The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alisa Surkis

Titles which are deliberately created to be funny are normally rejected. People cannot nominate their own works, nor can they select books they publish themselves. “Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop” by Reginald Bakeley was awarded the 2013 Diagram Prize last Friday. The book won 38 percent of the public’s votes, beating finalists including “How Tea Cosies Changed the World,” “Was Hitler Ill?” and “God’s Doodle: The Life and Times of the Penis.” The prize is either a magnum of champagne or a bottle of claret for the person who nominates the winning title, and increased publicity for both the book and its author. In 2008, more people voted for the Diagram Prize (8,500 votes) than The Best of Booker Prize (7,800).

The Diagram Prize receives considerable press coverage every year. Philip Stone, charts editor and awards administrator at The Bookseller, commented by saying: “I think it’s slightly controversial as it was written by a computer, but given the number of celebrity memoirs out there that are ghostwritten, I don’t think it’s too strange.” Originally organised to provide entertainment during the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair, the prize has grown in recognition worldwide.Ĭontroversy has dogged the awards there have been two occasions when no award was given because no titles were judged to be odd enough, the judge has complained about some of the winners chosen by the public, and the 2008 winner, The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, proved controversial because rather than being written by its listed author, it was instead written by an automated authoring algorythm which produces thousands of titles on the basis of Internet and database searches. The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, commonly known as the Diagram Prize for short, is a humorous literary award that is given annually to the book deemed to have the oddest title. Time to get topical as I plunder Wikipedia for the in depth scoop on The Diagram Prize, which was awarded to the book above only last week …

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories by Alisa Surkis