#Microblog Monday 355: What Your Favourite Book Says About You
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I love this article from Tor.com about how we assume things about each other based on our favourite books. For instance, if I said my favourite books are Handmaid’s Tale, The Magicians, and Piranesi, you are going to assume certain things about me. Whereas if I said my favourite books are by Malcolm Gladwell, Jonah Lehrer, and Jon Ronson… well… you may think something else.
Maybe if I was more into music, it would happen with music. But instead, I connect with people over what we read.
But this is the part I love: “Why ask someone what their favorite book is? Because you want to know something about them, and the answer to that question is revealing. But it’s very easy to be wrong about what it reveals. And this brings me to something even the internet has yet to ruin for me: the pleasure of being wrong.”
So true. But… even knowing that… what are your favourite books?
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8 comments
I love this! I have a hard time with picking a single favorite book, because I have the ones that I’ve loved forever and then new ones, but I think maybe if it’s a book I’ve read over and over (or plan to), it’s “favorite.” The two that are my chestnuts are The Handmaid’s Tale and Beloved by Toni Morrison. I would add The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune to three classic list, because it’s just so good. Also it’s published by Tor! This should be one of those falling-in-love questions.
I read a TON, and I could never pick one favorite book. But when people ask me this question, I generally respond with either To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou because both books are classics and have stuck with me for many years after reading them. (And they also sound better than naming another of my favorites, a Dean Koontz book featuring a golden retriever as one of the main characters — ha!)
I always feel like being asked to name my favourite book is like asking someone to choose their favourite child, lol. I much prefer the other questions the author asks: What was your favorite book last month? (Since we’re still in August, I will take “last month” to mean July, and that would be “Hungry” by Grace Dent.) What’s your favorite book this very second? (I just finished re-reading “Emily of New Moon” and am feeling a huge fondness for all things L.M. Montgomery, and so I would probably name what’s (probably) my favourite of hers, “The Blue Castle.”) What was your favorite book when you were 16? (I don’t remember exactly what I was reading then, but probably something by D.E. Stevenson — and I’m still reading her today — or Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels or Jean Plaidy.)
Also, just a plain old “what are you reading right now?” or “read any good books lately?” will also do just fine, lol.
Like the others, I can never choose a favourite book. But Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy, and Ursula Hegi’s Stones from the River usually come to mind before much else. I adore Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird (as mentioned above by Sharon), and My Name was Judas by CK Stead, and so soooo many others. I can’t choose even four or five, because summed up they don’t tell me who I am, let alone you! lol
I love that phrase–the pleasure of being wrong. I can’t name a favorite book. I have a LIST of favorite books for EACH genre. LOL.
Interesting! I don’t think I have a favorite book so what does that say about me?! When I was a kid I loved Wilma, the autobiography about Wilma Rudolph the track star and I would say that did show a lot about me. I also loved A Tale of Two Cities and The Great Gatsby and those probably do as well. But mostly, (especially as a writer), I think I just love and appreciate great writing.
Uh, I think Sharon and I are the same person, almost. To Kill A Mockingbird is what I usually answer as a favorite book, and I love that Dean Koontz novel which I think is Watchers. Although my other favorite would be Macbeth, since I’ve never read Maya Angelou. (I am a very shallow reader most of the time.)
I don’t have a favorite book anymore.
I used to… but now, I am afraid books I loved as a teenager and 20-something may not work for me anymore.
There are books that made a huge impact on me, at different stages of my life. But that’s not exactly the same as favorite books, right?
Also, I’ve read books that were amazing by authors that were not so great human beings, and then I suffer from a cognitive dissonance because how can someone who seems so unpleasant write so beautifully? (Leo Tolstoy, I am looking at you. Also Dostoyevskiy. Also Gogol).
I think the books we read shape the people we become. There is a Russian song that goes something along the lines of “If you grow up to be a good human being, it means you’ve read the right sorts of books as a child”.
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A favorite from my childhood (Karlson on the Roof by Astrid Lindgren) is now a favorite with my husband and kids and that makes me ridiculously happy.