this is very strange

Over at the Language Log Arnold Zwicky has a post on LibraryThing for linguists, specifically a group called "I Survived the Great Vowel Shift". This is their top ten (mind you, this is just a list of the books owned by the most members, not a top ten of recommendations or favorites - it's just what people own):

The IStGVS top ten picks (with number of members sharing each book):

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (86)
The Odyssey by Homer (78)
The name of the rose by Umberto Eco (77)
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (72)
The complete works by William Shakespeare (72)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond (69)
The language instinct by Steven Pinker (49)
A course in phonetics by Peter Ladefoged (25)
The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax, and other irreverent essays... by Geoffrey K. Pullum (23)
The World's major languages (23)

Zwicky has some interesting analysis of the list. But what I find interesting is that apparently more people own The Hobbit and The Silmarillion than own The Lord of the Rings itself.

Maybe it's just me, but I find that extremely odd.