March 02, 2007	Friday	Safar 12, 1428

LONDON: Jane Austen’s “Pride And Prejudice” topped a poll of Britons’ 100 favourite books released on Thursday indicating that classic novels are still most people’s idea of a good read ahead of modern offerings.

Children’s books adapted into big-budget films also do well — “The Lord of the Rings” by JRR Tolkien is at number two and JK Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series is at four.

But with “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte at number three, her sister Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” at seven and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell at eight, the list is dominated by staples of the school curriculum.

There is also room for the Bible at number six in the list of works “our nation can’t live without”, compiled from an online poll of 2,000 readers for World Book Day on Thursday.

And the complete works of William Shakespeare also chart at number 14.

Recent bestsellers fare less well — Audrey Niffenegger’s “The Time Traveller’s Wife” makes 19th place, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini is at 37 and Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code” charts at number 42.

In the rendering of “Pride and Prejudice”, actor Colin Firth won the hearts of millions of British women with his portrait of Mr Darcy, including a notorious scene in which he emerged from a lake in a wet shirt.—AFP