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From: krantz@csd2.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Most Popular Novel Results
Message-ID: <2660012@csd2.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jan-86 16:22:00 EST
Article-I.D.: csd2.2660012
Posted: Fri Jan 17 16:22:00 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Jan-86 04:46:56 EST
Organization: New York University
Lines: 88



Most Popular Novel Survey!!!!!! (results)


Well, folks, thanks for the response.  I'm pleased to say
that I won a resounding victory in my bet with my friend,
though the 'recency' phenomenon surely played a large role.
He claimed that John Irving's World_According_To_Garp was
the most popular novel of the past 10 years; I claimed it
was something else, published just last year, and I was
resoundingly right.  About 30% of the people who responded
to me had this book in their Top 5 list.

The winner, by a large margin, is....





















A_Winter's_Tale,  by Mark Helprin.

A wonderful novel, highly recommended for fans of all genres, SF,
fantasy, adventure, serious lit, it covers them all....

Other finalists, who received substantial mention, were as
follows:


the Jean Auel Caveman books: Clan of the Cave Bear, etc.

Niven & Pournelle's Mote In God's Eye, not surprising for
hackers (no offense, just a fact).

An amazing and pleasing surprise heavy entry:



If on a winter's night a traveller...    by Italo Calvino



Other notable entries, for plain idiosyncratic weirdness:

August, 1914   by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
   
and 

Fuzzies and Other People     by H. Beam Piper

and

Weird Heroes, Volume 1       by Edward Byron Preiss





And, by one genius reader, the amazing, stupendous, staggering,
wholly brilliant Love In The Ruins     by Walker Percy.



That's all folks.  Thanks for responding, and keep reading.

Yours LIterarily,

Michael Krantz

- - - - -

"How can I be overdrawn?  I still have some checks left."