Skip to footer

Six books compete for the prize of Oddest Book Title of the Year

The Bookseller magazine will be giving out the award for the thirty-fifth year in a row, with competitors including 'Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop' and 'How To Sharpen Pencils.'

One of the nominees for the award of Oddest Book Title of the Year is 'Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop' by Reginald Bakeley.
  • By Molly Driscoll Staff Writer

Authors can agonize for hours over the perfect title with which to anoint their novel or nonfiction work, aiming for drama, emotional resonance, or sometimes humor. And sometimes their efforts can bear unusual fruit, as they did for six authors whose book names are currently competing for the award of Oddest Title of the Year.  

The award, called The Diagram Prize, is given out by the magazine The Bookseller, which writes about matters in the publishing industry. The contest is in its 35th year.

Some of the nominees for the prize include the book “Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop” by Reginald Bakeley, “How Tea Cosies Changed the World” by Loani Prior, and “How To Sharpen Pencils” by David Rees.

The top title is selected by the public online at http://www.welovethisbook.com. The winning author will be announced March 22.

Philip Stone, who coordinates the prize for The Bookseller, said he hopes the contest will shine a spotlight on works that otherwise may have gone unnoticed. 

“People might think this prize is just a bit of fun, but I think it draws welcome attention to an undervalued art,” he told the Telegraph.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Six books compete for the prize of Oddest Book Title of the Year
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0222/Six-books-compete-for-the-prize-of-Oddest-Book-Title-of-the-Year
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe