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Originally Posted by sun surfer
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Three, I don't think we should be voting *against* any book here. Let the votes speak for themselves. Probably no one will be happy with all the winners, and probably the winners will reflect famous and more-read books as well as favourite genres, but that's ok. It's not about making sure a book you think you might like "wins" this, or making sure a book you don't like "loses". This is more about the process, and for me the biggest part of the process after nominations themselves will be looking at vote distribution. Even a book with one vote can be meaningful if I trust that whoever voted for it did it because they read the whole thing and really loved it.
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Absolutely.
Voting for a book that one has not read just because it is not one particular book in the category is just dumb. And distorts the results. Maybe when this is done we can have the mirror, voting for the worst book of each decade?
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
Given my available time for this, I hope to post one voting thread per week, and give each voting thread one month time to run. This does mean that voting will stretch over a three month period, probably ending mid to end August.
As to what 'best' means. Well, I will again leave that up to voters to decide.
Personally, a best book would have to be one I enjoyed reading, and have or would enjoy re-reading. In addition, I feel it ought to be a book that has had some influence over the world, its genre, or just over me. And it would probably be the book I'd be most likely to recommend to a friend.
But if you feel best can only mean best-selling, go for that!
(The title just says 'best'. I'm unwilling to define the criteria more than is in the title.)
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Absolutely. Everyone has there own criteria to select the "best" book. For me it must be well written, be exceptional at achieving its goal, and say something important about reality and/or the human condition. That's why despite it perhaps being an exceptional escapist fantasy I would never rate Lord of the Rings as best.
I also anticipate that at least for me the discussion, not the vote tally, will be the most informative and interesting.