Oddest Book Title of the Year

Every year, Bookseller magazine announces the winner of its Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year. This year, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Diagram Prize, the magazine is also holding public vote for the "Diagram of Diagrams"--the oddest book title ever.

Here are the illustrious winners, as well as the titles currently on the short list for this year's award and some that narrowly missed out on a place in history.

Consuming Words Like Some People Eat Chocolate

When I read, I have a hard time getting through books as quickly as I'd prefer. My reading speed has always been fairly swift. However, I'm completely infatuated with words. To me, a word is a vibrant gem that injects reality into the pages at hand. It is a building block, creating and strengthening human understanding across the diversity that is life. Without the right combination, a novel could not convey the story the author hopes to tell.

Words… the smallest and simplest of things. Yet, they have the power to enact large-scale change and influence emotions, to forge relationships between strangers and enhance communication -- sometimes in the form of stories passed down through the ages, the likes of which continue to color our world, deeply ingrained within the hearts and souls of the inhabitants of its societies, despite strife and transformation. Without the gift of words, delicately strung together in romantic ballads, or heavily cemented into the legal documents that structure our governments, our world would be chaotic and meaningless.

So, as I feel their vibrations upon my lips and the way a smoothly crafted sentence stirs my spirit, I can't help but wish to pluck each one from where it rests and drop it into my repertoire.

My usual practice is to keep a highlighter or felt-tipped pen handy and mark the words that really jump out at me. Then, I try to remember to go back through the book and gather the words into a list (I'm not always successful at completing this task). I write down the jargon that I'm not familiar with to later look up, as well as even more common words that I would enjoy using in my own writing, because they inspire me. My best intentions are to store these all in a large notebook, so that these words can be my source for writing prompts later on, and then to insert them all, over time, into my daily writing practice; but, so far, this is more of a "wouldn't that be nice" kind of idea that makes me feel cozy to contemplate.

I try not to let my passion for consuming words onto themselves detract from my enjoyment of the entire story, and the only ways to make this so are the highlighting and underlining I already mentioned, as well as jotting words (and sometimes uniquely put-together phrases) down in a small notebook I carry with me, or typing them into my iPhone's Notes application when all else fails. So I'm good at being the curator of the words I love, but, so far, I haven't found a viable way to organize them into one useful database or similar system. I did use the Web 2.0-style site, Wordie, for a while, but even that didn't seem to be fully featured enough to meet my needs. Does anyone else share this malady? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this or suggestions.

I've always entertained a courtship with words -- accompanying my dad in his tasks on our Alabama farm, as I scribbled entire notebooks full of elementary poems as a kid, winning first-place in the school spelling bee in ninth grade, continuing to be an insatiable reader, and finally, achieving my goal to attain the military occupational specialty of print journalist in my service to the Army.

So, please be aware, if I pass on one of my already read books to you there's a 99 percent chance it will marred by hastily scratched marginalia that only means something to me, and cherished words lovingly handpicked and stored away for a rainy-day writing session.

Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen

"I worked on circuses for nearly seven years, and if that isn't fodder for conversation, I don't know what is." So says the narrator of Water for Elephants, 90-something-year-old Jacob Jankowski, about his experiences in a travelling circus called The Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

I began Gruen's New York Times bestselling novel this morning. I'm reading it simultaneously alongside I Thought My Father Was God.

I borrowed the following summary from the novel's Wikipedia entry...

The story is told as a series of memories by Jankowski, a ninety-three-year-old man who lives in a nursing home.

As the memories begin, Jacob Jankowski is twenty-three years old and preparing for his final exams as a Cornell University veterinary student when he receives the news that his parents were killed in a car accident. Jacob’s father was a veterinarian and Jacob had planned to join his practice. Jacob further discovers his parents were deeply in debt, because his kind-hearted father treated animals even when their owners weren’t able to pay. With his plans in chaos, Jacob has a breakdown and leaves school just short of completing his final exams for graduation. In the dark of night, he wanders aimlessly, and then jumps on the first train he sees, which turns out to be a circus train. When the tyrannical owner of the outfit, "Uncle Al," learns of Jacob's training as a vet, he hires him to care for the circus animals.

The novel chronicles Jacob’s experiences as he learns the hierarchy of circus life, picks up the lingo of its laborers and performers, and gains an understanding of the brutalities inherent in this clandestine society. Along, the way, as he struggles to maintain his moral compass in a sea of recklessness, he falls in love...

P.S... If you enjoy stories centered around the theme of circus life, or just memoirs in general, you should check out Mary R. Wise's book, Girl Clown. Mary is a Maryland author I met during a kick-off event for this year's NaNoWriMo in Columbia, MD. In addition to being an interesting and warm-hearted individual with a great blog, this former "girl clown" can write up a storm.

Book Swapping or Trading Services

I just joined Bookmooch today. Over 2,500 people had bookmarked it via their del.icio.us accounts, over and above all of the other book-swapping services I've been able to find via Google; so I figured it had to have some validity.

With as much money as I shell out on books, and the speed with which I plow through them, I'm really interested to discover how well this service works. I'll let you know when I do.

For a while, I was hot and heavy into the Bookcrossing phenomenon, which really is a fun concept, but your luck in getting hold of a book you've had on your reading list via Bookcrossing is kind of skewed, if you go about it using this service. Still, it's fun to come across one of these registered finds, especially if you are in the market for a new title to add to your reading repertoire.

The only other service I found to be fairly popular was Bookins, and I haven't looked into that one very much.

I'd be interested to hear from other readers - how do you get your books? I imagine like many of us, you have a card for your local library branch or, when the mood strikes, you hit up Amazon or your favorite brick-and-mortar store; but I would love to get recommendations for alternate means to satisfy my book cravings. As for myself, I've discovered AbeBooks to be the best shopping site offering the most reasonable prices on titles I want to buy, as well as a good resource for out-of-print books.

Neil Gaiman's Free Short Fiction Audio Download Offer

I'm still trying to make up my mind how I feel about audiobooks. I enjoy listening to them, and they certainly help to make my Washington DC commute fly by, much more pleasurably. I learn and am entertained by them. But, I really don't count a book as read until my eyes have become intimately acquainted with its pages, its firmly stamped words, somehow eliciting from me the feeling of a more concrete -- hence more valuable connection -- to the writer who bore its words.

Maybe I'm just being old-fashioned (although I do admit a fondness for reading books on my Apple iPhone).

However, despite my ambivalence as to the validity of audiobook content in my own world, I wanted to share this link to free audio content I stumbled upon, posted on author Neil Gaiman's blog today: A Study in Emerald.