The only famous international book prize never to have received sponsorship money or TV coverage, or to have been sullied by spats between the judges, issues its 29th annual shortlist today.

The bookies' early money to win the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the year's oddest book title is expected to be on How Green Were the Nazis?, by Thomas Zeller, Franz-Josef Bruggemeier and Mark Cioc (Ohio University Press); or Julian Montague's study of urban life and irretrievable loss, The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification (Harry N Masters).

The dark horse is understood to be Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan, by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie (Bennett & Bloom).

Also in the running are Di Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream, Di Mascio of Coventry, an Ice Cream Company of Repute, with an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans (Past Masters) ; Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium (Kluwer); and Better Never To Have Been: the Harm of Coming Into Existence (Clarendon Press).

These currently obscure but earnest titles will, on past form, become renowned across the world as the shortlist is picked up on websites, magazines, newspapers, television and radio.

The early collection of promising unusual titles for the year is one of the few aids to sobriety for publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Old stagers of the Bookseller contest maintain the quality has declined ever since the 1978, 1989 and 1996 entries. These were Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice; How to Shit in the Woods, an Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art; and Greek Rural Postmen and Their Cancellation Numbers.

Yesterday Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller, said: "The titles are all published books. These days some publishers do seem to make up titles simply to get into the competition but I don't think there are any on the shortlist."