more humor from my sister
Feb. 8th, 2010 03:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
frolijahfanA bumper year for strange books as longlist for 2010 prize is announced
Some of the contenders for this year's Diagram prize for the oddest title
From Bacon: A Love Story to An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich and The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, the Bookseller magazine has announced the longest ever longlist for its annual Diagram prize for the oddest book title of the year.
A strong leaning towards the scatological characterises many of the 49 longlisted books, with Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?, Father Christmas Needs a Wee, Is the Rectum a Grave? and The Origin of Faeces all vying for a place on the shortlist.
The prize's custodian, Horace Bent, said he received a total of 90 submissions for this year's prize, almost three times as many as last year, but was forced to reject many of them for either being too old – Sketches of a Few Jellyfish was published in 1880, and On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers in 1895 – or for failing to meet his "properly published" criteria.
"The adage that everyone has a book in them may well be true, but that doesn't mean every Tom, Dick and Harry out there can bash a few words out on a keyboard and then upload it to Scribd with a humorous title like The Historic Adventures of the Purple Waffle Iron on His Horse Made of Asparagus, and then think they have a chance at winning my prestigious award. I refuse to acknowledge such submissions," Bent said.
Titles with a strong chance of making the shortlist – which will be announced on 19 February – include Dental Management of Sleep Disorders, Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany and Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology, Bent added. Once the shortlist is revealed, the public will then be asked to vote for their favourite, with the winner to be announced on 26 March.
The prize, set up in 1978 during a particularly dull day at the Frankfurt book fair, has been won in the past by titles including American Bottom Archaeology and Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers. Last year's award was controversially taken by The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, which was written by a computer.
The longlist in full
100 Girls on Cheap Paper
A Tortilla is Like Life
Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology
Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism
Bacon: A Love Story
Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 1741-1845
Bondage for Beginners
Briefs for the Reading Room
Budgeting for Infertility
Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
Curbside Consultation in Cornea and External Disease
Cute Yummy Time
Dental Management of Sleep Disorders
Father Christmas Needs a Wee
Fluffy Little Kitten in Fluffy's Brother
Food Digestion and Thermal Preference of Toad
Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots
How YOU Are Like Shampoo: For Job Seekers
I Stopped Sucking My Thumb…Why Can't You Stop Drinking?
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears
Is the Rectum a Grave?
Jokes by the Not So Famous Redneck
Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes
Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany
My Hare Line Meets the Brown Rabbit
Obama Guilty of Being President While Black
Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?
Planet Asthma: Art and Activity Book
Plough Music
Plug-in Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Bean Conference
Schoolgirl Milky Crisis
Soft Drink & Fruit Juice Problems Solved
Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing
The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The First Home-Built Aeroplanes
The Great Dog Bottom Swap
The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin
The Origin of Faeces
The Quotable Douchebag
The True History of Tea
The Wild World of Girly Men and Masculine Women - And Why Americans Suffer from So Many Other Idiotic Syndromes!
Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree
What Horses Do For Us
What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?
She wanted to know if I'd cataloged any of them--and actually, I have. "Pride and prejudice and zombies" (plus its companion volume "Sense and Sensibility and sea monsters"). Some of the others are just plain scary to contemplate.
And on a positive note, the leaking anti-freeze may have been a false alarm. I've certainly seen nothing under the car since he mentioned it. Maybe crud just got washed off the undercarriage by the snow and dripped as the snow melted. I'll still keep an eye on it, though.
Some of the contenders for this year's Diagram prize for the oddest title
From Bacon: A Love Story to An Intellectual History of Cannibalism, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich and The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, the Bookseller magazine has announced the longest ever longlist for its annual Diagram prize for the oddest book title of the year.
A strong leaning towards the scatological characterises many of the 49 longlisted books, with Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?, Father Christmas Needs a Wee, Is the Rectum a Grave? and The Origin of Faeces all vying for a place on the shortlist.
The prize's custodian, Horace Bent, said he received a total of 90 submissions for this year's prize, almost three times as many as last year, but was forced to reject many of them for either being too old – Sketches of a Few Jellyfish was published in 1880, and On Sledge and Horseback to Outcast Siberian Lepers in 1895 – or for failing to meet his "properly published" criteria.
"The adage that everyone has a book in them may well be true, but that doesn't mean every Tom, Dick and Harry out there can bash a few words out on a keyboard and then upload it to Scribd with a humorous title like The Historic Adventures of the Purple Waffle Iron on His Horse Made of Asparagus, and then think they have a chance at winning my prestigious award. I refuse to acknowledge such submissions," Bent said.
Titles with a strong chance of making the shortlist – which will be announced on 19 February – include Dental Management of Sleep Disorders, Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany and Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology, Bent added. Once the shortlist is revealed, the public will then be asked to vote for their favourite, with the winner to be announced on 26 March.
The prize, set up in 1978 during a particularly dull day at the Frankfurt book fair, has been won in the past by titles including American Bottom Archaeology and Greek Rural Postmen and their Cancellation Numbers. Last year's award was controversially taken by The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, which was written by a computer.
The longlist in full
100 Girls on Cheap Paper
A Tortilla is Like Life
Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology
Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter
An Intellectual History of Cannibalism
Bacon: A Love Story
Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 1741-1845
Bondage for Beginners
Briefs for the Reading Room
Budgeting for Infertility
Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich
Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes
Curbside Consultation in Cornea and External Disease
Cute Yummy Time
Dental Management of Sleep Disorders
Father Christmas Needs a Wee
Fluffy Little Kitten in Fluffy's Brother
Food Digestion and Thermal Preference of Toad
Governing Lethal Behaviour in Autonomous Robots
How YOU Are Like Shampoo: For Job Seekers
I Stopped Sucking My Thumb…Why Can't You Stop Drinking?
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears
Is the Rectum a Grave?
Jokes by the Not So Famous Redneck
Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes
Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany
My Hare Line Meets the Brown Rabbit
Obama Guilty of Being President While Black
Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?
Planet Asthma: Art and Activity Book
Plough Music
Plug-in Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Bean Conference
Schoolgirl Milky Crisis
Soft Drink & Fruit Juice Problems Solved
Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing
The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The First Home-Built Aeroplanes
The Great Dog Bottom Swap
The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin
The Origin of Faeces
The Quotable Douchebag
The True History of Tea
The Wild World of Girly Men and Masculine Women - And Why Americans Suffer from So Many Other Idiotic Syndromes!
Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree
What Horses Do For Us
What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?
She wanted to know if I'd cataloged any of them--and actually, I have. "Pride and prejudice and zombies" (plus its companion volume "Sense and Sensibility and sea monsters"). Some of the others are just plain scary to contemplate.
And on a positive note, the leaking anti-freeze may have been a false alarm. I've certainly seen nothing under the car since he mentioned it. Maybe crud just got washed off the undercarriage by the snow and dripped as the snow melted. I'll still keep an eye on it, though.
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 09:46 pm (UTC)Hope the leak was a false alarm.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-08 10:58 pm (UTC)And so far the car is behaving properly, no engine overheating or warning lights or anything that looks like a drip, so I'm cautiously optimistic.
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 12:45 am (UTC)That's good news about your car!! Yay!
And omg, I was telling my coworkers about your director actually coming to pick you up and drive you to work and they couldn't believe it!
no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 06:58 pm (UTC)I skimmed parts of "P & P and Zombies" (in sheer disbelief!) but didn't actually sit down and read it. The zombie additions seemed to get more and more forced as the book progressed.
Hey, our director is a firm believer in the library being open no matter what (whether her staff survives or not, obviously!) and I live in town so she didn't have to go too far (although distance wouldn't have stopped her--she's said before that if people scheduled to work on Sundays didn't drive or couldn't find a ride she'd come and get them, wherever they lived). And since I didn't want to a) waste a vacation day because the city hadn't plowed my street or b) court a second heart attack by trying to force my way through snow up to my knees, she got to chauffeur.