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10 Ways to To Handle Life Changes With Courage
The Fruits of Desire
Nurturing a Healthy Marriage
10 Ways to Get Over a Hurtful Past
Ten Things Every Dad Should Tell His Son
Apologies, but no results were found.
This is awards season. And like most of us, I get really into awards season. I like it all — the competition, the drama, the unapologetic self-promotion, the lethal robot behavior…
Oh, you thought I was talking about Hollywood? No. I don’t care that much about the Oscars or Grammys or any of that. My favorite award isn’t given out in Hollywood. It’s not even given out in the United States. Nope, it’s a British book award: the The Bookseller Magazine’s annual Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year (The Bookseller is the UK’s industry mag).
Nominations are in and this year’s list has been narrowed to six spectacular finalists — and the public gets to vote on the winner.
Here’s the shortlist of finalists:
• Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter,
by David Crompton (Glenstrae Press)
• Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich,
by James A Yannes (Trafford)
• Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes, by Daina Taimina (A K Peters)
• Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots, by Ronald C Arkin (CRC Press)
• The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, by Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky (SLACK Inc)
• What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? by Tara Jansen-Meyer (Mirror)
Past winners include masterpieces like Living with Crazy Buttocks and The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais.
This is an excellent crop of nominees. I’ve been trying to fit the phrase “Worm Hunter” into the title or subtitle of one of my books for years, and just haven’t found a way to do it. So congrats to David Crompton. I’ve never been much into spoon-collecting or crochet, but potentially lethal autonomous robots? Sign me up. I’ve been warning people of the coming robot apocalypse for decades, and this book seems to be something we all need to read. And inflammatory bowel disease is no laughing matter…if you suffer from it. But if you have healthy bowels? And if you’re a frat boy? Well, then, that’s one hilarious book title. I have no idea what kinds of changes are in store with inflammatory bowel disease, but I can’t imagine they’re good changes.
And for the record, I have no idea what kind of bean that chihuahua is. That’s a real thinker, right along with What’s the difference between a duck? and What doessss it have in its pocketssss?
Anyway, exercise your freedom, bibliophiles. Make your voice heard. Vote today (there’s a poll at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar).
posted February 24, 2010 at 1:28 pm
As someone who owned a bookstore for 10 years, I can tell you without hesitation, that great book titles sell books! Some authors are famous for them like the late Lewis Grizzard ("If Love Were Oil, I'd Be a Quart Low" as an example) or Karen Zacharias ("Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide, 'Cause I Need More Room For My Plasma TV?"). You just can't go wrong with a creative and funny title.
posted March 1, 2010 at 10:14 am
Awesome. If voting's still on, I'm totally going for the killer robots. (they're kind of like ninjas. they always win.)
posted March 20, 2010 at 11:20 pm
the Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots one sounds kinda interesting. We had a rather heated discussion on the topic in one of my ethics tutorials once.