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Last call for Diagram of Diagrams

02.09.08 | Graeme Neill

Competition for the winner of The Bookseller's search for the oddest title of the last 30 years could not be tighter ahead of voting closing at midnight tonight.

Gary Leon Hill’s investigation of the afterlife, People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead (Weiser Books), currently leads the voting with 11% of all votes in the Diagram of Diagrams. It is locked in a close battle with John Trimmer’s 97-page manual, How to Avoid Huge Ships (National Writer’s Press), which has taken 10% of all votes.

The battle for third is just as tight with Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers (Hellenic Philatelic Society of Great Britain), edited by Derek Willan, neck and neck with Rick Pelicano and Lauren Tjaden’s Bombproof Your Horse (Traflagar Square Books) on 8%.

The search commemorates the 30th anniversary of The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year and the winner will be officially announced this Friday (5th September). A celebration of the some of the prize’s popular winners and nominees, How to Avoid Huge Ships: And Other Implausibly Titled Books (Aurum Press), edited by The Bookseller’s former deputy editor Joel Rickett, will be officially released on the same day. The book was serialised in the Guardian’s Weekend supplement on Saturday, and was highlighted in a two-page spread in the Daily Mail yesterday.

Horace Bent, The Bookseller’s legendary diarist and custodian of the prize said; “I take insurmountable joy in reminding people that more people voted for The Bookseller’s annual Diagram Prize in March this year than voted in the recent ‘Booker of Booker’. I need say no more. Except to point out that just because many previous nominees and winners in the annual search for the ‘Oddest’ are American is pure coincidence.”

Although no physical prize is officially awarded to the author of the winning book, Philip Stone, charts editor at The Bookseller, was quick to point out the other benefits a prize win can bring: “It has long been known that a prize win gives a welcome boost to a book’s sales and The Diagram Prize is no different. Combined sales of the six shortlisted titles earlier this year enjoyed a colossal 10-fold sales increase in the two weeks following the announcement. That’s something money can’t buy. And publishers and authors would be foolish to send in any bribes to Horace Bent, The Bookseller, Endeavour House, 189 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 9TJ.”

To vote for the Diagram of Diagrams, go here.

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