Q: What’s your favorite book?
A: I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that it suggests there can be a singular answer
Q (amended): What’s your favorite book(s)?
Long A: Ahhh, now that’s more like it! See what magic can occur with the addition of two parentheses and an ‘s’?
There are many, many books that have inspired me throughout the years. I took this assignment as an opportunity to reminisce about my experiences with the stories I’ve read throughout my lifetime that have shaped my current tastes and proclivities in fiction, as well as my own style of writing. The exercise was a fun trip down memory lane, and it was surprisingly enlightening for me, as well.
I will skip over some of the required reading all children that love books will have read. Things like Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, or C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, or Madeleine L’Engel’s A Wrinkle in Time. I read them. Of course I read them. And they inspired me and affected me like they did millions of other readers. But that also means that waxing rhapsodic about these books would be an exercise in repetition that I’m loathe to pursue.
So, what are some stories that not everyone has read, that still profoundly affected me throughout my life?