Never judge a book by its cover, judge it by its title

The world of odd book titles is wonderful to behold, writes Dick Skellington.

There are book titles – take The Communist Manifesto for example – which do exactly what they say on the cover. And there are book titles like Cooking with Poo and Estonian Sock Patterns All Around The World which, however you look at them, seem to exist solely to prevent the books being sold in great numbers. Or do they?

For every good book title there are some really bad choices out there. The author trade magazine, The Bookseller, holds an annual competition for those titles you wished would go away. You have to wonder why some of these titles were chosen, but some of them may end up as classics of the genre. 

Take your pick from the good and the bad. Here are some contenders for the silliest book title of the past two years. 

The Great Singapore Penis Panic and the Future of American Hysteria by Scott D. Mendelson. A Taxonomy of Office Chairs by Jonathan Olivares. Testicle Balls in Cooking and Culture by Blandine Vie. Cooking with Poo by Saiyuud Diwong. The Adult Spanking and Discipline Handbook: a Comprehensive Guide to Corporal Punishment by governess Gemma Forbes. Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World by Aino Praaki. A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume 2: The Welsh Coast by Peter Gosson. And The Erotic Rissole by Tanveer Ahmed.

Cooking with Poo won the previous year. But what would win the 2012 accolade? You might find some clues in past winners to guide your choice. These include The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers, Highlights in the History of Concrete, Bombproof Your Horse and from 1992, a vintage year it seems, the unforgettable How to Avoid Huge Ships. But perhaps the greatest clue to the 2012 winner, announced on 22 March, can be found in the title of a previous prestigious winner, The Joy of Chickens.

The winner of this year's Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year is Goblinproofing one's chicken coop by Reginald Bakeley. Goblinproofing faced very stiff competition from, among other titles, Was Hitler Ill? by Hans-Joachim Neumann and Henrik Eberle; Lofts of North America by Jerry Gagne; God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis by Tom Hickman; How Tea Cosies Changed the World by Loani; and How to Sharpen Pencils by David Rees.

Had I been on the panel I think I would have gone for a shortlist of How tea cosies changed the world, How to sharpen pencils, and God's Doodle. But I am sure your choices would be just as inspired. My personal favourite of all the above titles is Estonian Sock Patterns All Around The World. 

However, Goblinproofing, which gives valuable advice on how to protect chickens from fairies and banish the fairies from your home, won convincingly with 38 per cent of the judges' votes. 

The title is everything, according to the Diagram Prize administrator Philip Stone. He explained the prize spotlights an undervalued art that can make or break a work of literature.

"Books such as A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time all owe a sizeable part of their huge successes to their odd monikers."

Having once written a book which bombed at the bookseller called Minority Group Housing in Bedford, I think he has a point.
Dick Skellington 1 May 2013

The views expressed in this post, as in all posts on Society Matters, are the views of the author, not The Open University.

 

Cartoons by Gary Edwards and Catherine Pain