I read today that Tolkien was rejected for the Nobel Prize for LOTR because The Lord Of The Rings had 'not in any way measured up to storytelling of the highest quality'.
Read the News Article here
Reading the comments made me think.
LOTR is very popular, probably/possibly launched the fantasy genre, and has held up to the test of time.
Obviously, these three things and an award (such as the Nobel Prize) are not sufficient to judge a book as good or bad.
Readers of good literature (if any definition can be agreed upon in the first place) both enjoy or dislike the LOTR books. It really can't be agreed upon that any of the current Nobel Prize winning authors/books are unanimously good, and the same can be said of the most popular books, books that launched genres, AND books that hold up to the test of time. People will always dislike books and authors that are the top of any of these categories, while others praise them.
This leaves me wondering.... what is a good book and who decides?