Voters have spoken: The oddest book title of 2024 is The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire, by Richard Adams Carey. While the title may be odd, the book itself looks at sturgeon, the fish from which caviar is harvested, and how the fish has risen to number four on the World Wildlife Fund’s most-endangered species list.
Oh, but that title. It has the “classic odd title blend of peculiarity and pomposity,” says Tom Tivnan, Managing Editor of The Bookseller, the British trade magazine behind the award. The title also has that slight hint of naughtiness the co-ordinators of the prize love in the mention of “desire.”
I love love love that the contest began in 1978 as a way to fight boredom at the Frankfurt Book Fair. It celebrates “the beauty of print-on-demand for fascinatingly niche titles, and perhaps most of all, complete and utter oddity,” The Bookseller‘s Philip Stone once said. The title that started it all was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice.
Other past winners include:
- A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path: Animal Metaphors in Eastern Indonesian Society, the first-ever Canadian winner
- The Dirt Hole and its Variations
- The Joy of Waterboiling
- Too Naked for the Nazis
- Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way
- Strangers Have the Best Candy
At one time, the person nominating the contest winner received a magnum of champagne, in addition to the glory, of course. Now, he/she only gets “a passable bottle of claret.” This time, the nominator was a Bookseller staff member, so the bottle will be saved for next year.
Wine or not, keep your eyes open for odd book titles. The Bookseller collects the titles all year – send them to Horace Bent at bent@thebookseller.com – before it creates a shortlist and asks the public to vote at thebookseller.com.
Related reading:
The 2021 contest goes to Is Superman Circumcised?
A closer look at the 2020 winner, A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path
More about the 2016 contest, which awarded Too Naked for the Nazis