Last Wednesday, in the car on the way to Thanksgiving, Chad was
telling me about his
blog post on different kinds of "'favorite' book lists." I had
a rotten headache and, without realizing it, was well on my way to
an excellent case of car-sickness, so I was only listening with half
my brain. Across the other half, book titles quietly floated
past. When I noticed this, I realized that my backbrain had come up
with its own definition of "favorite" and was tossing up
titles.
So, two things resulted from this. One, of course, was a list of
book titles. The other was a question: when confronted with the
question, "What are your favorite books?", is there any definition
of "favorite" that comes first to your mind? Or is it solely
dependent on the context?
I'm putting my definition and list behind the cut tag, to avoid
prejudicing any instinctive reactions on readers' parts.
My backbrain's definition of "favorite": books that inspire a
wordless passion, that's something like a feeling of completion or
satisfaction (somewhere around my sternum, I think), but is
incredibly hard to describe fully or accurately. (Often I can
verbalize what's good about the books; it's my reaction that's
hard.) It's not co-extensive with quality or favorite authors;
notice that there's no Bujold here. It's not a desert island list;
notice that there's no The Lord of the Rings here,
either (it only gives me that feeling in parts). How do you describe
love? I've never been any good at it.
The list, vaguely in the order they occurred to me that
night:
- Freedom and Necessity, Steven Brust and Emma Bull
(booklog)
- The Last Hot Time, John M. Ford (booklog)
- When the King Comes Home, Caroline Stevermer (review,
booklog)
- Spindle's End, Robin McKinley (review)
- Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers (booklog)
- The Sarantine Mosaic, Guy Gavriel Kay (reviews of books one and
two)
- Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (booklog)
- The Element of Fire, Martha Wells (booklog entries one
and two)
- The Sandman, Neil Gaiman (booklog)
- Look to Windward, Iain M. Banks
- Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart (mini-review)
- Deep Secret, Diana Wynne Jones (booklog)
- The Innkeeper's Song, Peter Beagle
- Good Omens, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
(booklog quick hits one
and two)
- Last Call, Tim Powers
- The Lady's Not for Burning, Christopher Fry
- Possession, A.S. Byatt
Interestingly, I just went upstairs and perused the bookshelves,
and didn't come up with any additional entries than what I'd come
up with in the car-not what I expected with my memory like a
whatchamacallit.
[ ETA: a breakdown of the list by when-read is over in a comment to
Melymbrosia's entry. ]
(
Cross-posted to rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan
because I said I would.)