Nipples on My Knee leads shortlist for 2017's oddest book title award | Books

Nipples on My Knee leads shortlist for 2017's oddest book title award | Books

Nipples on My Knee by Graham and Debra Robertson, a memoir of “25 years in the sheep business”, is the fleecy frontrunner for the the 2017 Diagram prize for oddest book title of the year.

It leads a modest flock of five titles contending for the annual prize run by trade magazine the Bookseller. Without giving away the origins of the title, the Robertsons invite readers to “sit back in front of the fireplace on a cold, snowy evening, perhaps with a glass of sherry, while we relate to you our experiences”.

Tom Tivan, the Bookseller prize coordinator, said the book “has got to be an early bookies’ favourite, as it combines both animal husbandry and Carry On-esque ribaldry”.

As usual, academic and specialist texts dominate the shortlist, which is drawn from readers’ nominations and has now been running for 39 years. According to the magazine’s pseudonymous diarist Horace Bent, Peter Andrews’s An Ape’s View of Evolution is “classic Diagram: a sober and worthy academic tome, which is unintentionally humorous”. He added: “It brings me back to previous winners like Designing High Performance Stiffened Structures (2000) or American Bottom Archaeology (1993).”

Also in the running is a book on intimate grooming called Love Your Lady Landscape by Lisa Lister, whose subtitle encourages the reader to: “Trust your gut, care for ‘down there’ and reclaim your fierce and feminine SHE.”

Renniks Australian Pre-Decimal and Decimal Coin Errors: The Premier Guide for Australian Pre-Decimal and Decimal Coin Errors, edited by Ian McConnelly, does not look likely to trouble the bestseller lists. A Ronseal of a title, the publisher claims the book is a “must-have for all Australian coin error collectors”.

Bringing up the rear on the shortlist is a title aimed at weekend farmers. Michaela Giles’s The Commuter Pig-Keeper is, according to the blurb “a comprehensive guide to keeping pigs when time is your most precious commodity”. Tivnan said the book rekindled memories of past winners, including 2012’s Goblinproofing One’s Chicken Coop, and The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, which took the prize in 2000.

The award was conceived in 1978 by Trevor Bounford and Bruce Robertson, co-founders of publishing solutions firm the Diagram Group, after they noticed the inaugural winner, Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, while bored at the Frankfurt book fair.

The prize was not awarded in “two very dark years â€" 1987 and 1991”, due to a lack of odd titles.

The winning title for 2017 will be decided by public vote, through the Bookseller website. Voting closes on 21 July and the winner will be announced a week later â€" when the author will be awarded “a passable bottle of claret”.

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