One of the reasons I decided to become a literary agent is that books affect me more than any other artistic medium. I love movies, I love television, I love music… but nothing really moves me like a great book.
So this is a simple but extremely difficult You Tell Me: what is your favorite book of all time?
You have to pick one. No lists, no caveats, no subcategories, just one book: your favorite book of all time, by whatever criteria you choose.
Mine: MOBY DICK, the longest book I’ve ever read three times. I love the expansiveness, the plot, the characters, the way Melville uses the whale to delve into other topics… it has it all.
What’s yours??
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Kasha says
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
It was the first book that destroyed me.
Anonymous says
THE BOOK THIEF by Zusak
Henry Baum says
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Laura Ware says
ONE book?
I agree with everyone who says you are cruel…
It would have to be the Bible if I had to pick one book. It’s the one I refer to the most and to me the most important book out there.
Crankynick says
Young Men in Spats by P.G Wodehouse.
No-one else lifts my mood like Wodehouse, and there is no better stylist in the English language.
Anonymous says
THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET, by Lawrence Durrell…. followed closely by Sartre’s NAUSEA, and Cocteau’s HOLY TERRORS.
Erin says
All the King’s Men
Robert Penn Warren
Niteowl says
“The Colour of Magic” by Terry Pratchett
grahamEID says
THE SEA AND THE SUMMER, by George Turner. Published in 1987 it was one of the first novels tackling the issue of global warming. Set in Melbourne, Australia it tells of people trying to survive in rundown housing towers surrounded by water. Turner tells a ripping yarn about the coruption of the main character and his brother by those who control the dwindling resources. If only George Bush and our fool of a Prime Minister had read it when it was published.
Sean Lindsay says
If I Did It by Orenthal James Simpson.
Haven’t read it, I’m basing my choice on the fact that it exists.
Beth says
Just one?
OK. My choice is not necessarily the one I’ve read the most times (that would be KATHERINE by Anya Seton and GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell and anything by Mary Stewart) but it is my most enduring favorite book, because it never grows old and because I discover new depths every time I read it and because it truly is one of the greatest works of literature in the 20th century and also because it introduced me to a place that lives quite outside of time and creation–
J.R.R. Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
J.P. Martin says
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson.
One day I will find somebody else that loves it as much as I do!