the employees called me a German! Of all the things to say. But Mr and Mrs Lumb and my lodging’s wife are very helpful peoples. I was bewildered that there were so many kinds of chickens."

 

[ilmaestro]

I'm disappointed that years go by where Japan isn't involved.

 

[Ian Wolf]

I'm disappointed that years go by where Japan isn't involved.

I know. It is interested especially given that the first Diagram Prize winner was published by the University of Tokyo (Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice from 1978).