'Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes' wins oddest book title prize

'Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes', mathematician Daina Taimina's exploration of the complexities of non-Euclidian geometry through the medium of crochet, was today named the winner of the prize run by The Bookseller magazine.

The book includes instructions for the reader on how to 'crochet models of the hyperbolic plane, pseudosphere, and catenoid/helicoids'.

It beat runners up 'What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?' (a children's book) and 'Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich' (a book about spoons from the Third Reich which you can collect) in the public vote.

Previous years' champions include 'Bombproof Your Horse' and 'Living With Crazy Buttocks.'

Horace Bent, who oversees the prize which has been running since 1978, said that 'the public proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework' proved too strong for the competition.

The other finalists were 'Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter,' 'Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots' and 'The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.'


/Metro.co.uk/