Is Superman Circumcised? and Miss, I Don’t Give a Shit will battle it out for one of the most prestigious (OK, no) literary prizes in the world.
The shortlist for The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year was unveiled Thursday, with Roy Schwartz’s look at the Man of Steel’s organ and Adele Bates’ examination of profanity-loving schoolchildren among the finalists.
Schwartz’s book, a scholarly deep dive into the superhero’s Jewish influences, is probably the frontrunner for the award, Bookseller managing editor Tom Tivnan told the Guardian, citing the award’s voters’ “sometimes lamentable predilection for titles that refer, even obliquely, to naughty bits.” (This would explain the 1985 winner, Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Mind Power: How to Use the Other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts.)
But it will have to beat out five other worthy finalists, including The Life Cycle of Russian Things: From Fish Guts to Fabergé, Hats: A Very Unnatural History, and the thrillingly titled Handbook of Research on Health and Environmental Benefits of Camel Products.
University presses are typically overrepresented in the prize’s shortlists, Tivnan said, adding, “The heart and soul of the Diagram is professors pecking away at arcane study who often can’t see the odd for the trees.”
The prize was first awarded in 1978, when Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice took the honors. Other winners have included How To Avoid Huge Ships, Designing High Performance Stiffened Structures, and People Who Don't Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What To Do About It.
So is Superman circumcised? A reader who reviewed the book on Amazon declined to spoil the ending, but wrote, “Schwartz leaves his reader with an answer akin to what might only be described as…Schrödinger’s foreskin.”
Sorry, Hats: A Very Unnatural History, but you don’t stand a chance.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
