As noted (here and here) The Bookseller magazine awards the oddest book title of the year with the Diagram Prize. And this year's winner is:The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais!
If you haven't picked up a copy yet, it has everything you ever wanted to know about specialty dairy product containers. And you better want to know pretty bad, because the book costs over $1,100.
Unlike traditional literary prizes, publishers cannot submit their own titles for the the Diagram. Further, one of the judges notes that “the prize’s administrators try not to read the books... because doing so might 'cloud our judgment.'”
I was pleased to see that the New York Times piece I've linked to above pays tribute to the finest book title of all time.
How to Avoid Huge Ships, in which John W. Trimmer, an old sea captain, offers shipping-lane safety tips to pleasure-boat sailors, has a select but fervent following... One critic said on Amazon that he wished the book had included more tips on differentiating between huge and less huge ships, so readers could be sure “what size of ship they were avoiding.”
But another raved: “I never leave the house without this indispensable little book. It has literally saved my life many times while walking down Peckham High Street and Ealing Broadway.”
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