Good grief

[desperance]

Just to emphasise - as though we didn't know already - how utterly pointless a public poll can be, The Book Magazine has polled its readers to learn who is the greatest living British author. Their verdict? J K Rowling, streets ahead of Terry Pratchett in second place. I suppose it's predictable, but it's also stupid. Fond as I am of Pratchett, it's still stupid, for any given value of greatness. And all the more meaningless, when you look at the rest of the top twenty, which gives you a mixed run through current bestsellers and Grand Old Names - and then there's Alasdair Gray, who is neither.

For those who can dredge up any interest at all in such an absurdly skewed list, the top 20 (as reported in Pravda, which is the only pleasure I can derive from this whole farrago) is:

1 - J K Rowling
2 - Terry Pratchett
3 - Ian McEwan
4 - Salman Rushdie
5 - Kazuo Ishiguro
6 - Philip Pullman
7 - Harold Pinter
8 - Nick Hornby
9 - A S Byatt
10= - Jonathan Coe and John Le Carre
12 - Doris Lessing
13 - Alan Bennett
14 - Iain Banks
15 - Muriel Spark (an interesting definition of 'living', but hey...)
16 - David Mitchell
17 - Martin Amis
18 - Ian Rankin
19 - Pat Barker
20 - Alasdair Gray

Now draw up a demographic of one magazine's readership, such as might produce this range of results. Sheesh...

Comments

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

I've read the very first book in the series, and enjoyed it. It was a frolic, but it was an interesting folic. I like the premise of the discworld, and how he used it. I thought it was clever in a not-entirely-bad way. ;)

I'm looking forward to getting further into the series, because I've heard it gets much better. The Night Watch books are the ones that have been recommended to me most often, with the Death books and the Witches tied for second place.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. All of that. You started in the right place (sheesh, how patronising am I?) and you're right about the book; and they do get better; and yr recommendations are also v sound. The first of those you'll come to is Mort, the first of the Death books, and for a long time my favourite Pratchett; it's the book that convinced me to keep reading. You have lots of fun ahead of you, and a bit of serious too. Enjoy.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're patronising. It's good to hear different opinions. There were a couple of people who told me to skip the first five books. I feel that if I had done that, I would have missed out on something, which would be a shame. So really, even though you also think the books get better later on, you're confirming my suspicions. ;)