Sunday, October 19, 2003
The BBC Big Read has reached it's next stage when last night they counted down from Numbers 100 to 21, then revealed the top 21 titles for people to vote for.
The top 100 seemed full of stuff between 50 and 100 that made you think "surely that should have got higher?" and stuff between 49 and 21 that made you think "why did that get so high?" It was depressing that, due to the rules that only one book per author could be in the top 21, three of the four Harry Potter books were camping at 21 to 23, I will be depressed if Goblet of Fire wins and, while Winny the Pooh and Wind in the Willows are good enough kids books, being in the top 21? Still, I admit I'm hoping that Lord of the Rings will win as it did at the Waterstones Book of the 20th Century a couple of years ago. The broadsheets have been predictably sniffy as they always are when the public give their opinion on anything, on the other hand I was depressed that several of Terry Pratchett's weaker books were in the top 100, Night Watch surely winning it's place because it was new out, the presenter said that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix wasn't in the chart because it came out too late for voting.
The top 100 seemed full of stuff between 50 and 100 that made you think "surely that should have got higher?" and stuff between 49 and 21 that made you think "why did that get so high?" It was depressing that, due to the rules that only one book per author could be in the top 21, three of the four Harry Potter books were camping at 21 to 23, I will be depressed if Goblet of Fire wins and, while Winny the Pooh and Wind in the Willows are good enough kids books, being in the top 21? Still, I admit I'm hoping that Lord of the Rings will win as it did at the Waterstones Book of the 20th Century a couple of years ago. The broadsheets have been predictably sniffy as they always are when the public give their opinion on anything, on the other hand I was depressed that several of Terry Pratchett's weaker books were in the top 100, Night Watch surely winning it's place because it was new out, the presenter said that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix wasn't in the chart because it came out too late for voting.
