Fellowship of the Ring voted 2nd best book of last 125 years

This news is about 9 months old, but I thought people might still find it interesting and I didn't see a thread about it.

At the end of last year the New York Times book review celebrated its 125th anniversary by having a contest for readers to choose the best book published during that time.

25 finalists (maximum one per author) were chosen from nominations, and over 200,000 ballots were cast.

The winner ("by a narrow margin") was Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

The Fellowship of the Ring came in second place, ahead of George Orwell's 1984 and a lot of other heavyweight competition. And Harry Potter too.

(IMO, Fellowship gets off to a pretty slow and uneven start, until Tolkien seems to find his story-telling rhythm with the appearance of Strider in Bree. I'd have nominated Return of the King, which is absolutely riveting from start to finish, as well as containing the Appendices that add incredible depth to the story.)

Perhaps the Fellowship of the ring is an amazing story, I think It just won that position because of Its fame, or to impulse Amazon's tv show.
Also I suspect of the book 1984 be in that position too, because NY times has choose many weird ways in their publications in these last years. (far away from traditional storys)

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Originally Posted by PatasdoLeao

Perhaps the Fellowship of the ring is an amazing story, I think It just won that position because of Its fame, or to impulse Amazon's tv show.
Also I suspect of the book 1984 be in that position too, because NY times has choose many weird ways in their publications in these last years. (far away from traditional storys)

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Yeah, things like that often have more to do with popularity or familiarity (and how much cultural impact they've had, especially if recent) and/or relevance to contemporary issues than whether they're necessarily such great literature that they should be so high up on a list like that. I wouldn't rate FOTR (or LOTR more generally) that highly, for starters. 1984 is an undoubted classic but still, that high among everything from the last 125 years? Oh hell no. (But it was a reader-nominated list, though, not one the NYT came up with themselves).

Given that we're talking about fiction, the choice is highly subjective.

LOTR is certainly the best fictional book I've ever read, and 1984 would also be near the top of my list of favorites from the last 125 years.

LOTR was truly ground-breaking, and started entirely new literary and cultural trends. It is also, from a technical point of view, an incredible story-telling accomplishment.

TT and ROTK were better IMO.