LONDON — A book charting the frontier between handicrafts and geometry yesterday won Britain’s quirkiest literary award, the Diagram Prize for year’s oddest book title.
“Crocheting Adventures With Hyperbolic Planes’’ by mathematician Daina Taimina beat runners-up “What Kind of Bean Is This Chihuahua?’’ and “Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich.’’
Prize overseer Horace Bent said “the public proclivity towards non-Euclidian needlework’’ proved too strong for the competition.
“I’ve never won any prizes before. This is my first prize and it’s wonderful,’’ said Taimina, an adjunct associate professor at Cornell University.
