Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Corsair on May 25, 2004, 09:35:34 pm
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http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,711520,00.html
According to this website anyway. Which ones have you read?
I've read:
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Stranger by Albert Camus
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Iliad by Homer
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
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Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
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The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC).
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I've read..
Othello by William Shakespeare
and I'll be reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn this summer.
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Medea, Oedipus and Gullivers Travels. I've read Tom Sawyer, but I can't find an unabridged copy of Huck Finn (Admittedly, I haven't looked particularly hard, but still).
And 1984 should be on there. :nod:
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Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Astrid
Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891), Moby Dick
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
and wtf would read Marcel Prousts Remembrance of Things Past? it's a bookshelf alone.
edit: the answer would be the norwegians. I knew theyre all on dope.
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I've read:
Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875), Fairy Tales and Stories
Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850), Old Goriot
Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375), Decameron
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616), Don Quixote
Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400), Canterbury Tales
Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924), Nostromo
Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321), The Divine Comedy
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881), Crime and Punishment; The Idiot;
Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880), Madame Bovary; A Sentimental Education
Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombia, (b. 1928), One Hundred Years of Solitude;
Gilgamesh, Mesopotamia (c 1800 BC).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832), Faust
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC), The Iliad
Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924), The Complete Stories; The Trial; The Castle Bohemia
Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957), Zorba the Greek
Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592), Essays
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
George Orwell, England, (1903-1950), 1984
William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616), Hamlet; King Lear; Othello
Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC), Oedipus the King
Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553), Gargantua and Pantagruel
Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910), War and Peace;
Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745), Gulliver's Travels
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500).
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Most of those are in high-school compulsory literature, others, well, I'm just a literature fan
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Lord of the Rings isn't in it. Not interested in the list in the slightest. There's an obvious bias.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Lord of the Rings isn't in it. Not interested in the list in the slightest. There's an obvious bias.
no ****? writers are biased? omfg!!!
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Yep. Therefore this list is better
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
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Originally posted by karajorma
Yep. Therefore this list is better
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
no, it isn't really better. 9 out of teh top 10 in the list are brits. therefore, it's just as biased.
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6, and that's stretching it.
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well, brits do have alot of good literature. And in other news, the Guardian has apparently never heard of our good friends the
tags, cause they have the worst list system evar.
yeah, LOTR should be on there, and some other ones.
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Harry Potter is in that list 4 times... it is totally biased... those have got to be the worst books EVER!
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Originally posted by kode
no, it isn't really better. 9 out of teh top 10 in the list are brits. therefore, it's just as biased.
It was a poll of the british public so of course british literature did well. If there was an international poll I knew about I'd have linked to that instead.
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I can't even remember how many books I've read. I remember reading about 20 of the smaller length novels in grade 2. I don't get as much time now as I used to so I've obviously slowed down but I read tons of books when I get the chance. Easily over 30 and more like 60 or 70 novels, books, etc.
Currently reading Winged Combat by Arthur Bishop (son of WWI ace Billy Bishop). EXCELLENT novel...gives a very solid description of what RCAF 401 squadron went through in WWII as well as training and the whole bit. Very impressive!
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Well why Lord of the rings didn't make it?
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Because it's...only one list out of many?
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Originally posted by jdjtcagle
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
The first book I read in original English. No stupid translation mistakes.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Yep. Therefore this list is better
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bigread/top100.shtml
I stopped reading after position 5...
OK, not true. I stopped taking it seriously after position 5, but I did skim it. Fairly random IMO, but that's the expected result of a public survey I guess.
[EDIT] Just realized - this isn;t a list of the 100 greatest books of all time - it's Britains hundred most popular novel. The first is based on literary significance/merit, the second's a popularity contest. In that light, it makes sense.
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I agree with you to a point but I do take exception to people who wouldn't put LOTR on a top 100 list claiming it had less literary significance/merit than the books that did make it.
Besides there are quite a few books that made both lists :D
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[color=66ff00]The best books in history are the ones I've enjoyed the most.
For me anyway. :)
[/color]
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I've read nothing on that BBC list.....except half of Return of the King.
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1984, that's about it.
I'm not a fan of 'serious' books, though - more of an 'airport paperback' person (i.e. entertaining stories, yet with no major social or literary merit)
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Originally posted by an0n
I've read nothing on that BBC list.....except half of Return of the King.
[color=66ff00]Not your bag?
[/color]
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Originally posted by karajorma
I agree with you to a point but I do take exception to people who wouldn't put LOTR on a top 100 list claiming it had less literary significance/merit than the books that did make it.
oh? so what made it so effin great, then? I'm dying to know.
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It was the first revival of 16th Century Folklore writing, it was the re-introduction of several major factors of British Folklore back into the public eye. There have been books written that are bigger and, possibly, better written, but LOTR was the pacemaker for modern Fantasy writing.
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Anyone read anything by China Mieville?
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i've read a few on the first list, but i'm voting "Zero" due to the fact
a) They sucked
b) I was forced to read them for school assignments
Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930), Things Fall Apart
Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870), Great Expectations
Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I've read none on the other list
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Best book? Ender's Game, by far.
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What is it about whenever you get experts to vote on their favourite of anything, they almost always pick stuff made over 50 years ago, be it wine, books, art even music in a lot of cases?
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Here's what I've read off of the BBC list:
The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (the first few chapters in English class, rather horrible)
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
Dune, Frank Herbert
The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
Animal Farm, George Orwell
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
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Originally posted by Flipside
What is it about whenever you get experts to vote on their favourite of anything, they almost always pick stuff made over 50 years ago, be it wine, books, art even music in a lot of cases?
Cause they think it makes them look more intelligent when it actually just makes them pretentious.
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Originally posted by karajorma
Cause they think it makes them look more intelligent when it actually just makes them pretentious.
Partly. But more to the point, it's about literary dissemination. The people compiling these list are probably literary majors. For the most part, they're taught by their professors and teachers, based on the books that they liked. There's a long cycle for a book to be read and studied by enough people to take its place among literary classics.
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And also because they are the books that thought up something new that has been copied, and taken as inspiration for centuries. Stuff like that endures you know. I mean, LOTR for example, it has been copied endlessly, and it itself took a lot from Beowulf, and Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs, etc. Anyone who sais Crime and Punishment, for example, is pretentious, either hasn't actually read it, or hasn't got the attention span to actually think about it. Or take Faust for example. He was a character so well fleshed, so human, so much of something that hadn't been done so well and so thoroughly before, that it has inspired hundreds of writers after Goethe. Hell, it's one of the four Male Character Archetypes (the others being Hamlet, Don Quixote, and Don Juan). Take Londo of B5, for example. There's no denying that he was heavily influenced by Faust.
You may as well ask, why Aristotle's equations are still used in geometry.
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My answer was for those who ONLY include the old books. If they're willing to choose some more modern books too then it is as you say merely choosing a lot of classics.
BW while I agree with you up to a point anyone who claims to be a literary expert yet hasn't the grace to appreciate something he wasn't spoon fed by his mentor really doesn't have any right to the title.
A real literary expert is capable of making his own decisions not simply parrotting those of whoever taught him.
This survey was only one of 54 authors so it would only take 5 to 10 reccomendations for a book to have made it onto the list (maybe even less). If you can't find 5 people out of a so-called group of experts to read some modern classics then they really aren't doing much to stay up to date in their chosen field.
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]Not your bag?
[/color]
It was like a million pages of utter crap.
"They fight. They ride. Someone goes unconcious. They wake up. Something bad happens. They fight. They ride. Someone goe......."
I like stories with actual characters in them, not cold, emotionless stereotypes who only ever talk about battle or food.
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Originally posted by karajorma
My answer was for those who ONLY include the old books. If they're willing to choose some more modern books too then it is as you say merely choosing a lot of classics.
Well, this list has got plenty of modern books, no?
Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970), Poems.
Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994), Invisible Man
Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927), The Tin Drum
Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961), The Old Man and the Sea
Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972), The Sound of the Mountain
Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002), Pippi Longstocking
Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977), Lolita
just to name a few.
And given that there is roughly 3000 years of recorded writings of literary quality to speak of, the number of books from the 20th century to make it into a top 100 influential books list is.... about 4. And this particular list has got a great deal more than that.
I'm being nitpicky, I know, but I'm in a mood for arguing
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Originally posted by karajorma
BW while I agree with you up to a point anyone who claims to be a literary expert yet hasn't the grace to appreciate something he wasn't spoon fed by his mentor really doesn't have any right to the title.
A real literary expert is capable of making his own decisions not simply parrotting those of whoever taught him.
Agreed. It's hardly a hard and fast rule. It's just one of the reasons most books take awhile to be recognized as true classics - the people who make those distinctions have to be exposed to them at some point after all.
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Originally posted by Stunaep
Well, this list has got plenty of modern books, no?
That would be a good arguement if I was on about the list. But I was mainly refering to Flipside's comment about experts always choosing old things.
Besides I'd be willing to bet that the number of books published in the 20th century is far higher than the number in any other 2 centuries you care to choose. :)
With that kind of productivity you'd expect more than a handful of books to make it.
Compare the number that are from the 20th century with those from the 19th. That's rather odd isn't it. More books written in the 20th century but somehow the 19th was better.
Besides I don't consider books 100 years old to be modern. Try 20-30 years old.
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Originally posted by karajorma
That would be a good arguement if I was on about the list. But I was mainly refering to Flipside's comment about experts always choosing old things.
Besides I'd be willing to bet that the number of books published in the 20th century is far higher than the number in any other 2 centuries you care to choose. :)
With that kind of productivity you'd expect more than a handful of books to make it.
Compare the number that are from the 20th century with those from the 19th. That's rather odd isn't it. More books written in the 20th century but somehow the 19th was better.
Besides I don't consider books 100 years old to be modern. Try 20-30 years old.
Hollywood makes about 90 times more films than in the 1920ies. That doesn't mean they are all better. Infact, most are worse. The thing is, when something is expensive to make, you always aim for quality. When it becomes cheap, you aim for the big buck. So most of the thousands of books published today suck. Which is by no means an excuse to refrain from reading modern literature, infact as you yourself said, no-one can claim to be an expert in literature unless one did that. Still, I myself can't think of any book, that I'd place among the likes of Faust and Hamlet, that was written in the last 20 years or so. And also, one of the things that gives a book value, is it's longevity, whether the issues in the book are still there five or ten years down the road, or if the book can be interpreted to adress the new problems of society. And mostly time is needed to say that.
On another note, Remarque's "All quiet on the western front" is a notable omission from the list.
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Ok, I dont want to start any "discussions" related to this or rouse any latent emotions, but I was rather suprised they didn't add the Bible in there. But I guess if were talking only pure entertainment fiction then yeah. But still...
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Originally posted by Stunaep
Hollywood makes about 90 times more films than in the 1920ies. That doesn't mean they are all better. Infact, most are worse. The thing is, when something is expensive to make, you always aim for quality. When it becomes cheap, you aim for the big buck. So most of the thousands of books published today suck.
You trying to tell me that Hollywood hasn't made a single classic movie in the last 20 years cause they make more now? Hah. You need to think that analogy through again cause it's pretty poor. You've basically prooved my point for me. Yes Hollywood turns out more movies. Yes that means more crap. But it also means more chance of a good movie turning up.
Originally posted by Stunaep
Which is by no means an excuse to refrain from reading modern literature, infact as you yourself said, no-one can claim to be an expert in literature unless one did that. Still, I myself can't think of any book, that I'd place among the likes of Faust and Hamlet, that was written in the last 20 years or so. And also, one of the things that gives a book value, is it's longevity, whether the issues in the book are still there five or ten years down the road, or if the book can be interpreted to adress the new problems of society. And mostly time is needed to say that.
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grttls.html
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtlat.html
http://www.bpl.org/research/AdultBooklists/influential.htm
Take your pick out of those. :) Quite a few are non-fiction but it does show that there are gaping holes in the list of 20th century books.
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It's like Shakespeare though, some of it is so good that your teacher has to spend hours in a classroom pointing out why.
Anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?
I just wonder whether they are voted for because the reader genuinely found themselves affected by the book, or just because it makes them look more 'academic' :(
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Originally posted by karajorma
You trying to tell me that Hollywood hasn't made a single classic movie in the last 20 years cause they make more now? Hah. You need to think that analogy through again cause it's pretty poor. You've basically prooved my point for me. Yes Hollywood turns out more movies. Yes that means more crap. But it also means more chance of a good movie turning up.
No, Hollywood certainly gets three or five films with actual cinematic value out in a year, but the lot of the actual good cinema comes from independent developers and european countries, who don't have half as much money as hollywood, and thus must think very carefully what to finance and what not. Especially because in most countries movie-making is always
non-profitable. As for hollywood, well, I don't see them churning out any more good movies than they did in the 1950'ies.
And finally, looking at all those lists (the BBC one, the Guardian one, Kara's modern lists) proves once again that it is pointless to make top 100 lists. Good books are books, no point in putting them in an order.
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Originally posted by Flipside
It's like Shakespeare though, some of it is so good that your teacher has to spend hours in a classroom pointing out why.
Anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?
But tell me, honest to god, did you actually sit down and think about his plays for a good hour? Or talk about them with a friend.
Didn't think so.
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Then you thought wrong :)
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Originally posted by Stunaep
As for hollywood, well, I don't see them churning out any more good movies than they did in the 1950'ies.
I don't see them churning out more movies than the fifties either.
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Originally posted by Dark_4ce
Ok, I dont want to start any "discussions" related to this or rouse any latent emotions, but I was rather suprised they didn't add the Bible in there. But I guess if were talking only pure entertainment fiction then yeah. But still...
Well, they missed plenty..
Thinking of some favourites, I would have expected to see e.g. Henry James and Graham Greene on that list.
Oh well..
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Originally posted by Flipside
It's like Shakespeare though, some of it is so good that your teacher has to spend hours in a classroom pointing out why.
Anybody else see anything wrong with this picture?
I just wonder whether they are voted for because the reader genuinely found themselves affected by the book, or just because it makes them look more 'academic' :(
Good man. This is what I've bee saying all along. My best hint that there might actually be something to Shakespeare came, ironically, from another book, Brave New World, and not from any of Shakespeare's work.
BTW, Stuneap, are you talking about Don Juan from Castaneda's books, or someone else? I'm pretty sure its the latter, but I haven't the slightest clue which book it might be from.
And what is Harry Potter doing on the BBC list. Yeah, sure, put some modern books on the list, but c'mon, Harry Potter!?!
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Pay attention Rictor. The BBC list was voted for by the public. The public like Harry Potter.
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Harryless Peter was very popular around the U.S. to
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I read them. Gave up after the Goblet of Fire. Should have stopped after the third. I was younger, though.....
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Originally posted by karajorma
Pay attention Rictor. The BBC list was voted for by the public. The public like Harry Potter.
And don't they like The Lord of the Rings? Only the film was a great success?
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Originally posted by TopAce
And don't they like The Lord of the Rings? Only the film was a great success?
Quite possibly - I for one can't stand reading Tolkien - even a mate of mine, who's a die hard LotR fan, agrees with me that Tolkien was trying to "Write a movie" due to the ridiculous amount of visual detail he goes into, so it's hardly surprising the movie was more successful. Plus it's easier to watch than to read, and non readers can still buy movie tickets.
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I even don't have the patience to read a book which has more than 250 pages.
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Then you're missing out on a lot of cool books. :nod:
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Originally posted by TopAce
And don't they like The Lord of the Rings? Only the film was a great success?
Does no one pay attention? :) Lord of the Rings won the BBC poll. My complaint was that it seemed ridiculous that a book could win that one and yet fail to even appear on the Guardian poll.
Especially when whether you like LotR or not you have to admit that it is well written.
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Isn't the guardian a bit snooty, tho?
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A bit. But I still prefer it over the outright lies of the tabloid press.