[Sammie]

Don't get me wrong, I have read and enjoyed both HP and His Dark Materials.........but I think it says something very very sad about the average reader, if those are the 3rd and 5th favorite books of 'the nation'.

Suddenly not so proud to be British :(

[ChrisW]

I think it's sad that LotR tops these types of polls. It's a good book but the damn thing isn't the best book ever written by a long shot.:(

My top five out of the top 21 would have included:

Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan:p

[Hobbit]

One of the points made, Cald, is that the BBC has promoted it as the 'best loved book' rather than 'the best book'.

I have to agree that that could mean any number of things. So much of a book is dependent on circumstances, age, situation, environment etc etc and there are lots and lots here that I would probably have put higher in my own list, spec fiction or not.

Such is the fun of such lists. :)

Wheel of Time.... hmmm ;)

Dune was in the top 100, and Magician, which I thought was an interesting one - though I enjoyed it a lot, it was much higher placed than I thought it would be. And Terry Pratchett was much lower than I expected, though I guess his prolific output would tend to lower his overall effect. He's not one of my absolute favourites, though I'm way behind on my Pratchett reading. What I've seen of the way his stuff is sold in the UK though, and the readers reactions to it, would IMO have put him up there with Adams at least.

Hobbit

[Sammie]

Would have been interesting if they'd done a 'best loved author' poll alongside it....

[Leiali]

I voted for Pride and Prejudice:(

I have read all five in the list, and although I was surprised by The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy being so high up, and a bit disappointed that Harry Potter was in there, overall I thought it was not too bad a go at finding out what the British public love to read.
I need to vent my spleen however, in that it annoys me that so many people have moaned about Lord of the Rings topping the chart - It won book of the century as voted for by readers in a millenium poll done by Waterstones. Before any of the films came out.
Right, I feel better now;)

[Julian]

Originally posted by Caldazar
I think it's sad that LotR tops these types of polls.

No you don't. I'll give you a prophesy:

You're the biggest Tolkien fan out there. You just haven't realised it yet.

It'll come to you in time, once you get rid of the cliches.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally posted by Julian

once you get rid of the cliches.

Which clichés? :confused:

[Julian]

Are you serious?

One of the major problems a great many people seem to have with Tolkien is that he works with (fantasy) cliches - elves, dwarves, hobbits; orcs and an ultimate "dark" lord; an entire world view based around a moralistic view of good versus evil.

However, you cannot understand Tolkien until you realise that these aspects of his work aren't cliches at all - they only became so after and because of his work.

To appreciate Tolkien, you have to disregard the present view of fantasy. It is so bound by Tolkien's original vision that, in turn, Tolkien himself seems to be diminished by it.

You may perhaps agree that fantasy is full of cliches. You may also agree that when Tolkien wrote The Lord Of The Rings, nothing he wrote was in any way bound by such cliches at all.

To understand Tolkien, you have to get rid of the Robert Jordans, the Terry Brooks, the Martins, the Hobbs and all the rest. Good as many of these are, you have to disregard them.

More importantly, you also have to disregard all the second rate material that followed in Tolkien's wake. You have to disregard all the cliches that emerged as a result of his vision.

What cliches? Why, every conceivable fantasy cliche. The ordinary boy, growing up in a rural village only to find out he's really the the world's salvation; the little keepsake that turns out to be the world's bane; the basic concept of a brooding and alienated evil; all, of these, and more.

To understand Tolkien, you have , in short, to discard every single fantasy cliche you ever encountered. You have to get back to the basics.

[Iskaral Pust]

Well, once you've disregarded all the other great books then obviously LotR is going to be your favourite. I don't see what you're saying, Tolkien didn't create the fantasy genre, far from it. Anyway, I can deal with cliches, but when they're are added to extremely poor plot and character development...you're left with a book that, IMO, really doesn't deserve to be voted the greatest book of all time.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally posted by Julian
Are you serious?

:o Totally missed that post.

I thought you were talking about cliches about the book, not fantasy cliches. Now I understand what you're saying. :)