In the narrowest win in the award’s history, the 2024 Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year goes to The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar, and the Geography of Desire, a study of the mysterious and endangered fish, its eggs, and their significance by Richard Adams Carey.
Congratulations to Carey and Brandeis University Press on the win — an award’s an award, no matter how odd! Personally, I’m kicking myself that I didn’t follow through on my joke to bet my life savings on this book. It’s a good lesson to take more ill-advised risk’s in 2025.
The Philosopher Fish barely eked out a win with a mere 27% of the online public vote, barely beating out the competition. Second place with 24% of the vote went to How to Dungeon Master Parenting, third place with 22% went to Speculum: Examining the Women’s Health Movement, fourth with 14% to Killing the Buddha on the Appalachian Trail, fifth with 8% went to Boston’s Oldest Buildings and Where to Find Them, and in last place with 5% was Hell-Bent for Leather: Sex and Sexuality in the Weird Western.
I think Carey’s book deserves the win out of this shortlist, but I have to say, none of these titles strike me as that odd. They’re certainly atypical, but I hope publishing can do better next year.
So if you’ve got a project you’re about to send to the printer for a 2025 release, maybe take a second to brainstorm some odder titles — the Diagram Prize will thank you.
