The Diagram Prize

Each year the Bookseller magazine runs the Diagram Award which is for the book published in the last year with the oddest title; these are real published books, submitted by booksellers - last year's winner was If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs. This year's final shortlist contender are:

• Baboon Metaphysics by Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M Seyfarth

• Curbside Consultation of the Colon by Brooks D Cash

• The Large Sieve and its Applications by Emmanuel Kowalski

• Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski

• Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by Lietai Yang

• The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Professor Philip M Parker

The award will be announced on March 27th and is an annual event enjoyed by British booksellers. Personally I've always loved it, its a bit of fun and it appeals to my sense and love of the Absurd that these are the real titles of actual books (it also nicely reinforces the commonly held perception that we in Britain, especially among the literary fraternity, are, to put it politely, 'eccentric', which is no bad thing in my opinion. Booksellers, librarians and bookshops should be a little eccentric and individual). Link via the BBC

Diagram prize

Each year the Bookseller run the Diagram prize, one of the more unusual literary awards; while many mainstream literary prizes can, if we're honest, be a bit up their own arse, the Diagram accepts nominations from booksellers and librarians for the daftest genuine title. This year's shortlist is out and comprises of (and bear in mind this is not me off on a mad make-up-something-silly jag, these are real books):

How Green were the Nazis? by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc and Thomas Zeller

D. Di Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream: D. Di Mascio of Coventry: An Ice Cream Company of Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans by Roger De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher, and Alan Wilkinson

The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification by Julian Montague

Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan by Robert Chenciner by Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie

Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium edited by Robert J Anderson, Juliet A Brodie, Edvar Onsoyen and Alan T Critchley

Better Never To Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence by David Benatar