Harris Poll - America's Favourite book...

[THE Ka]

I can see The Stand being on the list, since if to find out someone I've met has read anything over the past fifteen years, for some reason its usually mentioned. Which is odd (its sheer size aside), but the way everything twist and winds this way and that with really, no direction, and how some of the characters are stubborn to no end (you end up wishing you could strangle them for being so niave and more, after putting you through nearly 1,000 pages of it). Umph.

I tried reading Mr. King's magnum opus all the way through when I was younger, but after 3/4ths of the way through it never stuck with interest. Then I found The Hobbit again, and restored to a pleasant mood.

What I'm really curious about though, considering the vast amount of book sales over the years of The Hobbit (which, commercially should make it apparent on such a poll), how it isn't mentioned at all. Unless, as with most polls, something obvious is always amiss, or how the poll was comprised wasn't big enough in demographics of diversified interest, etc.

Originally Posted by Legate

in translations - it's totally different in the original (all the literary techniques, like playing with words, alliteration etc.).

Well, even the original is at the mercy of speculation, since it was taken from a wholly different culture and language (An example, say, you can find going through art history. How with early christian to even late medieval periods Moses is depicted literally, with horns. No, not a social or theological stigma, simple mistranslation and confusion from originals. Makes for much livelier and interesting art though!!!).
Well, no more on this, the overall development of a text vs. how it is culturally used is a study in itself which would take too long to even think about here.

I dunno, I'm at least glad that people are still reading books (despite what, no surprise, other polls may say of the decline of reading them in the US), and more so Tolkien!

~ Meandering Ka