A Tortilla is Like Life

[Bern]

Originally organised to provide entertainment during the 1978 Frankfurt Book Fair, The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year has been awarded every year by The Bookseller and is now organised by the magazine's diarist Horace Bent (@HoraceBent).

Previous winners include Reusing Old Graves: A Report on Popular British Attitudes, Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers and How to Avoid Huge Ships.

This year's record-breaking field includes Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich and An Intellectual History of Cannibalism.

As expected, the scatological is well represented. The Origin of Faeces, Peek-a-poo: What’s in Your Diaper?, Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree, Father Christmas Needs a Wee, and Is the Rectum a Grave? are all on the Very Longlist.

Here is the complete list of public submissions for the 2009 Prize:

100 Girls on Cheap Paper

A Tortilla is Like Life

Advances in Potato Chemistry and Technology

Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter

An Intellectual History of Cannibalism

Bacon: A Love Story

Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 1741-1845

Bondage for Beginners

Briefs for the Reading Room

Budgeting for Infertility

Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich

Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes

Curbside Consultation in Cornea and External Disease

Cute Yummy Time

Dental Management of Sleep Disorders

Father Christmas Needs a Wee

Fluffy Little Kitten in Fluffy's Brother

Food Digestion and Thermal Preference of Toad

Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots

How YOU Are Like Shampoo: For Job Seekers

I Stopped Sucking My Thumb…Why Can't You Stop Drinking?

I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears

Is the Rectum a Grave?

Jokes by the Not So Famous Redneck

Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes

Mickey Mouse, Hitler and Nazi Germany

My Hare Line Meets the Brown Rabbit

Obama Guilty of Being President While Black

Peek-a-poo: What's in Your Diaper?

Planet Asthma: Art and Acitivty Book

Plough Music

Plug-in Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Bean Conference

Schoolgirl Milky Crisis

Soft Drink & Fruit Juice Problems Solved

Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing

The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease

The First Home-Built Aeroplanes

The Great Dog Bottom Swap

The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin

The Origin of Faeces

The Quotable Douchebag

The True History of Tea

The Wild World of Girly Men and Masculine Women - And Why Americans Suffer from So Many Other Idiotic Syndromes!

Venus Does Adonis While Apollo Shags a Tree

What Horses Do For Us

What Kind of Bean is this Chihuahua?

Vote for the titles you believe should make the Shortlist. It will be announced on 19 February.