After two-time winner of the Booker prize Hilary Mantel was criticised by David Cameron this week for her speech which supposedly attacked Kate Middleton, the spotlight has been placed on a lesser known, but equally interesting literary accolade. It is the time of year for the Diagram Prize, celebrating the oddest book title of the year, to be awarded.
The shortlist for the Prize, to be awarded in March, scans the literary world for the most intriguing titles out there, from How to Sharpen Pencils to How Tea Cosies Changed the World. The judges will have to decide which book can live up to 2012’s winner, Cooking with Poo; Poo being the slightly unfortunate nickname of Thai cookery author Sayuud Diwong.
The award is run by the Bookseller magazine and although the winner will not receive the £50,000 prize granted to Booker recipients, they do at least get a “fairly passable” bottle of wine and more widespread recognition for work that might have otherwise stayed under the radar. Previous winner Michael Young, who wrote the ground-breaking manual Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way said that the accolade had given his work more credibility and drastically increased sales of his book.
The Diagram Prize was first conceived by founder Bruce Robertson as a way to alleviate boredom during an especially dull day at the Frankfurt book fair in 1978. Yet despite its lighthearted nature, Horace Bent of the Bookseller magazine is very serious about what he describes as a “prestigious award”. He has often had to reject submissions for being too old, such as Sketches of a Few Jellyfish, which was published in 1880. Titles which seem to be deliberately created to be funny are also turned down. The prize is also more democratic than the Booker, as since 2000 the winner has been selected by the public instead of a panel of judges. Some of the winners are also more popular amongst readers than Booker titles: 2007’s winning book, If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs received more votes than the Best of the Booker Prize, won by Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s Children.
There has been some controversy surrounding some of the winning titles. 2008’s The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais turned out to have been written by a computer, and its ‘author’, Professor Philip M Parker, had already penned 200,000 books. Since the public have been in control of voting, ruder titles have also won more frequently than before, something lamented by Bookseller staff.
Most arts students have come across a slightly bizarre book title on their reading list at some point in their university career, but these pale into insignificance when faced with the likes of Bombproof Your Horse and How to Avoid Huge Ships. The good news for readers keen to delve into any of these works is that they can all be requested from the Bodleian’s closed stacks…
