Tag Archives: Diagram Prize

#WackyWednesday and “irresistably weird”

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Meps pushing shopping cart with Dario in it

Meps with a stray shopping cart of North America

Two years after winning the infamous and international Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year, Strangers Have the Best Candy continues to pop up on lists all over the internet. Here are some of the latest I’ve found in my Google searches.

March 15, 2017: #WackyWednesday: 10 of the strangest books ever written

The Newcastle Advertiser featured Strangers Have the Best Candy at #9, below Pop Sonnets and above Dinosaurs With Jobs.

March 1, 2017: 23 Irresistibly Weird Books You Won’t Believe Actually Exist

Amazon suggested this “Frequently bought together” bundle for $33.45

I noticed one day that book sales were trending up. Not only that, but Amazon was offering Strangers together with How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack and Stray Shopping Carts of North America. A Google search discovered this list on Buzzfeed, with Strangers at #20, below the Bill Murray Coloring Book.

December 7, 2016: 15 Questionable Book Titles That Really Exist

Julie Jarema of Riveted came up with rather obscure, but excellent titles, including How to Raise Your IQ by Eating Gifted Children and The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy.

July 2, 2016: Top 10 Greatest Travel Books

Strangers Have the Best Candy is listed as the #1 Travel Book on the Crushing Tomatoes blog. It’s an honor, but to be honest, the review is completely anonymous and slightly suspect. I prefer the Buzzfeed list, myself.

 

Candy Crushes Competition

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I am glad to have worldwide acclaim,
In the self-published, dog-eat-dog game,
It’s my title, thank god,
That is prize-winning odd,
Not my writing, my looks, or my name.

Strangers Have the Best Candy in the BBC

Candy Crushes Competition, from the BBC Entertainment News

I am proud to announce that Strangers Have the Best Candy has just received the Diagram Award for the Oddest Book Title of the Year. There is no cash award, just a “passable bottle of claret” awaiting me in London. The Bookseller hinted that agents and publishers “are tipping it to be the ‘hot book’ at the forthcoming London Book Fair.” I don’t know whether to be excited (if it’s true) or offended that they are making fun of me. The real benefit is seeing my name and title in the news as far away as India and New Zealand.

My favorite headline so far is “Candy crushes competition,” from the BBC Entertainment Live page.

 

Candy. Crushes. Competition.

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I am glad to have worldwide acclaim,
In the self-published, dog-eat-dog game,
It’s my title, thank god,
That is prize-winning odd,
Not my writing, my looks, or my name.

BBC entertainment page

The BBC ran a teaser with “Candy crushes competition” as the headline

I don’t know whether to be excited or embarrassed.

When The Bookseller announced that Strangers Have the Best Candy has received the Diagram Award for the Oddest Book Title of the Year, they said there was no cash award, just a “passable bottle of claret” awaiting me in London.  However, their news release said that agents and publishers “are tipping it to be the ‘hot book’ at the forthcoming London Book Fair.” Is this an example of British humour (sic), or are they serious?

Strangers Have the Best Candy shortlisted for the Diagram Prize

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On Saturday morning, I found a Google alert in my inbox. A Google alert is an email indicating that someone has used the phrase, “Strangers Have the Best Candy,” along with my name, on the internet. Yawning, I clicked on it, thinking it was a mistake.

It was not a mistake. The 7-book shortlist for the Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of 2015 had been released, and Strangers Have the Best Candy was on it. I learned this from The Guardian, which published a photo gallery of all seven book-covers:

According to Horace Bent of Bookseller Magazine, which issues the prize, “Ultimately, it is a stunning collection of books. Let other awards cheer the contents within, the Diagram will always continually judge the book by its cover (title).”

Strangers Have the Best Candy is the first self-published book nominated in the 37-year history of the prize. That is a great honor, because while the Diagram Prize is lighthearted, it is no farce. These are not odd books, just odd titles.

In the past few days, I’ve enjoyed my 15 seconds of fame, seeing my book mentioned by the Huffington Post, BBC News, the Booklist Reader, the Irish Republic, and a host of sites and blogs, some of which were not even in English. There have been no calls to appear on TV yet, but sales to bookstores have begun to pick up.

Please cast your vote for Strangers Have the Best Candy before March 20, 2015. Click on this link to vote — you don’t have to provide personal information, and it will take less than a minute: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/diagramprize2014.

~~~

I’ve also published a limerick about the Diagram Prize on Meps’n’Barry.com.