America's Favorite Book? - Reuters Article

The article is up today.

Reprint (with touchstones!):

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - When it comes to literary pursuits in the United States most people agree on at least one thing -- the most popular book is the Bible, according to a new survey.

It came in first in a Harris Poll of nearly 2,513 adults but the second choice in the survey was not as clear cut.

"While the Bible is number one among each of the different demographic groups, there is a large difference in the number two favorite book," Harris said in a statement announcing the results.

Men chose J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and women selected Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind as their second-favorite book, according to the online poll.

But the second choice for 18- to 31-year-olds was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, while 32- to 43-year-olds named Stephen King's The Stand and Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.

Picks for second-favorite book also varied according to region. "Gone With the Wind" was number two in the southern and midwestern United States while easterners chose "The Lord of the Rings" and westerners opted for "The Stand."

Whites and Hispanics picked "Gone With the Wind" as their second-favorite book after the Bible, while African-Americans preferred "Angels and Demons."

"Finally, they may not agree on candidates, but one thing that brings together partisans is their favorite book. For Republicans, Democrats and Independents, the top two books are the same -- the Bible followed by "Gone With the Wind."

Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Angels and Demons by Dan Brown, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger rounded out the top 10 favorites.

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Me again...of course my statistical sensibilities are buzzing simply because this had to have been a limited study (2500 or so respondents) with an unlimited number of choices. I haven't had to put together a minimum number of respondents for +/- X% formula in forever, but I do recall that there's a point where the number of choices drives the number...after all 4 political candidates vs. billions of books...

It's still interesting.

ETA - wonky touchstones. I promise I didn't select The Cake Bible! It was an actual Bible...

I was thinking exactly the same! Whom did they interview and what choices did they propose?
None of those would be my favourite, although I certainly respect most of them.

For me, the bigger suprise is seeing Dan Brown's books in there - the oldest is, what, 7 years old? After that, you have to go back to The Stand - 1978. Thirty years...

I haven't read Dan Brown, but I did see the movie on HBO...I sincerely hope the book was better than the movie.

There's some commentary about this over here, too.

Did Reuters pick this up from FOX? It sounds like the type of "Fair and Balanced" (TM) reporting they are known for.

I'd be more intersted in the polling - and is The Bible the most popular because 12% of the people polled picked it while the other 88% was spread out over 300 other titles?

After Reuters came out with its list, AOL users were then polled as to which of the ten was their favorite:

Bible - 34%
Harry Potter - 17%
To Kill a Mockingbird - 13%
Lord of the Rings - 9%
Catcher in the Rye - 7%
Gone with the Wind - 5%
The Da Vinci Code - 5%
The Stand - 4%
Angels and Demons - 3%
Atlas Shrugged - 3%

The Reuters books liked the least by AOL users were:

The Bible - 22%
The DaVinci Code - 18%
Atlas Shrugged - 13%
Harry Potter - 10%
The Stand - 8%
Catcher in the Rye - 9 %
Lord of the Rings - 7%
Angels and Demons - 5%
Gone With the Wind - 5%
To Kill a Mockingbird - 3%

The number of AOL users for the negative poll was 4,498 at 2 PM on 9 April 2008 (the postive poll was taken by 4,841 AOL users).