Have you ever had an idea for a book but thought it might be too niche? Perhaps you worried your investigation into the eating patterns of the brown-lipped snail might have a limited audience? Would enough readers be interested in your proposal documenting 63 years of innovations in the installation of escalators in Irish shopping centres? Well, fear no more. Just as there is an old sock for every shoe, there’s an audience for every niche interest. You’d like to write a book about the 10 most significant concrete pours in this State? Bring it on.Just take a look at the winners and runners-up in the annual Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the oddest book titles. We are still waiting on tenterhooks to hear this year’s shortlist, but last year’s winner was the intriguingly-titled The Pornographic Delicatessen: Mid-century Montreal’s Erotic Art, Media and Spaces. Yes, finally someone has listened to the legions of people who have been begging to learn about Montreal’s history of underground erotica and its connection with charcuterie.But let’s leave that saucy stuff behind and dip into a book that was once nominated for the award by The Gutter Bookshop in Dublin. Nipples on My Knee made the shortlist in 2017. No, it’s not a trip down mammary lane bemoaning the effect of gravity on certain body parts. As all right-thinking individuals will suspect, it is a memoir documenting 25 years in the sheep farming business.A front-runner for the award, it was pipped at the post by another agricultural tome – The Commuter Pig Keeper: A Comprehensive Guide to Keeping Pigs when Time is your Most Precious Commodity. At last, some help for those harried pig farmers who have to take a high-powered job in the city to keep food in the trough. The book received rave reviews from its target audience who praised it for its invaluable guidance on all porcine-related matters. One enthusiastic reviewer said it should have been called The Encyclopaedia of Pig Ownership but thank goodness it wasn’t, or it would never have come to the attention of this awards’ committee. The coveted book prize was first awarded in 1978 to the magnificently-named Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice. If you are looking for the findings of a symposium on fully-dressed mice, I’m afraid you’ll have to search elsewhere.In almost five decades since its inauguration the award has failed to disappoint. Its rigorous selection committee has honoured book titles such as The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories, and The Philosopher Fish: Sturgeon, Caviar and the Geography of Desire.[ Baltic banter: Frank McNally on taking part in a ‘conversation festival’ in LatviaOpens in new window ]One of the titles – How to Avoid Huge Ships – could even save your life. The author managed to fill 112 pages with his advice but let’s hope his readers studied the text before taking out their pleasure boats. When you see a giant container ship bearing down on your little dinghy it’s not the optimum time to reach for the book.One of the award’s most niche winners must surely be the splendidly-titled Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes. This book outlines how to create the curving planes of complex geometry in crochet, but you probably already knew that. A non-English language book has won on just one occasion. The Joy of Water Boiling documents in German how to cook meals in a kettle. Its 100 recipes include dishes such as mussels, scrambled eggs and German sausages. The blurb says the recipes are ideal for cooking while on the move, which should make you think twice about using a hotel kettle unless you prefer your tea served with a hint of infused seafood.So the good news is that there is a healthy market for obscure studies. My proposal offering a 63-year-old history of the escalator in Ireland looks positively mainstream when viewed alongside these books. In case you are curious, the first escalator was installed in this state on March 25th, 1963 at Roches Stores on Henry Street. The Dublin Lord Mayor JJ O’Keefe cut the ribbon on the exciting new development. And guess what happened then? A slew of famous people began beating a path to Ireland. Previously they couldn’t be seen visiting a country that didn’t own even one set of moving stairs so once the ribbon was cut on our first escalator, there was no stopping them. JFK arrived a few months after the escalator, followed by Johnny Cash, the Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald. Coincidence? I think not.The country’s first escalator was such big news that it merited a mention on the front page of this newspaper the following day. Yes, a history of Ireland’s escalators has all the hallmarks of a best seller. Unlike the descending escalator, the only way is up for this project.