Goblinproofing One's
Chicken Coop – a practical guide on how
to clear your home and garden of goblins and banish them forever – has been
named the weirdest book title of the year. Reginald Bakeley's
tongue-in-cheek manual beat a shortlist that included How Tea Cosies Changed
the World, and How to Sharpen Pencils, to win the Diagram prize for the oddest book title of the year.
The book joins former winners
of the Diagram – given out annually by the Bookseller magazine – including Highlights in the History of
Concrete, Bombproof Your Horse and
last year's top title, Cooking with Poo. The first ever winner of the prize, in 1978, was Proceedings of
the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.
Philip Stone, the Diagram
prize's administrator, said, "the kind of niche, offbeat publications
that often appear on the Diagram prize shortlist might not make their writers
or publishers rich beyond their wildest dreams, but the fact that writers still
passionately write such works and publishers are still willing to invest in
them is a marvellous thing that deserves to be celebrated."
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