Our remaining Elite Eight competitors for the title Best Christian Book of All Time have been chosen! Our first number one seed has been knocked out of the tournament in a controversial result, pending an appeal to our judges. (OK —it actually wasn’t controversial at all. Just…disappointing…to the members of our selection committee.)
And now, the results.
Fiction & Poetry
The analysts’ choice for the number one overall seed, Dante’s Divine Comedy (1) was defeated 38-25 by C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia (4). This result bothers me a great deal, and my attempts to rally voters to Dante seem to have only sealed his defeat. On Facebook, I was asked to explain why I consider The Divine Comedy to be so much better than The Chronicles of Narnia. Unfortunately, I don’t have time this morning, but I’ll try to write a post later this week about that.
On the other side of this bracket, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (2) overcame Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables (43-24). Rumor has it that Russell Crowe’s singing voice was the deciding factor for most of our voters, even after it was pointed out that the original novel is not a musical.
The regional final for Fiction & Poetry will feature two old friends with very different philosophies of fiction:
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (2) vs. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (4)
Memoirs, Devotionals, & Spirituality
Here’s one where I’d like to cast a vote for both . . . (Tom Grosh)
Tom couldn’t cast a vote for both, though, so Confessions by Augustine (1) defeated The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (4) 44-14. (Tom’s extra vote wouldn’t have made a difference anyway.)
Meanwhile, the Cinderella run of Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love (11) came to an end, as The Imitation of Christ by Thomas á Kempis (2) won 36-18.
The regional final in Memoirs, Devotionals, & Spiritualty:
- Confessions by Augustine (1) vs. The Imitation of Christ by Thomas á Kempis (2)
Vote for your choices on Facebook. We’ll leave the voting open all weekend and announce the Final Four on Monday.
About the author:
The former Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, Micheal lives in Cincinnati with his wife and three children and works as a web manager for a national storage and organization company. He writes about work, vocation, and finding meaning in what you do at No Small Actors.