The Must ReadsFrom Waterproofing Your Child to Hot Topics In Urology, the Diagram Prize celebrates the oddest of odd book Joel Rickett The Guardian,

The hunt for "unlikely" book titles was originally suggested by publisher Bruce Robertson as a diversion for bored visitors to the Frankfurt Book Fair. For the uninitiated, Frankfurt is a kind of global clearing house for books, a soulless collection of giant sheds with hundreds of thousands of titles on display. Robertson hoped his wheeze would provide publishers with a moment's diversion while plodding the aisles. There were some hot contenders at that fair 30 years ago - 100 Years Of British Rail Catering, Cooking With God, and 50 New Poodle Grooming Styles. But there was a single standout title: Proceedings Of The Second International Workshop On Nude Mice, published by the University of Tokyo Press. The Diagram Prize was born.

The Diagram Prize celebrates the oddest of these odd titles. Forget the Booker, the Nobel or the Pulitzer: real book lovers and the literati agree that the Diagram transcends them all. Every year entries flood in from around the world, starting a spell of frenzied voting.

From the early days the procedures of the Diagram Prize appear to have been deliberately vague. Run by the Bookseller magazine's diarist, Horace Bent, a legendary book-trade figure, the winners seem to have been settled by an anonymous group, probably over port at a London club. Any type of book was admissible, the only restriction being that publishers were not allowed to submit their own books, to screen out intentional efforts at oddness. In 1993 submissions were opened beyond the confines of Frankfurt. And as publishing output spiralled there were rich pickings. When the major publishing corporations tried to squeeze any remaining oddness out of the industry, digital printing technology sprang up, enabling quirkier small publishers to produce books for niche interests.

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