all British tolkienites HERE

[Elentári_O_Most_Mighty_1]

But I thought Mariska was arguing that art can be ranked?

Is there a special reason why Birdsong doesn't deserve to be voted Britain's favourite book? All of the books are competing under the same criteria before the same audience. I'm just going to be grateful that nothing by a professional footballer made it into the final list.

Ditto! I don't mind Birdsong winning, nor Wuthering Heights...I love both of them.
But if Birdsong were to win by those means, it would simply prove that the book brings out extraordinarily obssessive traits in the people it really reaches. (IE more obssessive than LOTR fans [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ). Because for it to win by those means, that 'small' hardcore would have to vote at least 5 times on every single computer with internet access they came across. Not to mention phoning every week from every phone...cheese man, just the thought of doing all that is exhaustive!