The Diagram Prize (found via Tyler Cowen) is a yearly celebration of books with eccentric titles. Here’s the shortlist for 2011…
A Century of Sand Dredging in the Bristol Channel: Volume Two by Peter Gosson (Amberley). A book that documents the sand trade from its inception in 1912 to the present day, focusing on the Welsh coast.
Cooking with Poo by Saiyuud Diwong (Urban Neighbours of Hope). Thai cookbook. “Poo” is Thai for “crab” and is Diwong’s nickname.
Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World by Aino Praakli (Kirjastus Elmatar). Covers styles of socks and stockings found in Estonian knitting.
The Great Singapore Penis Panic: And the Future of American Mass Hysteria by Scott D Mendelson (Createspace). An analysis of the “Koro” psychiatric epidemic that hit the island of Singapore in 1967.
Mr Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge by Stephen Curry and Takayoshi Andoh (Royd Press). The story of Koichi Andoh, who travelled from Japan to Yorkshire in the 1930s to train workers at a hatchery business the art of determining the sex of one-day-old chicks.
A Taxonomy of Office Chairs by Jonathan Olivares (Phaidon). Exhaustive overview of the evolution of the modern office chair.
The Mushroom in Christian Art by John A Rush (North Atlantic Books). In which the author reveals that Jesus is a personification of the Holy Mushroom, Amanita Muscaria.
Intrigued – and, well, who wouldn’t be by titles such as these? – I hunted for more information on the books. Peter Gosson’s magnum opus is a favourite…
This detailed history of a century of sand dredging of the Bristol Channel is the result of over thirty years of meticulous research.
Thirty years of research? That’s a lot of dredging!
It covers the sand trade from its inception in 1912 to the present day, and looks at the sand dredgers employed through the years as well as the companies engaged in the trade. Information has been drawn from the wide range of sources, including Peter Gosson’s own experience of the trade and its ships, (his father was a master of Bristol sand dredgers for over twenty-five years)…
It’s easy to laugh – very, very easy – but I like the esoterica that forms so much of the patchwork blanket of our culture. The questions and phenomena that may be insignificant in the grand of scheme of things but can still mean a lot to lots of people. Your’s and my novels on the great themes of life, love and the universe may be ambitious in scope but it’s unlikely that anyone will read them. Thanks to their experiences; those of their families or just the most random of whims people are interested in local and otherwise obscure phenomena. You’ll find little communities of them on hideaway forums across the ‘net – lovingly documenting the fine details of their fields. It’s a rather sweet reflection on the human need for place, identity and – in a small way – truth.
None of this means I’ll be throwing Gosson’s tome onto my reading list. The Great Singapore Penis Panic sounds tremendous, though…
Forty-three years ago, a strange series of events unfolded on the island of Singapore. Hundreds of men rushed to the hospitals of the island with the terrifying belief that their penises were shrinking. Each feared that if his penis shrank away completely, he would die.
Or worse! That it’d shrink away completely and he’d live.
