Do-It-Yourself Brain Surgery And Other Implausibly Titled Books [Hardcover]

Joel Rickett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2009

A hilarious illustrated sampling of the most baffling, improbably titled books ever sent to press.

The Diagram Prize is awarded by the Bookseller magazine each year to the book with the oddest title. Since its creation at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1978, the Diagram has had some worthy winners, including Bombproof Your Horse, How to Avoid Huge Ships, and People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead.

And though these titles may seem like surefire winners, each year of this ingenious contest has seen stiff competition across all genres: fiction (Fabulous Small Jews, 2003); instructional (Knitting with Dog Hair, 1994); and even erotica (The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, 2002). Last year’s competition featured I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen—which came in second.

Here, collected for the first time, are the fifty best entries the Diagram has ever seen. Presented complete with their (equally outlandish) jackets, these books are memorable, perplexing, and riotously funny. A perfect gift for a book lover or anyone in need of a laugh.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 96 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (October 27, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1608190196
• ISBN-13: 978-1608190195
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,546,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Party ice-breaker, January 5, 2010

By 

Karen Tiede (Raleigh, NC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Do-It-Yourself Brain Surgery And Other Implausibly Titled Books (Hardcover)

Someone in my circle got this book for Christmas and we passed it around last night. Funny how many of us had read or actually owned at least one of the titles listed. For an ice-breaker at my next party, I may make up a spreadsheet and give a prize to the person who will claim to have read the highest # of these titles.

I own the chainsaw carving book myself (it's not the best in the genre but it does have a unique Australian perspective) and gave one of the others (*ing in the woods) as a wedding present to a couple who wanted camping gear. You can't knit 100% dog hair in this climate; it's too hot. Local spinners blend it with wool.

In other words, one man's utterly whacko is another woman's reference manual.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very funny Gets Old Fast, December 8, 2009

By 

D. Shannon (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Do-It-Yourself Brain Surgery And Other Implausibly Titled Books (Hardcover)

This is a 96 page book of odd book covers with extremley brief explanations. The covers are hilarious, but that's all there is. I mean ... well I already had "The Field Guide to Shopping Carts of North Americia" (p27) and wacky books delight me, but I think that "Outhouses of Alaska" (p96) would have been more satisfying in the end than "Do it Yourself Brian Surgery and Other..." But without this book I would never have known about the "Outhouses of Alaska" ... I wonder... is that on Amazon?