The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, originally called the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title and often referred to as the Diagram Prize, is a funny book award given every year to a book with an unusual title. The prize is named after the Diagram Group, a company in London that makes information and graphics, and The Bookseller, a British magazine for people in the publishing industry. The award was first created in 1978 to entertain visitors at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Since then, The Bookseller has given the prize every year, and it is now managed by the magazine’s diarist, Horace Bent. At first, a group of judges decided the winner. However, since 2000, the winner has been chosen by the public through a vote on The Bookseller’s website.

Some problems have happened since the prize began. There were two years when no award was given because the judges did not think any book titles were unusual enough. Bent has criticized some winners chosen by the public. For example, the 2008 winner, The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais, caused controversy because it was not written by its listed author, Philip M. Parker, but instead by a machine he created. The most recent winner, in November 2025, was The Pornographic Delicatessen: Midcentury Montréal's Erotic Art, Media, and Spaces by Matthew Purvis.

History

The Diagram Prize was created by The Bookseller, but the idea to celebrate books with unusual titles was first suggested by Bruce Robertson and Trevor Bounford of the Diagram Group. They proposed the award in 1978 to entertain visitors at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The prize was originally called the Diagram Group Prize for the Oddest Title at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Books displayed at the fair could be nominated, and some books not at the fair were also considered. In 1982, Horace Bent, a writer for The Bookseller, began managing the award. In 1987 and 1991, no prize was given because there were not enough unusual titles. To solve this, The Bookseller invited readers to suggest books. In 2000, the public voted to choose the winner instead of Horace Bent. In 2009, people could submit nominations through Twitter, leading to the most submissions in the prize’s history—90 books (50 from Twitter), nearly three times the number from the previous year. Horace Bent was upset about some rule-breaking submissions, including books published as early as 1880. In 2014, the prize allowed nominations for self-published books, and the first winner was Strangers Have the Best Candy by Margaret Meps Schulte.

The Diagram Prize receives a lot of media attention each year. In 2008, more people voted for the Diagram Prize (8,500 votes) than for the Best of Booker Prize (7,800 votes). The prize gives the person who nominates the winning title either a bottle of champagne or a bottle of claret, along with extra publicity for the book and its author. In 2014, the winner’s nominator, Brian Payne of The Bookseller, refused the claret, saying it “would remain in the cellar.” In 2018, all nominations came from The Bookseller staff, so the claret was given to a random voter who supported the winner.

At first, only books at the Frankfurt Book Fair could be nominated. This rule was later changed to include books suggested by librarians, publishers, and booksellers who read The Bookseller magazine. This helped reduce the chance of no award being given. In 2009, nominations could be sent to Horace Bent or The Bookseller’s Twitter accounts. People cannot nominate their own books or books they publish. Titles that are intentionally funny are usually not accepted. Nominators, judges, and voters are told not to read the books to avoid bias, as the prize focuses on unusual titles, not unusual books. The winner was originally chosen by a group of judges, but since 2000, the public votes online. Horace Bent opposed this change but later agreed to help create a shortlist of finalists. The book’s title must be in English, though the book itself can be written in any language.

In 2008, a book titled How to Avoid Huge Ships and Other Implausibly Titled Books was published by Aurum Press to celebrate the prize’s 30th anniversary. It included covers of past winners and runners-up. A second book, Baboon Metaphysics And More Implausibly Titled Books, was released in 2009 with an introduction by Horace Bent.

There have been two years when no prize was given: 1987 and 1991. Horace Bent believed no titles were unusual enough to win. The prize became so well-known that in 2004, The Bookseller criticized publishers for choosing titles to win, saying, “There were too many self-consciously titled entries—presumably in a bid to emulate the 2003 champion, Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories.” Horace Bent also disliked some titles, such as the 2007 winner, If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start with Your Legs.

In 2009, the book The 2009–2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Philip M. Parker was controversial. Parker did not write the book himself; it was created by a computer using Internet searches. Philip Stone of The Bookseller said, “I think it’s slightly controversial as it was written by a computer, but given the number of celebrity memoirs that are ghostwritten, I don’t