Cooking with Poo: The world’s weirdest book title?

Thai cookbook wins unusual accolade

We’ve heard some amusing and bizarre book titles in our time – in fact we made a whole list of book names that made the Stylist office chuckle. But this Thai cookbook has now been officially recognised as the oddest book title of the year.

Written by Bangkok chef Saiyuud Diwong, whose nickname is Poo (Thai for "crab"), Cooking with Poo won the Diagram prize for its unusual name, as voted for by the public on The Bookseller’s website.

Poo beat off strong competition from Mr Andoh's Pennine Diary: Memoirs of a Japanese Chicken Sexer in 1935 Hebden Bridge, which came in second, and Scott D Mendelson's The Great Singapore Penis Panic which came in third. Last year's winner was former dentist Michael Young's Managing a Dental Practice the Genghis Khan Way.

Cooking with Poo has already sold 6,000 copies, but behind the amusing title lies a charitable cause. Saiyuud runs a cookery school for locals and tourists in Bangkok city's largest slum Klong Toey, helping to raise her family out of poverty and employing 20 slum residents in her school.

Saiyuud won’t receive an official prize, but The Bookseller will be making a donation to Urban Neighbours of Hope, the charity that helped create her cookery programme.

She was delighted to receive the award, stating: "Thank you everyone. I am lucky to have such a funny nickname, it helps my business a lot!"

The Bookseller's Horace Bent said of this years bumper crop of entrants: "Given that, this year, the three most voted-for works contain the words 'poo', 'sexer' and 'penis' in the title, it appears that this year's prize will go down in history as a blue year. But there is nothing wrong with that. Many of the world's greatest writers have dabbled in off-colour humour, so I find Cooking with Poo a fitting winner."

Have you heard a funnier book title? Let us know your favourite amusing book names in the comments below or on Twitter!