Canadian experimental poet Christian Bök, however, makes no secret of the extraordinary selling point of his new book, Eunoia, which is set to be a cult hit this Christmas - as each chapter uses only one vowel.

The second chapter of his book, just like the introductory paragraph to this article, uses only the letter ‘e’ and no other vowels. The other four chapters do the same with the vowels ‘a’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’, and even the title itself is the shortest word in the English language containing all five vowels.

Though Eunoia was only published last week, early indications show that its brand of arcane poetry is already performing well as well over a thousand copies were sold in the first few days of publication.

Jamie Byng, of publishing house Canongate, said: “This could be one of the surprise Christmas hits. It is certainly starting to perform like one. And we are just about to go back for our third printing and it was only published last week.”

In a book chart dominated by non-fiction titles such as festive cookbooks and warts-and-all autobiographies, Eunoia is making headway. A spokeswoman for industry analysts Nielsen BookScan said: “It is performing very well for a literary title.”

Rarely does a book in the category of “Poetry Texts & Poetry Anthologies” sell so well, or capture the imagination so vividly.

An extract from Chapter O, reads: “Troop doctors who stop blood loss from torn colons or shot torsos go to Kosovo to work pro bono for poor commonfolk, most of whom confront horrors born of long pogroms.”

The author, Bök, who took seven painstaking years to complete the book, admits in Chapter E, that: “Enfettered, these sentences repress free speech. The text deletes selected letters. We see the revered exegete reject metred verse.”

But such sparkling wordplay will have stiff competition for the Christmas top-spot with the raft of celebrity offerings on bookshelves this winter.

Tipped to jostle for number one is Paul O’Grady’s autobiography At My Mother’s Knee and Other Low Points, currently at number three in the charts, while Dawn French’s Dear Fatty sold nearly 35,000 copies last week and is at number two.

Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food cookbook has slipped from number one to number four this week, though is still winning the battle of the celebrity chefs ahead of Nigella Lawson’s Nigella’s Christmas, languishing at number 26.

The consistently best performing bestseller as bookstores enter the final run-up to Christmas, however, is the 2009 Guinness Book of Records, sales of which have raked in nearly half a million pounds in the last week alone.

The univocal exploits of Eunoia may not be able to compete with the woman with the loudest scream on earth or the world’s longest dog (2.3m, if you were wondering), but in its very uniqueness, bookstores expect it to do remarkably well.

Jon Howells of Waterstone’s said that, among the thousands of other books released in the Christmas run-up, Eunoia stuck in his mind.

“That’s not something we see every day,” he explained.

Mr Howells predicted that the “household names” would be close to the top of the charts, with offerings from “national treasures” like of Michael Parkinson likely to do well.

But he also had an insider tip for an oustide bet for the number one spot.

“It may be two titles from the President-elect of America, Barack Obama, that may surprise them all. Obama’s Dreams From my Father and The Audacity of Hope have jumped to the top of Waterstone’s paperback chart since the election, and feature in our overall top ten.”

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