Forget the Oscars. The finalists for the 38th Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year have been announced. The seven finalists are:
- Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers
- Paper Folding with Children (A craft book that appears to assume children are extremely flexible.)
- Reading from Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus
- Reading the Liver: Papyrological Texts on Ancient Greek Extispicy (An academic study on sacrificial sheep.)
- Soviet Bus Stops
- Too Naked for the Nazis (A biography of a musical hall troupe.)
- Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film
The award was originally conceived in 1978 as a way to avoid boredom at the annual Frankfurt Book Fair. There’s no ceremony or monetary prize for the winner, but a “passable bottle of claret” is given to the person who nominates the winning entry.
Previous winners have included:
- Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice (1978)
- The Joy of Chickens (1980)
- How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art (1989)
- Highlights in the History of Concrete (1994)
- Living with Crazy Buttocks (2002)
- The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories (2003)
- The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification (2006)
- Cooking with Poo (2011)
- Strangers Have the Best Candy (2014)
Voting is now open to the public until Tuesday, March 15.