Who would be featured on your list?
by Andy Scheer
Want to grab 15 minutes of buzz? Compile a list of the world’s greatest anythings. If the category hits home with enough people, expect a reaction.
Consider the list of the “world’s greatest storytellers” recently compiled by Raconteur.net and presented in the form of an infographic at http://raconteur.net/infographics/the-worlds-greatest-storyteller.
The British group interviewed 500 people in these categories: authors, educators, entrepreneurs, journalists, and students, as well as people working in finance, health care, marketing, and media. (The infographic includes a bar chart showing the types of storytellers each group favored, whether:
author, musician, poet, politician, painter, presenter, actor/film director, playwright, business person, or screenwriter.)
The study’s top six is skewed decidedly toward recent British storytellers, with two nods to greats of English literature: William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
The other top four “world’s greatest storytellers” (in chronological order):
Roald Dahl
Stephen King
Neil Gaiman
J.K. Rowling
Yes, Jesus made the list, but with fewer votes than Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and David Attenborough.
Disagree? Take your own survey, post your findings, and stand back.
