The Bookseller’s annual search to find the Oddest Book Title of the Year has turned up a real stinker this time around – Cooking with Poo.
The cookbook – penned by Bangkok chef Saiyuud Diwong – topped the poll with 38% of the 1,363 votes cast.
It heads a top seven of brilliantly snigger-inducing oddities, including The Great Singapore Penis Panic and the Future of American Mass Hysteria and Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge. Snappy titles both.
Horace Bent, The Bookseller’s diarist said: “Given that this year the three most voted-for works contain the words ‘poo’, ‘sexer’ and ‘penis’ in the title, it appears that this year’s prize will go down in history as a blue year. But there is nothing wrong with that.”
The inspiration for the winning title is far less horrifying than it seems at first – ‘Poo’ is Thai for crab, and is Diwong’s nickname.
The winning author told The Bookseller that her funny nickname ‘helps her business a lot’, a somewhat surprising contention to say the least.
The list in full:
- Cooking with Poo by Saiyuud Diwong (Urban Neighbours of Hope) 38%
- Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge by Stephen Curry and Takayoshi Andoh (Royd Press) 22%
- The Great Singapore Penis Panic and the Future of American Mass Hysteria by Scott D Mendelson (Createspace) 13%
- Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World by Aino Praakli (Elmatar) 12%
- The Mushroom in Christian Art by John A Rush (North Atlantic Books) 8%
- A Taxonomy of Office Chairs by Jonathan Olivares (Phaidon) 4%
- A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two by Peter Gosson (Amberley) 3%
Previous winners of the title range from the bizarre to the brilliantly banal.
The very first book to collect the award in 1978 was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.
In 2010 the winner was Managing a Dental Practice: The Genghis Khan Way and in previous years If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs, Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality and - our particular favourite Highlights in the History of Concrete have all claimed the crown.
The only barren years for the award were in 1987 and 1991 when, disappointingly for all, it was felt that none of the books released had odd enough titles to merit the distinction.