JUST ONE BOOK!

I was asked on Facebook, “If you had to pick one favorite book and one favorite author, who would it be?” This question is almost unanswerable.

There are two many fields to cover. My favorite mystery? My favorite urban fantasy? My favorite romance? My favorite non-fiction?
“Guilty Pleasures,” Laurell K. Hamilton
“Son of the Morning,” Linda Howard
“Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer)

I wobbled around, scouring my memory. So many great books! “Crocodile on the Sandbank,” “Bitten,” “The Killing Floor,” “Nine Coaches Waiting,” “The Rook,” “The Fourth Wall,” “Ready Player One,” and on and on and on. Not all of these books were completely flawless and matchless writing: but they all said something to me that grabbed my interest, taught me something about expressing myself, fired my imagination. I learned something important about writing from these books.

I thought of all the entertaining novels written by friends of mine, but that’s too perilous a minefield to cross. I am blessed with friends in the writing community, and I gobble up all their work. I’d be sure to leave a name out if I tried that.

It’s safest to fall back on a dead writer from the distant past. So I usually end up telling the inquirer my favorite is “Pride and Prejudice.” I alternate that with “Jane Eyre.” I read these great novels early, and I reread them often. I see they have a lot in common: they’re both about assertive women in ages that didn’t necessarily think assertiveness was a good thing. Both heroines are unwilling to accept second best. Both value family. Both receive the revelation of a scandal: Mr. Darcy tells Elizabeth Bennett that Wickham almost abducted his sister, and of course, Mr. Rochester has something weird hidden in the attic. And both Elizabeth and Jane have an independent spirit, though they express it in different ways. Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen were both daughters of clergymen.

I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure I love a lot of books. And being asked to pick just one is torture!

Charlaine Harris

Comments

[Kristopher]

Mine would certainly change by the day (if not by the hour). But I agree, Jane Eyre is often at the top. And if I was forced to choose a contemporary book it would probably be The Secret History by Donna Tartt (I've never met her and probably never will, so that seems a safe choice over my friend's books)

[Charlaine Harris]

That's a great book, no doubt, but not one that spoke to my heart.

I see that I substituted "two" for "too" above, and somehow a line got lost. In the second paragraph, the sentence should be:

By the way, here's what I would pick:
"The Monkey's Raincoat," Robert Crais
“Guilty Pleasures,” Laurell K. Hamilton
“Son of the Morning,” Linda Howard
“Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer)

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Impossible. Impossible. I mean--impossible.

But: I would choose Winter's Tale, by Mark Helprin.

But you're making me choose.

Or Edith Wharton's Custom of the Country.

But I am stopping. Impossible. (But fun to consider) xoxo

[Mark]

I don't know that I could narrow it down to top 50. There are just too many books I've enjoyed.

[Donna Andrews]

I don't have "A" favorite anything. And when it comes to books, I have shelves full of favorites.

And if anyone really tries to pin me down, I always try to stick to dead authors.

[Charlaine Harris]

I know! There are just too many. And they are favorites for such different reasons.

[Gin]

I can narrow it down to one author (who, sadly, is gone before his time), but not one book unless there's ever a Discworld omnibus. With a Pratchett book, there's the bonus that he refers to so many other stories, it would be like having them too!

[Cath Hoffner]

I believe that's a question without an answer. So difficult even with dead authors!

[Joni]

You mentioned Ready Player One -- one of Kate's favorites! You are only the second person I know to put that on the list.