Wizard! JK is Britain’s most popular author
FOUR children, a magical world frozen in perpetual winter, an evil sorceress... it’s a tale that has filled us with (Turkish) delight for decades.
And it seems we still love getting lost in the icy wastes of Narnia – as a poll reveals children’s fantasy novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is Britain’s most popular book.
But it seems Harry Potter is the overall favourite, with six books about the boy wizard in the top ten – and the seventh coming in at number 11.
The most popular of his adventures was Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was third on 29 per cent.
The author of the series – Edinburghbased JK Rowling – was voted our top writer, on 26 per cent.
Master of horror fiction Stephen King was picked by 24 per cent of those questioned, while Charles Dickens was chosen by 18 per cent.
But CS Lewis’s classic story of siblings who accidentally discover a land in the grip of the evil White Witch tops a list of 50 most-read books, with 33 per cent of adults enjoying the tale. The novel, first published in 1950, is closely followed by Dan Brown’s mystery thriller The Da Vinci Code on 30 per cent.
The results emerged in a survey of 2,000 adults by OnePoll for eBay UK, which also found that British bookworms will immerse themselves in 696 books over a lifetime.
The poll suggests there is a clear divide between the sexes. Women’s favourites are generally more ‘modern’ classics, including Girl on the Train (34 per cent), Bridget Jones’s Diary (30 per cent), Fifty Shades of Grey (28 per cent) and Gone Girl (26 per cent).
But men’s top reads were older titles such as Nineteen Eighty-Four (28 per cent), Treasure Island (28 per cent) and Lord of the Flies (23 per cent).
Rob Johnson of Wordery, eBay UK’s online bookstore, said: ‘It is really heartwarming to see reading is still a hobby Brits love to take part in, especially in the days of box sets and instant viewing.’