'I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen' is just one of the nominees to make this year's shortlist for the annual oddest book title competition run by British industry magazine The Bookseller.

Visitors to the magazine's website, www.thebookseller.com, can make their choice from six mostly non-fiction titles unearthed by publishers, bookstore workers and librarians from around the world.

The winner will be announced on March 28.

The nominees for The Diagram Prize are:

  • 'I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen' by Jasper McCutcheon
  • 'How to Write a How to Write Book' by Brian Paddock
  • 'Are Women Human? And Other International Dialogues' by Catharine A. MacKinnon
  • 'Cheese Problems Solved" by P.L.H McSweeney
  • 'If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs' by Big Boom;
  • 'People who Mattered in Southend and Beyond: From King Canute to Doctor Feelgood' by Dee Gordon.
Horace Bent, The Bookseller's diarist, said on the magazine's website: "I confess: I have been anxious that as publishing becomes ever more corporate, the trade's quirky charms are being squeezed out.

"Lists are pruned, targets are set, authors are culled. But happily my fears have been proved unfounded: oddity lives on."

Last year's winner was 'The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification', by Julian Montague.

The Diagram Prize has been running since 1978, when the winner was 'Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice'.

AFP