Tolkien Beaten By Austen

[Lalwendë]

Whoa!

Jane Austen has finally beaten Tolkien on a poll!

For World Book Day (which is today) there was a survey done to find the" ten books you can't live without" in the UK. And Pride and Prejudice was the winner! Here's more.

And here's some interesting facts:

Pride and Prejudice topped the lists of every region in the UK apart from Northern Ireland, where To Kill a Mockingbird took the top slot. It was also popular with every age group, being at number one for everyone except under 18s. Even for this youngest age group, Pride and Prejudice was number two, knocked off by Harry Potter. For men, Austen’s classic love story was relegated to number 6, whilst Lord of the Rings was in first position.

So in the UK, Lord of the Rings is a book for men.

The ten books our nation can’t live without are:

1. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 20%
2. Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien 17%
3. Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte 14%
4. Harry Potter books JK Rowling 12%
5. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee 9.5%
6. The Bible 9%
7. Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte 8.5%
8= Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell 6%
His Dark Materials Philip Pullman 6%
10. Great Expectations Charles Dickens 5.5%

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Surely, if you've read a book once, you could live without it. They are hardly addictive drugs.

Look at that list. What a country...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim

Surely, if you've read a book once, you could live without it. They are hardly addictive drugs.

Look at that list. What a country...

Ahem, what are you doing on here then if you can live without it? How many times have you, sir, read LotR? Non-addictive? Of course....

Yeah. I doubt most people have read more than one or two of those books, and some of those they will have been made to read at school...No accident that Jane Eyre and Great Expectations* have just been on telly, or that P&P has Colin Firth in it, eh?

*wasn't this that 'Eastenders' style adaptation?

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

The very notion of the necessity of a copy of Mockingbird on your shelf to live your life strikes me as Python-esque.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

No accident that Jane Eyre and Great Expectations* have just been on telly, or that P&P has Colin Firth in it, eh?

I'm waiting for the poll after Far From the Madding Crowd, with Julie Christie and Alan Bates and Terence Stamp is re-released or shown on the television. There's one that can knock off Austen and Bronte (the both of them) together.

Perhaps Brits took to reading Mockingbird after learning that Bruce Willis named his daughter Scout?

[Mithalwen]

To kill a mockingbird was a set text for O Level and my younger cousins also did it at school. I hate to say this that it may be one of the few "serious" books that many Brits have read. Must say I was never keen .....

However I feel a little smug becasue I have read all of these apart from Great Expectations (and not the bible cover to cover)...

[Mattius]

I liked how in the newspaper I read the story in it had the books and the authors and for the Bible it said God hee hee. Also I remember that Lord of the Rings beat P&P to the BBC Big Read a few years ago.