Archive for the ‘Polls’ Category

Books Need a Testosterone Boost

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Apparently, men don’t read as much as women do and one Guardian blogger says “publishers need to ‘re-masculate’ books if they want to get more men reading“.

Even male author Ian McEwan abandons his gender stating,   “when women stop reading, the novel will be dead“.

What gives credence to these observations is the results of a recent UK survey on reading habits.  48% of women surveyed fell into an Avid Reader category compared to only 26% of men.  Not to be insulting but 32% of men were classed as “Slow Worms” while only 18% of women were catagorized this way. (Slow Worms are people who read only one or two books a year but do so thoroughly.)

How can publishers attract more male readership? The Guardian blogger suggests one way may be to follow the example of the culinary world with its promotion of male chefs such as  Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

Read the full blog post.

Oddest Title of the Year - Voting Ends Friday!

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

baboonIf you haven’t yet voted on the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year there’s still time! The poll is open until Friday, March 27.

The nominees for the 2008 prize are:

  1. Baboon Metaphysics by  Dorothy L Cheney and Robert M Seyfarth
  2. Curbside Consultation of the Colon by Brooks D Cash
  3. The Large Sieve and its Applications by Emmanuel Kowalski
  4. Strip and Knit with Style by Mark Hordyszynski
  5. Techniques for Corrosion Monitoring by Lietai Yang
  6. The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-milligram Containers of Fromage Frais by Professor Philip M Parker

The Prize for Oddest Title of the Year began in 1978 at the Frankfurt Book Fair when publisher Bruce Robertson added it to the venue for entertainment value.  The next year,  Horace Bent, the diarist of British literary magazine The Bookseller organized the event.

You can cast your vote at http://www.thebookseller.com/

What Should the Avid Reader Book Club Read in April?

Thursday, March 12th, 2009

We need your help in deciding what the Avid Reader Book Club will read during April!  Voting is simple - we have a poll open in our Community Forums where you can let us know your choice.

The choices were inspired by our recent feature, Top Ten Funniest Books According to the British.

The nominated books are:

A) Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jeromethree-men-boat-jerome
Jerome K. Jerome’s comic classic Three Men in a Boat (To say nothing of the Dog!) is unsinkable. One of the most widely read and beloved works of British fiction it has never fallen out of print since it first came out in 1889, but rather has been translated into many languages and even turned into a teleplay by Tom Stoppard.

The most ordinary circumstances turn hilarious as J., an idler who exhibits a “general disinclination to work of any kind,” and his friends journey up the Thames River. Getting into many scrapes along the way, the friends consider “assaulting a policeman” just to have “a night’s lodging in the station-house,” when they get lost, but ultimately reject the proposition, fearful that he would hit them back without locking them up. The real scene stealer, though, is Montmorency, a small fox terrier who appears to be “born with about four times as much original sin in [him] as other dogs are.”

B) My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell my-family-other-animals-durrell
When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.

C) Thank You, Jeeves! by P.G. Wodehousethank-you-jeeves-wodehouse
Thank You, Jeeves is the first novel to feature the incomparable valet Jeeves and his hapless charge Bertie Wooster – and you’ve hardly started to turn the pages when he resigns over Bertie’s dedicated but somewhat untuneful playing of the banjo. In high dudgeon, Bertie disappears to the country as a guest of his chum Chuffy – only to find his peace shattered by the arrival of his ex-fiancée Pauline Stoker, her formidable father and the eminent loony-doctor Sir Roderick Glossop. When Chuffy falls in love with Pauline and Bertie seems to be caught in flagrante, a situation boils up which only Jeeves (whether employed or not) can simmer down…

Our poll is only open until Wednesday, March 18 so vote soon! We’ll announce the winning book shortly after that date.

Thanks for your help!

Books Britons Lie About Having Read

Thursday, March 5th, 2009
orwell-1984

Collectible Nineteen Eighty-Four by Orwell - A Copy You Might Want to Keep on the Shelf Without Reading

In a UK survey of 1,342 on the World Book Day website , 65% of respondents admitted to saying they had read a book that they hadn’t.

The number one book they lied about was George Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four (42% said they lied about having read it). Other top false reads include:

War and Peace by Tolstoy (31%)

Ulysses by James Joyce (25%)

The Bible (24%)

Other interesting tidbits that came out of the survey are:

48% of those surveyed admitted to reading a book purchased as a gift for someone else before giving it to the recipient.

61% said that they really enjoyed JK Rowling as an author and 32%, John Grisham.

14% confessed to writing in a library book. (GASP!)

A horrifying 62% admitted to dog-earing pages to save their place as opposed to using some form of bookmark!

Looking for your soul mate? Be careful with what you read.

Thursday, March 5th, 2009

heart-booksAlmost one in five people would read a book while waiting for a date, a UK survey for the National Year of Reading  has revealed.

But what do you read to give the right impression if  want to look smart  with a sexy twist? Male readers gave rather sophisticated responses citing books such as Voltaire’s Candide, or Zorba the Greek and authors including Dickens, Orwell, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Nabokov.

Jane Austen, despite themes that include terrifying subjects such as marriage, was considered to be okay as well.

Women approved of current affairs like Barack Obama’s books along with biographies.

Men spurned women seen reading “trashy romance” novels while women said “airport novels” featuring spies and CIA agents were tabboo.

My advice…don’t be seen reading a book until you’re comfortable enough with the person to read what you want.  :)

Read a full article on this topic on The Guardian.

Win a Wii, last chance

Thursday, July 24th, 2008

Our contest to win a free Nintendo Wii ends in one week, remember all you have to do is fill our student textbook survey. Its about 10 questions long and should take about five minutes. So head over to our textbooks page and take the survey!