Judge a Book by Its Title

February 29, 2016 1:14 AM

It's time again for one of our favorite* literary awards, the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year (previously here) and this year we've found it in time for YOU to vote on it. So, what's your published poison? Behind the Binoculars: Interviews with Acclaimed Birdwatchers or Paper Folding with Children** or Reading from Behind: A Cultural History of the Anus or Reading the Liver: Papyrological Texts on Ancient Greek Extispicy*** or Soviet Bus Stops or Too Naked for the Nazis or Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns from Outer Space: A Consideration of Cult Film ?

* okay, MY favorite
** with the more ordinary subtitle "Fun and Easy Origami Projects"
*** yum, exti spicy!

posted by oneswellfoop (16 comments total)

Are those titles particularly odd? Because they don't surprise me and I would not feel odd buying them. (Now I'm absolutely thinking of buying that Wilson, Keppel and Betty book.)
posted by pracowity at 1:56 AM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

cultural history of the anus plus the poop-scene database. today promises to become one of those extremely rear days.
posted by sapagan at 2:30 AM on February 29, 2016

I'm pleased to know that these exist, but I don't find the birdwatcher one particularly odd. Is it something sinister about binoculars, or just the inherent oddity of the concept of birdwatchers being acclaimed? (Terrific Twitchers, now that would have been a title...)
posted by Segundus at 3:23 AM on February 29, 2016

I would absolutely pick up a copy of Soviet Bus Stops, though I guess that's mostly because I have seen a few and know how cool they can be.

Why Diagram so biased against birdwatchers though?
posted by Gordafarin at 3:28 AM on February 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

The only one of this batch I would think weird is Too Naked for the Nazis. So that gets my vote I guess.

Ah, the bygone days of How to Avoid Huge Ships...
posted by solarion at 3:35 AM on February 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Soviet Bus Stops
Umbrella employ you!
posted by thelonius at 3:43 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Soviet bus stops previously.
posted by misteraitch at 3:52 AM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have books coming out this year that better be on this list next year.
posted by headspace at 3:52 AM on February 29, 2016

Soviet Bus Stops is now out of stock on amazon UK, but that did lead me to CCCP Cook Book, which looks amazing and sort of feels that it should also have been on the list.
posted by Vortisaur at 4:04 AM on February 29, 2016

Wizard Poople, Rear Reader
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 4:23 AM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

I remember Dreadnought's persuasive elucidation of the problems with Avoiding Huge Ships with particular pleasure.
posted by Segundus at 4:25 AM on February 29, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'll just put my comment from last year's contest here because it still applies.

This contest just seems to have lost its way. The only thing that sounds even remotely competitive is Too Naked for the Nazis, which proves to be the subtitle, not the actual title, of a biography of a British vaudeville act. Based on a skim of their wikipedia article, I have no idea what Too Naked for the Nazis actually refers to. Perhaps they wanted to tour Germany in the '30s but were refused permission. But at the end of the day, it's another bit of marketing language tacked onto the end of a perfectly normal book in a deliberate attempt to excite curiosity. (That said, Wilson, Keppel and Betty do sound like interesting people and the book might be worth a look. Tell me that Betty Knox in that 1933 photo doesn't know something she isn't letting on.)

Maybe... maybe... Soviet Bus Stops as a runner up. But mostly I miss the glory days of How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art, or Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, or The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification. I fear those days have passed and may never come again...
posted by Naberius at 7:50 AM on February 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

This contest just seems to have lost its way.

I agree; there's a lot of fairly banal zaniness here. And what's weirder, after all these years, they still don't seem to draw any clear distinction between odd titles and apt (or even just literal) titles for books on odd topics. The only one of these that really even seems to qualify as the former is Too Naked for the Nazis.
posted by RogerB at 11:12 AM on February 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

And even that is pretty marginal. It's a blatant attempt to draw attention to an otherwise perfectly ordinary book by giving it a weird subtitle that isn't really lying, but is hardly what you'd call it otherwise.

Having read the Wikipedia article in more depth now, they apparently performed their "Cleopatra's Nightmare" act in Berlin in 1936, and Joseph Goebbels condemned it as indecent. So okay, check I guess. But that's kind of like calling your biography of Warren Harding The Man Who Fucked in the White House. Because sure, he did, but that's not really a major part of his historical significance.

I eagerly await someone rebutting that last point in detail.
posted by Naberius at 11:39 AM on February 29, 2016 [2 favorites]

And what's weirder, after all these years, they still don't seem to draw any clear distinction between odd titles and apt (or even just literal) titles for books on odd topics.

The fake book-cover design account Exciting Books occasionally runs into real books that fit the theme. If a book title could plausibly show up on Exciting Books, I don't know if it's that odd. Just really, really specialized.
posted by Electric Elf at 1:21 PM on February 29, 2016

Oh, I've flipped through the Soviet Bus Stops book: It's pretty great, if you're into that sort of thing. Not great enough that I bought a copy, but enough that I considered it...

But yeah: These titles are all fine.
posted by Casuistry at 5:15 PM on February 29, 2016