It’s that time of the year again when we get to announce the forerunners for that very prestigious literary award. No, I’m not talking about the Man Booker Prize, nor the Pulitzer Price for Fiction. Why it’s time for the Bookseller Magazine’s ‘oddest book title of the year,’ of course!
The competition is tough this year, with great entries from A History of the Evolution of Genitals of Bugs, Birds and Beasts, and Ken Thompson’s Where Do Camels Belong? But first place this year is likely to go to the one and only Divorcing a Real Witch. Described as filling “a huge gap in the resources that witches and pagans have in the areas of family and relationships”, the book is written “for pagans and the people that used to love them.” A deserving contender we must agree.
Also shortlisted for the prize is Sandra Tsing Loh’s menopause memoir, The Madwoman in the Volvo: My Year of Raging Hormones, and Strangers Have the Best Candy, by Margaret Meps Shulte. Whatever floats your boat Maggie. Other participants include Highlights in the History of Concrete, which sounds a little dense to us (Ha! Get it?) and The Ugly Wife is a Treasure at Home. Charming.
The winner of the award will receive no prize of monetary value, but will be sent a “passable bottle of Claret” and have the honour of joining the ranks of titles including: The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, Greek Rural Postmen, and Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. Legendary stuff.
The literary world is full of odd titles that don’t receive the recognition they deserve, but thankfully we are here to rectify that. Some titles we’ve found after intense hours scouring the internet (yes I have an essay due next week. What of it?) include the following:
The Pocket Book of Boners by the one and only Dr. Seuss. We can only hope this little gem was produced before his foray into children’s literature. Everything I Want to Do is Illegal, by Joe Salatin, which we can identify with on a personal level. Images You Should Not Masturbate To, the cover of which is graced by a naked old man weilding an axe in an icy river (challenge accepted we say!). Anyone Can Be Cool…But Awesome Takes Practice, the book we all wish we had in high school. And last but definitely not least, Does God Ever Speak Through Cats? Somebody do us a favour and give this a read. We all want to know.