Too Naked for the Nazis wins Diagram odd book-title prize

Too Naked for the Nazis,the story of a music-hall act that outraged authorities in Hitler's Germany, has won an award for the year's oddest book title.

Organizers of the Diagram Prize said Friday that Alan Stafford's cultural-history tome gained almost a quarter of votes cast, narrowly beating Reading From Behind: A Cultural History Of The Anus.

The prize, founded in 1978, is run by the British trade magazine The Bookseller and decided by online voting. Its rules say the books must be serious and their titles not merely a gimmick.

The non-fiction book'smargin of victory is the narrowest since the annual award switched to public voting via The Bookseller's website in 2000.

Stafford nominated his own book for consideration and also campaigned for the prize via Twitter, organizers noted.

"Too Naked for the Nazis is arguably the perfect Diagram winner, as if concocted by a team of crack Diagramologistsour voters penchant for nudity goes back to the very first winner, 1978's Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, while the Third Reich has been represented by titles such as How Green were the Nazis (2007). Mr Stafford has brought these two strands together in one irresistible package," declared The Bookseller'sHorace Bent, who had administered the prize since 1982.

Other finalists this year included cult-film study Transvestite Vampire Biker Nuns From Outer Spaceand photo book Soviet Bus Stops.

The silly prize, which awards a "passable bottle of claret" to whomever nominates the winning entry, was initiallyconceived as a way to avoid boredom at the annual Frankfurt Book Fair.

Previous winners include Bombproof Your Horse,Living With Crazy Buttocks, Cooking with Pooand Highlights in the History of Concrete.