We’re delighted to announce that one of our wonderful publishers has had a book title nominated for one of our favourite literary awards of the year, The Diagram Prize for oddest book title. So congratulations to The Origin of Feces (ECW Press, £12.99), which is not only a magnificent pun but a brilliant and informative book which deserves a wider audience: we’re cheerleading for it all the way!
This follows last year’s nomination for How To Sharpen Pencils (Melville House, £9.99), which eventually lost out to the admittedly extraordinary Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop (Conari Press). Anyone who knows our publishers will know that Turnaround is dedicated to distributing the weird and wonderful – and if there’s a pun involved, even better. So we’ve trawled our archives to bring you a list (which is by no means definitive) of some of our funniest and most ridiculous book titles, with some ‘judges’ comments’ too! So, in no particular order…
Horse Whispering In The Military Industrial Complex (Salt, £9.99): A fabulous mixture of nature and industry, with an evocative image thrown in for good measure.
The Largest U.S. Cities Named After a Food (Santa Monica Press, £11.99): This is a really interesting geography book, but I’d like to see a ‘Complete US Cities Named After a Food’ too.
Diary of a Left-Handed Birdwatcher (Graywolf, £13.99): A title after my own heart.
Spanking The Donkey (The New Press, £19.99): Sure, it’s a book about politics, but that shouldn’t get in the way of a spectacular title.
Cookin’ With Coolio (Simon & Schuster, £9.99): Yep, that’s THE Coolio. An unexpectedly excellent recipe book from the ghetto.
And there’s one forthcoming title which we think deserves consideration for next year: Dispute Over A Very Italian Piglet (Europa, £10.99): a title which poses many questions, and answers none.
Which is your favourite? And have you seen any stranger offerings out there? We’d love to hear from you!