The winner of The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Title of the Year was announced today: People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves To Unsuspecting Bystanders and What To Do About It, by Gary Leon Hill.

More than 1,000 readers voted for their favorite odd title, which was announced by The Book Standard’s sibling publication The Bookseller today. Hill’s book beat out second-place title Rhino Horn Stockpile Management: Minimum Standards and Best Practices from East and Southern Africa, by Simon Milledge, by only two votes. In third place was Ancient Starch Research, by Robin Torrence and Huw J. Barton.

The Bookseller narrows down the shortlist, which is then voted on by the public. Other runners-up this year were Soil Nailing: Best Practice Guidance, Bullying and Sexual Harassment: A Practical Handbook, and the wild card, Nessus, Snort and Ethereal Powertools.

Diagram Prize Winners 1978–2004

• 1978 Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice
• 1979 The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution
• 1980 The Joy of Chickens
• 1981 Last chance at Love-Terminal Romances
• 1982 Population and Other Problems
• 1983 The Theory of Lengthwise Rolling
• 1984 The Book of Marmalade: Its Antecedents, Its History and Its Role in the World Today
• 1985 Natural Bust Enlargement with Total Power: How to Increase the other 90% of Your Mind to Increase the Size of Your Breasts
• 1986 Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality
• 1988 Versailles: The View from Sweden
• 1989 How to Shit in the Woods: An Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art
• 1990 Lesbian Sadomasochism Safety Manual
• 1992 How to Avoid Huge Ships
• 1993 American Bottom Archaeology
• 1994 Highlights in the History of Concrete
• 1995 Reusing Old Graves
• 1996 Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers
• 1997 The Joy of Sex: Pocket Edition
• 1998 Development in Dairy Cow Breeding and Management: and New Opportunities to Widen the Uses of Straw
• 1999 Weeds in a Changing World
• 2000 High Performance Stiffened Structures
• 2001 Butterworths Corporate Manslaughter Service
• 2002 Living with Crazy Buttocks
• 2003 The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories
• 2004 Bombproof Your Horse