I’m not at all surprised.

A survey for World Book Day today shows that twenty percent of people believe [Jane Austen's] Pride and Prejudice to be the number one book in our affections, ahead of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which won seventeen percent of the vote, and Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, with fourteen percent.

The online vote, in which more than 2,000 people took part, underlines the public’s ongoing love affair with all things Austen. Three years ago, Pride and Prejudice was only narrowly beaten by The Lord of the Rings in the BBC’s Big Read, while two adaptations—the 1995 TV series starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle and the 2005 film with Keira Knightley—enjoyed high viewing figures. Austen fever continues this month with the release of the biopic Becoming Jane, with Anne Hathaway.

Have you seen the trailer for Becoming Jane? I’m not too thrilled either, but no matter—I’d still like to see it.

Moving on:

The rest of the poll contains few surprises—with the Harry Potter books, the Bible, [George Orwell's] 1984 and [Charles Dickens's] Great Expectations also featuring. However, the separate lists for men and women do reveal some differences between the sexes—The Lord of the Rings tops the men’s list, followed by books by male authors on what could be seen as “masculine” themes—[Fyodor Dostoyevsky's] Crime and Punishment (fifth), [Joseph Heller's] Catch-22 (seventh), and [John Steinbeck's] The Grapes of Wrath (ninth). The women’s list has Jane Eyre in second place; with [Louisa May Alcott's] Little Women (seventh), [Daphne du Maurier's] Rebecca (eighth) and [Thomas Hardy's] Tess of the d’Urbervilles (ninth).

Happy World Book Day, everyone. You know what to do.