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Run by Bookseller magazine, and initially decided in-house by Mr. Bent and a jury of his choosing, the prize is now voted for online by publishers and booksellers.

Initially a bit of a joke, it has become so popular they have had to fend off what Mr. Bent has described as “self-consciously titled entries,” many of which seemed to imitate the 2003 winner, The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories.

While often funny, these deliberately odd titles run counter to the goal of the prize, which is to honour the earnestly clueless authors and publishers who would publish such titles as Butterworth’s Corporate Manslaughter Service (a legal text), 227 Secrets Your Snake Wants You to Know and Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality.

The prize, which includes a magnum of Champagne for the person who nominated the winner, is a celebration of “unwitting oddity,” as Mr. Bent describes it, although even oddity has persistent themes, as the current shortlist reveals.

Mr. Andoh’s Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge, for example, is one in a long line of memoirs by people with strange and funny-sounding, but nonetheless real jobs. Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter, for example, won in 2010.

Two current nominees, Estonian Sock Patterns All Around the World and A Taxonomy of Office Chairs are among dozens of arcane field guides to make the list, including The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich and Versailles: The View From Sweden.

Manuals are also popular. Previous nods have gone to Knitting With Dog Hair, Living With Crazy Buttocks, Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself, Reusing Old Graves, How To Avoid Huge Ships, Italian Without Words, Sexual Health at your Fingertips and The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition.

Few, however, can compare to the sheer improbability of the 2005 winner, which is still in print: People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders — and What to Do About It.

National Post

• Email: jbrean@nationalpost.com