[The Saucepan Man]

I think we will get a more balanced view when ray mears presents his opinion on why lotr is the best book.

I will be interested to watch this, although I am a bit miffed that we didn't get someone with a bit more clout. Still, at least we haven't got William Hague. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] Poor Birdsong doesn't stand a chance with him advocating it. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

re multiple voting. sorry for my opinion, but this will devalue the result of the survey for me.

That was my initial thought too, Essex. And it looks like some form of multiple voting is possible, whatever "sophisticated" means the BBC might have in place to stop it. But the survey may still have value. Multiple voting will take account of the impact that a book has had on its readers (since people will be more inclined to vote multiple times for books that have made a greater impression on them), as well as the number of people who rate it. And that, of course, can only favour LotR. [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

She was on Have I got News for you the other night, and I turned the air blue with my thoughts on her throughout the programme.

Hehe, I thought much the same when I watched it. She is a good commedienne, mind. But perhaps she should stick to what she is good at rather than making disparaging comments about a book that she has never read.

This sort of thing is inherently inaccurate and basically pointless. One cannot quantify art, and therefore it must follow that one cannot rank works of art either. All this survey is trying to do is to establish which book is most people's favourite, so whether or not Tolkien gets even into the top six should be a matter of supreme indifference. It will change nothing. The big battle is for Tolkien's official acceptance as an author of classic literature, which can be won only through intelligent, well-informed and scholarly debate.

I'm not sure that I agree with you on this, Squatter. The vagaries of multiple voting aside, the poll will provide some measure of LotR's popularity. And a book's popularity is, in turn, surely some measure of its worth. After all, books are (generally) written to entertain. And the more people that a book entertains, the more popular it will be. I, for one, will be greatly chuffed if LotR makes the top spot (or even the top 3), since it will to some degree confirm its worth by reference to the reason for which it was written (ie to entertain). And it will place it squarely on a par (in these terms) with a number of books that are recognised as classics of literature.

And I have to say that, whether or not it is accepted as such by academics is a matter of supreme indifference to me. [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]