What Is Your Favorite Book? [Response Appreciated]
At the end of 2008, I made the following resolution:
[1] I will read one at least one 'classic' book per month, classic being defined as "most everybody has heard of it, and few have read it."
[2] I will read/re-read one play by Shakespeare each month.
[3] I will read more poetry, possibly out loud.
The poetry never really got going, but for the most part I've stuck pretty close to [1] and [2]. The quantity of the books hasn't been as high as I'd like (Shakespeare is more like one per quarter than one per month), but in general this resolution has broadly diversified my reading habits. I used to be a solid "fantasy, scifi, non-fiction history and not much else" kind of guy, and now my reading list has all sorts of stuff on it that would never have appeared five years ago. This is a good thing.
Then today I read the slow books manifesto on The Atlantic. It paraphrases Michael Pollan and says "Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics." Look, I was a trendsetter :-)
In all seriousness, the second paragraph rings true with me:
But why so much emphasis on what goes into our mouths, and so little on what goes into our minds? What about having fun while exerting greater control over what goes into your brain? Why hasn't a hip alliance emerged that's concerned about what happens to our intellectual health, our country, and, yes, our happiness when we consume empty-calorie entertainment? The Slow Food manifesto lauds "quieter pleasures" as a means of opposing "the universal folly of Fast Life"-yet there's little that seems more foolish, loudly unpleasant, and universal than the screens that blare in every corner of America (at the airport, at the gym, in the elevator, in our hands). "Fast" entertainment, consumed mindlessly as we slump on the couch or do our morning commute, pickles our brains-and our souls.
This seems very true to me, and yet for the last several years my reading count has been going down. There are some good reasons for this, but part of it is that it's a lot more effort to find a book at the library than to fire up the web browser and read dozens of blog articles.
I'm going to need your help to mitigate this. Therefore, please leave a comment and tell me the title and author of your favorite book of all time. You can tell me why, if you like. It can be fiction or non-fiction. For extra fun, add in how old you were when you first read it. If I haven't read it, I'll probably add it to my reading list unless it falls into a genre I know I'll hate (e.g., romance novels. Sorry Mom). Right now I'm 250 pages into The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which I'm pretty sure theferrett said was one of his all time favorites. Your favorite book can be next.
Let me lead off. My favorite book is Dune, which I've read 75+ times, the first of which was in the fifth or sixth grade. When I was in junior high I used to keep a copy next to my computer and I'd read a chapter every time I rebooted the computer. I love Dune so much that I've purposefully never seen any of the screen adaptations so that my mental images don't get overwritten. I like the characters, especially Gurney Halleck and Dr. Kynes. I find Arrakis to be compellingly depicted. The whole thing just works for me.
So how about you?
[1] I will read one at least one 'classic' book per month, classic being defined as "most everybody has heard of it, and few have read it."
[2] I will read/re-read one play by Shakespeare each month.
[3] I will read more poetry, possibly out loud.
The poetry never really got going, but for the most part I've stuck pretty close to [1] and [2]. The quantity of the books hasn't been as high as I'd like (Shakespeare is more like one per quarter than one per month), but in general this resolution has broadly diversified my reading habits. I used to be a solid "fantasy, scifi, non-fiction history and not much else" kind of guy, and now my reading list has all sorts of stuff on it that would never have appeared five years ago. This is a good thing.
Then today I read the slow books manifesto on The Atlantic. It paraphrases Michael Pollan and says "Read books. As often as you can. Mostly classics." Look, I was a trendsetter :-)
In all seriousness, the second paragraph rings true with me:
But why so much emphasis on what goes into our mouths, and so little on what goes into our minds? What about having fun while exerting greater control over what goes into your brain? Why hasn't a hip alliance emerged that's concerned about what happens to our intellectual health, our country, and, yes, our happiness when we consume empty-calorie entertainment? The Slow Food manifesto lauds "quieter pleasures" as a means of opposing "the universal folly of Fast Life"-yet there's little that seems more foolish, loudly unpleasant, and universal than the screens that blare in every corner of America (at the airport, at the gym, in the elevator, in our hands). "Fast" entertainment, consumed mindlessly as we slump on the couch or do our morning commute, pickles our brains-and our souls.
This seems very true to me, and yet for the last several years my reading count has been going down. There are some good reasons for this, but part of it is that it's a lot more effort to find a book at the library than to fire up the web browser and read dozens of blog articles.
I'm going to need your help to mitigate this. Therefore, please leave a comment and tell me the title and author of your favorite book of all time. You can tell me why, if you like. It can be fiction or non-fiction. For extra fun, add in how old you were when you first read it. If I haven't read it, I'll probably add it to my reading list unless it falls into a genre I know I'll hate (e.g., romance novels. Sorry Mom). Right now I'm 250 pages into The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, which I'm pretty sure theferrett said was one of his all time favorites. Your favorite book can be next.
Let me lead off. My favorite book is Dune, which I've read 75+ times, the first of which was in the fifth or sixth grade. When I was in junior high I used to keep a copy next to my computer and I'd read a chapter every time I rebooted the computer. I love Dune so much that I've purposefully never seen any of the screen adaptations so that my mental images don't get overwritten. I like the characters, especially Gurney Halleck and Dr. Kynes. I find Arrakis to be compellingly depicted. The whole thing just works for me.
So how about you?