Today, A asked me what my top 5 favorite books are, and it turned out to be a really difficult question to answer. I immediately listed the no-brainers, Les Miserables and Middlemarch, but it took deep contemplation throughout the rest of the day to come up with the others. Now I can say with certainty that my top 3 are definitely:
1) Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
2) Middlemarch by George Eliot
3) In Memoriam A.H.H. by Tennyson
By the way, this list excludes The Bible, as well as obvious favorites from my "youth" like Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, Calvin and Hobbes etc. which are of course ingenious, but belong to a different category.
I think book-lovers can attest to this--each person's criteria for what makes an All-Time-Favorite Book is a little different. For me, above all else, my morals have to be in line with what the author is trying to convey. It helps a LOT if the characters and writing style are likable, too. Then, there's the initial reaction a book has on me, plus the long-term reaction. Les Mis and Middlemarch are hefty novels, 800+ pages and not what most would call a fast read. Both teach invaluable lessons about the humanity, although in very different ways, and both have a large number of main characters, most of whom I find extremely lovable and admirable. Hugo is French, so I can't say much about his writing style, but I love Eliot's voice and the way she unravels her stories. In Memoriam is a set of poems, which is weird, because I usually don't have the attention span or depth of mind to really appreciate or even understand most poetry. But Tennyson's requiem for his best friend is just unbelievable, and the content totally overshadows the format for me. Family and close friends will back me up when I say that after reading each of these three, I became obsessed and talked about them nonstop for a long long...LONG time. After Tennyson, I marched around the house reciting the poems to whoever would listen. I also gave the book to three different people as birthday presents.
So what about 4 and 5? I'm inclined to say-
4) something by Jane Austen
5) something by Shakespeare
It's kind of embarrassing that I can't name a specific work by either one, and it's not like I'm saying all their works are the same...but it's more that I love the authors more than I love any individual work, if that makes sense. I can't choose a particular Shakespeare play (or sonnet), because it's his output collectively that make him so significant and life-changing to me. I do admit that after a while, some of Jane Austen's novels start to blend together in my easily-confused brain. But I love the atmosphere she creates, the way her characters interact, and how incredibly charming she is.
Close runners up include-
Shorter books: Animal Farm, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Of Mice and Men, and Screwtape Letters. They're little gems, but I'm not sure they are comparable to the likes of what I mentioned before.
The classic, disillusioned-wife-cheats-on-husband books: Bovary, Karenina, and Chatterley, which I really enjoy (for some reason) but can't deem true favorites, because I simply hate the protagonist so much.
Intimidating books: Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Amazingly written, but...a little too heavy for me.
And more recent books: 5 People You Meet In Heaven, The Last Lecture, My Sister's Keeper, and pianist Arthur Schnabel's Music and My Life.
